enough for today

It's about time for a new turn in the page.  This is where the cheese-eating champion pie maker leaves the docked boat and wrestles the slippery alligator in the bayou.  This is where the slobbering seventh-grader dons a tutu and swan dives into the lake.  Where the patina on the photograph begins to fade, and colors spring forth from black and white.  When the ICU nurse gasps at the children flying gleefully around the room.  A new leaf on the tree of stories.  A sudden blue circle in the sky.  A ten-foot pole crossing to the other side.

That's all I hope for today, for me, for you.

A feasible option

And instead of sailing off as a pirate, or sliding down a rainbow, or walking into a sunset, we went home, sat in the sunroom, watched the sunset, and drank our tea like an old married couple, like civilized human beings.

Room to Write

I have a room in which to write.  It is small and narrow and full of westward-facing windows.  I love it already.  So far, no writing has occurred.  Mainly the stars and sky and sun and water and I have been staring at one another in and out of time.  Here is my sabbath.  Here is where I do my work of rest.  With the seagulls, train whistles, and wind. 

In my room, I would like a small tall table, with two chairs, and a glider.  I have a tea pot, with two matching cups and saucers.  In the winter, I will move my oil heater into the room.  I will wear jackets and scarves and hats.  I will curl up with comforters and be comforted.  I will sit as close as I can get to the outside and hope the windows don't freeze over.  I will sleep out there in the summer.  I will.  My niece and nephew will play there.  My parents will sleep on a queen size blow up mattress that we will procure when they come to plant my garden in the spring. 

I will be very much in "the love that dances at the heart of things".  So much can this one room contain, receive, release.

Mythology and Myth-makers

My poet-friend Isaac was telling me the other day that back in school, folks would ask him what his mythology was--what inspired him, from where he drew his imagery and narratives.  Being honest, he replied, "Cartoons.  Darkwing Duck.  Tailspin."  I found that profound.  Beautiful, even.  And not just because my sixth grade teacher's brother designed the Darkwing Duckmobile and had a lovely copy of it hanging in the classroom.  No, not just for that reason.

A new friend, Caleb, talked about his sources for inspiration in writing fairy tales-- Tolkein, Lewis, MacDonald and the rest.  He expressed his jealous for their pool of sources, their mythology, which was in turn drawn from a more ancient and wide well.

My hero Malcolm loves Dante, who loved Virgil.  Dante was loved by George MacDonald, who was loved by C.S. Lewis, who all were in turn loved by Malcolm again.  Take a listen. I am longing to soak in the Divine Comedy, to be scalded and frozen by its hot springs and glacial streams before reaching baby bear's just right.

I want to throw my net wide, to listen well, to meet my very own living myths, who are also myth-makers.  I think I already have.

I want to write tall tales about the people I have known, and that I may yet know.  Who they are, and who they may yet become.  Amen.

P.S. My beautiful friend Kyle, who himself is the stuff of legends and a legend-maker in his own time, as he was often accused of inflating stories to make them larger than life, expressed it so magically to this effect: An elephant and a grasshopper may see the same event, but tell the tale differently.  Kyle, in his generous humility, saw the grandeur in others and participated in it himself by way of his singularly glowing vision.  George MacDonald alludes to a similar manner of seeing in his fairy tale Cross Purposes*, where the lover's eyes cast the glow of love on the face and path of the beloved in the dark, even while their own pathway remains unseen.  Kyle went around loving others and seeing their faces and paths ahead, as indeed he still must.  I have seen Jesus in that man time and again, and I have been seen.

-----

*  '"Dear Alice!" said Richard, "how pale you look!"
"How can you tell that, Richard, when all is as black as pitch?"
"I can see your face. It gives out light. Now I see your hands. Now I can see your feet. Yes, I can see every spot where you are going to--No, don't put your foot there. There is an ugly toad just there."

'The fact was, that the moment he began to love Alice, his eyes began to send forth light. What he thought came from Alice's face, really came from his eyes. All about her and her path he could see, and every minute saw better; but to his own path he was blind. He could not see his hand when he held it straight before his face, so dark was it. But he could see Alice, and that was better than seeing the way--ever so much.

'At length Alice too began to see a face dawning through the darkness. It was Richard's face; but it was far handsomer than when she saw it last. Her eyes had begun to give light too. And she said to herself--"Can it be that I love the poor widow's son?--I suppose that must be it," she answered herself, with a smile; for she was not disgusted with herself at all. Richard saw the smile, and was glad. Her paleness had gone, and a sweet rosiness had taken its place. And now she saw Richard's path as he saw hers, and between the two sights they got on well.'

The Bridge of Sighs

 Try these sighs on for size:

Aahhhh...
sighs of relief
sighs of longing
sighs of disappointment
sighs of weariness
sighs of joy (accompanied by smile)
sighs of contentment
sighs of hope

Sighs are my native language.  I'm sure I sighed before I said my first word.  And if the last death rattle breath comes out right, it will be a sigh.  Book ends, the embracing parenthesis.

The Music(al) G-nome.

The Music Genome Project. 
If you've ever listened to Pandora, you know what I am talking about.
It's the magic engine that sorts and supplies us with song.
Have you ever stopped to exactly who or what is behind it?

What mysteries are veiled in those few words? 
Is it G as in Gangster? 
Nome as in Alaska? 
Is this a corruption of "gnome"? 
Could we, in fact, be interacting with a Mythical Species? 
Or simply A Literal Phonetic Speaker?
Are gnomes generally known to be patrons of the arts?
What sets this particular musical gnome from the tundra/projects apart?
And is that a rhetorical question?

The world may never know... 
More highly scientific/speculative research is obviously required in this very important field.

Wine in jars

With eager lips
earthen vessels
stand open
to receive--
water turned wine

our brother's blood
cries from the earth--
our own stained clay

blessed communion
of the saints share
blood across time--
and space

we are
made of earth

creation
holding
creator

creator-holding-creation

Our road trip to California

Jason, Tessa, Malcolm and I took a road trip, spontaneously, last week's night.  Over dinner at the Owl 'N Thistle, someone said, "How far is California?  Could we go there tonight?"  After a day, nay, a week of adventuring, rock-scrambling, poetry, and imagining, this idea didn't strike us as far-fetched at all.  So we struck out on the road in Tessa's sweet ride around 10:30pm that very night.

Malcolm and Jason missed their flights over the pond. I quit my office job by default, and Tessa transferred to each successive Starbucks as we crawled down the coast.  Malcolm didn't stay long, due to his having a family, but he was an enthusiastic participant in his own time, supplying all the poetry and pipe smoke necessary for a heavily atmospheric road trip.  Jason was our road warrior, boldly forging ahead in true rockstar fashion, him being well-acclimated to life on tour.  He fine-tuned our chariot whenever it even so much as hiccupped, and we were mighty relieved to have a mechanic on hand at all times.  Malcolm and Jason busked on the streets to earn our daily bread and evening beer, engaging all the listeners in a rock and roll trip down memory lane.  Tess and I often acted as back-up singers and, when in the proper spirit, dancers and/or street sweepers.  After Malcolm took off, Jason played Spanish guitar and Tessa danced flamenco, while I clapped and stomped vigorously, passing the hat and marking time.  I acted as our group's thermometer for hunger, cold and fatigue, as I was the first to reach each.  Conversely, accustomed as I was to foregoing showers in times of need, I felt completely comfortable in my own skin long past the others' point of sensory endurance.

Tess's official jaunt lasted 6 months, with continual relapses of adventure for the rest of her life.  Jason returned to his life of Eurasian travel, and in the coming years we all joined him on tour when we could.  My favorite tag-along has remained the annual guitar festival in India.  Our road trip stories became the stuff of legend, and were recounted on stages across the world.  On hiatus from travel, we often met up with Malcolm in the Temple of Peace, where we sank into the smoky reverie of rhymed verse, while watching The Green Man, a forest tree of mythic proportions, grow. The Green Man's girth increased every year in a series of concentric rings.  When that tree died, struck by lightning and ascending to heaven in flame, we chopped down what was left of it, made a wardrobe out if it, and counted all the rings buried in the ground.   The stump itself continued to add rings every year, so it grew large enough for us all to sit on and have a picnic.  While we sat, a shoot sprang up from the center, covering our shoulders with its shade.  We remained friends for generations, and visited each others' graves in the proper seasons, while reciting poetry and high-fiving each other in celebration of fully lived life.