Every Skinny Tree

23 de Octubre 2009

dangerous, like communion

Pr. Hoffman is always on about the life-giving choice. He isn't talking about abortion or euthanasia. He is talking about choosing kind words, safe speed limits, exegetical method, salad, controlling affect, vacation plans, organic strawberries.

I can follow him, mostly.

I get a little stuck on Eucharist because Holy Communion happens every Sunday and we don't get a choice about that--even if or when it seems like we might. What is more, communion happens every moment, every hour, every day every week for us.
So every week we have the choice about whether or not to drag ourselves up to the altar.

It is just one more example of the way the life-giving choice happens to you, you turn around and feel like you never really made it, it made you.

so I'm working it out, hoping the poems will explain it to me:

I love you so much
The blood will always be there
soaking in around and through us, the everyday every day, and sometimes in the sweaty brow of your midnight body twisted in bedsheets,
like in a dream:; :; :;
one thought connects to another without making any real sense, but this is not a dream;
It is a restful choice, for body and blood
like a ribbon unfurling,
from some one body to another,
chalice to lips and then out again, when we whisper the words we know will cost
us, everything:
--I love you so much--
in honesty and hope
this is only a wasted moment,
a fantasy, or harmful
if we disconnect from all that we have learned--:
about choices.
Sometimes we make a choice.
Sometimes a choice makes us
Because it is
who we are, who we want to be, who we were made to be,
called to be: among the living.
if you ever doubt heaven exists let it be
because I am not there,
I am here with you
always.

so here, watch this sad little video for someday you will be loved. it may make your stomach hurt.

I once knew a girl
In the years of my youth
With eyes like the summer
All beauty and truth
In the morning I fled
Left a note and it read
Someday you will be loved.

I cannot pretend that I felt any regret
Cause each broken heart will eventually mend
As the blood runs red down the needle and thread
Someday you will be loved

You'll be loved you'll be loved
Like you never have known
The memories of me
Will seem more like bad dreams
Just a series of blurs
Like I never occurred
Someday you will be loved

You may feel alone when you're falling asleep
And everytime tears roll down your cheeks
But I know your heart belongs to someone you've yet to meet
Someday you will be loved

You'll be loved you'll be loved
Like you never have known
The memories of me
Will seem more like bad dreams
Just a series of blurs
Like I never occurred
Someday you will be loved

Posted by crymytinyflood at 10:27 AM | Comments (0)

10 de Agosto 2009

the feeling schedule

a friend recently began to adhere to a strict running schedule and then asked me to make up a feeling schedule along those lines.

so here it is:

Today

Wake up
Stare at the ceiling
Refuse to get out of bed
Think of the things that make you feel
overwhelmed, angry, hateful, sad, depressive
count to ten, slowly
Roll over, yes you have to.
Think of all that you don't have and feel pretty shitty, count to ten, or maybe twenty
But you can't stay there
There are birds learning to fly just outside

Push away the mattress, slide out from between a blanket or sheet, stand up as tall as
you can
Lift your head, yes you have to.
Think of the people that make you feel
Loved, angry, loved, angry, loved...

Eat breakfast, watch television, pull on some clothes, socks, a hat maybe, yes you have to
Feel the soft clothes against you
Don't worry about what it smells like, looks like or
the way they mock the shape of you and the shape the day will take.

The day is hot and wet, give in to the sweat and feel the knot in your stomach, or throat
Think of all that grows here: trees, boys, and clouds that refuse to gather and
Tell yourself that is good

And when the anxiety comes
When the hatred and fear swell like a tsunami
When the nausea and sickness threaten to engulf you

Try them on,
think of wind and rainstorms inside your body,
thunder and lightening in your veins
Think of boys racing down the slight sloped hill on skateboards
girls hoping you will call and lots of lost love
Try to think of mothers screaming in the throes of birthing pains and
Little boys with fat tears falling on scraped knees
Think of bandaids generous enough to cover new wounds
And scars covering old wounds
&
when you are alone again,
Hiding in a public bathroom stall, against the wall holding you vertical
Or in the car, put on your seat belt and let it press into your chest
Like the hand of God pressing against your lungs
so all you can do is
Stay right there
Slump down, against a wall or window and
put your hand On your head,
cover your face and cry. Let the sadness and frustration and grief
shake your shoulders, shake itself out.

The hot tears are sticky and ooze out and you have to let them out
Let them out, spit them off your lips, blow them out your nose,
Push them out, not in
Wipe them on your shirtsleeve like snail trails,
So you can see the tracks of slow moving sadness

Breathe in and out
Breathe in and out like a dog panting in the heat of your emotions
Open your mouth and lungs
and the ache will either get worse
or dissipate

If it gets worse, stay a little (one) longer, wipe away a few more tears

If it goes away, and trust me, that ache will go away eventually,
If you respect it,
Then you can go on.
&
At the end of the day when you crawl back into the bed
Just lie still
Scrunch up your nose at the stench of wrongdoing all around you
Clench your jaw and steel yourself against the nightmare you are living.
Think back on the day, the downward spiral you are riding
Jokes and drunks and all
And imagine what you would tell the one person you want to talk to most

That this is bad
this is not good
That you are so lonely and you don't know what you are doing here and
Why did your mother fail and your father get you into this mess?

Imagine the face of a friend, tearing up, eye lashes sticking together and nose running
For you
All for you, over you, all around you

Wrap the blankets around you tight and think of the warm bodies of close friends
Next to you
On a porch, on a bench, on a beach, on the hood of a car, on a diner booth bench,
on a bar stool, on a couch,
on a hopeful day
&
think of how hard it is
to loose your innocence over again, just when you thought
you didn't have any more innocence left to lose

think of a carpenters' roof beams raised high above your head and let your soul lay across

think of the ancient Egyptian pylons and let self and body stand tall between them

think of Grecian columns, slant 6 engines, old growth redwoods, and tug boats
because you are stronger now and you are taking your place among them
whenever you feel this way
whenever you feel
whenever
you feel
this way
everyday.

Posted by crymytinyflood at 4:46 PM | Comments (2)

25 de Mayo 2009

some grown up things

and some not grown up things

i've been up to:

the Avett Brothers were in Portland and it seemed to me that there wasn't really any way I didn't want to go. I was very nervous about not sleeping, about not eating, not smoking, not knowing what to say, not driving myself. but I was more nervous about not seeing the Avetts so I went.

and it was somewhat miraculous actually. I was a little sickly but I think between oil of oregano, a sudafed and a pbr i was cured like a good ham and the healing process finished off about midnight by Seth singing about love and hate and being so grateful just to be in the room with all of us sweating and singing and hopping on each other.

and then we rented a car, a giant dodge and I drove myself away, past shasta daisies and sweet brush, the same yellow kind I used to lean half my body out of the GMC to sniff on the way to camp around this time all those years ago. It was an adventure and we laughed pretty hard and sang loud and came home happier than when we left it.

in other news of the same vein...
wednesday the question was posed like this: "how do you do this in your ministry...
and i don't even remember the "this". but I answered the question and then, because it has come up twice in two different classes, I was asked to write it down and decided to oblige.
so here you go:
I teach the first communion class and there are those who question why I teach it to little ones, only three years old. parents and grandparents say those little ones don't understand what communion is about to which the pastoral staff answers that we don't really understand it all either, we know we don't because we are always discovering new things about it every week...
so I invite anyone and everyone to first communion class as soon as they begin to realize they have been excluded from the table over which we proclaim, "...for you." every week. but this little story I'm about to tell you, and hundreds of others like it, these stories are the real reason I am willing to teach tinies about holy communion and eucharist.

one day a baby doll came to first communion class. that baby doll's owner asked if the baby doll could take communion and what else could I say but, "has she been baptized?"

there was a tiny moment for grieving and hoping, simultaneously as the seven three year olds sat quietly munching popcorn, wondering what to do about a baby doll that hasn't been baptized. so we tucked our popcorn napkins into paper cups, recycled the whole lot and marched in true baptismal procession style down to the baptismal font.

they climbed up onto the pews all around the bowl, levering carefully to get a better view and I took that tiny baby, the size of a premature hope born about a month too soon, held her limp body gently over the waters and cupped in my hand just enough holy water to drench her little bald head thrice, in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, and in the name of the Holy Spirit. and we all breathed again, not realizing we had held our breath. She was such a good baby, she didn't even wince at the cold of the April weather outside, empty inside Sanctuary temperature of the holy water.

then we took her, all of us bumbling our way toward the altar and sat around it on red carpet and we all cupped our hands and looked into the little boats we had made palm edge to palm edge, the same boats that hold water, that hold wine, that hold babies hovering over the waters of covenant and creation. the same hands that hit and scold. the very same hands that pat heads and grab at candy, that hold too tight and sweat and slip and wave hello sometimes but goodbye most of the time.

and the newly baptized baby must have been sleeping because she didn't make a peep where she lay, beside the lap of her little mama. but that little mama looked at me and asked me, "now? can she have communion now?" and i thought of the way cookie monster eats cookies, so that unless you are really paying attention you just see cookies flying and you don't realize that he is more of a real person, a genuine, honest friend than most humans, and yet, he doesn't actually swallow those cookies...

and i asked her, "can she put her hands together and show me she is ready, all by herself, the way you can?"
sadly but not too sadly, the answer was a small and wondrous, no, not yet.

and I, from my perspective, peering out from deep inside the infinite abyss of adulthood, thought of the phrase, ready as I'll ever be... and the planet may have stopped turning for a moment because all I knew for sure was my heart spinning out of control.

and i thought of days when there were not yets about baby dolls and flower buds and i thought of the days before baby fat was lost and cheeks and eyes were wide and hopeful and unafraid of a certain type of reality that allows for small hopes to loom larger than life itself.

and i said, that is how I will know you are ready, when you show me a place to put the bread. and I will see it and then I will look into your eyes and tell you that this is given for you. and you will say, ...well, what will you say?
and they all said, a little too quietly perhaps, because they were still feeling shyly but reverently sure of themselves:

amen.

Posted by crymytinyflood at 10:25 AM | Comments (1)

2 de Mayo 2009

if Dave Chappelle approves

Maybe John Mayer isn't such an embarrassment.
and this is helpful:

Not Myself by John Mayer

Suppose I said
I am on my best behavior
there are times
I lose my worried mind

Would you want me when I'm not myself?
Wait it out while I am someone else?

Suppose I said
Colors change for no good reason
words will go
From poetry to prose

Would you want me when I'm not myself?
Wait it out while I am someone else?

And I, in time, will come around, come around
I always do for you

Suppose I said
You're my saving grace?

My grace
My self
Not myself, my myself and I...
When I'm someone else
When I'm someone else
When I'm someone else
When I'm not myself
Myself
Myself

We went out last night and the waiter accused the birthday boy of attempting to kick an entire family out of the restaurant. he said he felt sick and didn't really want to eat and we all understood.
but we couldn't understand any of it: why would a waiter step in to solve this kind of problem? why would someone assume they were being kicked out of a restaurant by another patron? and then, why would they tattle? why would the waiter even believe them? wtf
and then we were at kareoke and sang to the drunk driving woman who had crashed several cars on caro's street just a few years ago, on the eve of the fourth of july parade (the next day caro pointed her out on her perch, atop a turqoise thunderbird). she is a notorious morgan hill drunk and she was there, in all her long-legged, hunched-back glory and drinking with the best of them and singing and dancing. and i kept thinking that she would be crashing her way up caro's street in just a few hours.
it was one of those nights... a quintessential morgan hill night that leaves you painfully aware that this is a smallish town and we all have to get along together until we grow up and move out... to seattle, and then, even then, we will sometimes return and refresh our memories as to why we had to get the hell out.

and did i mention that i stick out like a sore thumb here, and i always have? my fuzzy hair and lack of fashion sense are only the beginning. the flippant remarks i make, a little too loudly, are going to get me into trouble, i just know it. my friends have to live here, they can talk all the smack they want but i am nervous i will say or do something, open them up or shut them down and then catch the next flight out and what will they do then? call me?

we are finally able to see each other growing up and we are past the initial worries over each other's sex life or lack thereof. but the next step probably involves letting go or holding on and i am afraid to make choices like that... so i drag it out, failing as a friend because i am such a dabbler.

i feel in turn impotent and overinvolved. i was invited here to keep company, enjoy sun and giggle. and i'm trying my darndest to do all those things and it isn't really that hard but there are also tiny shining moments of shock over how we are different and how we are alike, and these moments are storing up like static electricity, and i'm not sure i have rubbed or will rub against this place, the wrong way and we will both ignite.
ironically, i feel that way about friends in seattle too... it isn't just a matter of geography-enforced long-distance relationships.
today my class, the students i know best, graduated from mhgs. i think our lives seperating even circumstantially creates a certain long-distance affair.
but i wasn't there to witness their march across the stage.
i heard it was pretty normal: people said stuff, walked across the stage, got stuff, gave stuff...
but in the end i am reading it all from far away, far-sighted as i am, and i see them all moving on without me and i am not sure how to respond.

so i change.

i have one choice now and that is to become more myself, less of myself as you knew me and it seems to you that i am not myself because i am responding to the differences in you and the way they brush up against the differences in me as we grow our separate ways.

but the truth is, this is more of who i am than i have ever been.
i am more capable of betrayal than ever before, more prone to rupture and wilderness. more compassionate for the lone stars and businessmen, more sympathetic for the trees without their leaves, more inclined to stare at the couple making out on the screen and then draw their faces in the journal i will memorize and surrender. i am willing to let go, but only a little and angrily at that.

it has to be ok, all of it. for your sake, for mine, for the silence we keep on a cold day, for the way you shy away or laugh when i tell you i know you cried for me.
it has to be ok the way you hate to shave your face or respect expectations. i've come around and i keep coming around; i am always around but you are busy, i know, with your life, your studies, your job and paying the bills and i will take responsibility for the ways i fail to want all the minutiae that compose daily life because i know it is what you want

but i won't like it. i'm not built that way. i am just not built to do the daily grind. and you are moving toward it and i am doing all i can to avoid it and yet
i love you.
i need you.
and you love me
you need me
to ask you to stop, to come between your face and the screen, to show up unexpectedly and draw a heart on your post-it notes. and write a period at the end.
because that is all i have now that you have to go to work more and more, have to work hard more and more, to juggle expenses...
that is all i have to give you. think of it as a tip, a supplement to your income:

i come around and i give my heart and it all comes to a full stop after that.

heart.

Posted by crymytinyflood at 4:24 PM | Comments (0)

28 de Abril 2009

how to apologize

trouble--cold play

Oh no, I see,
A spiderweb, it's tangled up with me,
And I lost my head,
The thought of all the stupid things I said,
Oh no what's this?
A spider web, and I'm caught in the middle,
So I turned to run,
The thought of all the stupid things I've done,
I never meant to cause you trouble,
And I never meant to do you wrong,
And I, well if I ever caused you trouble,
O no, I never meant to do you harm.
Oh no I see,
A spider web and it's me in the middle,
So I twist and turn,
Here I am in my little bubble,
Singing, I never meant to cause you trouble,
I never meant to do you wrong,
And I, well if I ever caused you trouble,
Although I never meant to do you harm.
They spun a web for me,
They spun a web for me,
They spun a web for me.

Posted by crymytinyflood at 3:08 PM | Comments (0)

18 de Abril 2009

for the collection of reasons to be nice:

we had a slide show of childhood photos and played this song to it. it seems really important today.

why I am so distracted on the bus

Posted by crymytinyflood at 11:03 AM | Comments (0)

Circumincessio

The following is a series on Pneumatology. Some of the pieces are parts of other postings found elsewhere on the skinnytree but i think they will mean something else when you read them as a part of this series.
Also, the poems don't show up properly here because the enjambment is off due to the programming on my blog. but the words are here... do with them what you will and one day, when i am finally issued a giant publishing opportunity by Viking Press or Penguin or Doubleday they will be properly published and you will see them as God intended them.
thanks,

Circumincessio

Incessant like the trouble we are always away in

The Way
in
like
the weigh in
down and deep
out there but never
out

Finding
Our way
home
The way
I am teaching you to come
Back
To me

**
Flood lights on the cathedral:
a call to repentance

You are too much at times like the shakes I get when you are close enough to take space that once was mine
Feeling the ground beneath me Sure of the rock I lean against and yet
The silence tosses my insides, tumbling one though against another the way a wave throws a stone ashore.
I said I don't know what to do
You said
You don't have to do anything

Belief filled the silence and then blew away on the breath
I used to steady the self I had left

I used to steady the self I had left
Against a body, anybody
Now I use the space a whisper leaves,
the whisp and puffing like cotton around the Word
the air bereft of tone lands soft
the way things ought
on the fragile skin around my ear
the word like the far off flap of a wing
taking flight

making me want the truth, but I look at you, overwhelmed and know, if only I could
turn

**
provis(ohshit)ation, I(')m

a continuous (say yes) to a constraint
of negotiating the hairpin turns, switch
backing negotiation dependant on a particular player working

chaos

(out of)

form
only ever once
after
even with expectations set

still

fall

apart

**
us

I
(don't have to)
disappear
(for you)
to show up.

**
its true:
(a letter to a good friend about the trinity, and other hopelessly hopeful untriangulated relationships, which is full of the sorts of things half-hearted kenotic relationships make people, persons, entities, whathaveyou say to each other
or A Confession In Favor of A Perichoretic Trinity)

we have been moping around too much lately, so you are right.
i probably shouldn't have thrown that book at you when you said that you want me to stop being so mad at myself.
because i borrowed it from the library--not myself, the book.
and because it is about pneumatology.
and it wasn't a shitty thing to say, even though i said it was,
you are right about that too.
it was the appropriate thing to say and it made me feel shitty,
i was confused about what exactly was shitty in that moment.
not you, not the thing you said, but how i was feeling.

most people who don't know me don't know what they are missing.
most people who do know me don't know what they are missing.
and when they are too busy to worry about it
it becomes easier for me to pretend i have disappeared, that i don't matter.
so in the moment when i should just look at the dearly departed and now returning
and say to him/her (mother, father, brother, sister, lover, friend) loud enough for even my self to hear:

"you should have missed me (i missed you, which should signify to you that i am someone who wants you and if you go away, you are lucky enough--and ought to be grateful-- to have someone hoping you will come back and all the while you are gone you should be thinking about how happy i will be to see you and that should make you hopeful and hungry for me to be hungry for you. that should be enough...
at the very least you needn't be worried that i will lock you out of the house or be cold or be mean so there is no justifying detaching yourself from the possibility and mystery of my love for you. you should be very curious about who i will be when you come home to me, what i have learned in your absence, begging me to tell you why i am so glad you are home, but exactly
and
prying open the story of how the days unraveled in your absence because you happen to know that i want to tell you, if only you would extend a tiny invitation) because
i am
the only place you get loved like this; i'm the only one who can do it this way, tell you these things, i'm the only one offering and don't kid yourself into thinking you don't need what i have to offer: all that i have to say about who you are to me and who you are to the world around you."

i don't say any of that. instead i keep hoping you will lie and tell me you missed me because in that i hear that i exist in your world, which sets the bar pretty low with regard to what i need from you and perpetuates the cycle of my limping along toward self-awareness, using your ideas about me as crutches rather than the flashy accessories they ought to be.

you can see, it is entirely fucked up.

i am always afraid of departure, it is true. it may be my worst fear.
i am terrible at hanging up the phone, walking away, falling asleep, watching you go.
i don't even like to see the back of your head. of course, when it comes to men, there are times i think about the curve of his ass or the lovely way his shoulder blades push against his tee shirt, and like it a little and i wonder if this is what old ladies mean when they say they could watch that boy walk away all day.
i just keep pushing you away because i am so afraid you will leave, and i had better take some preemptive action or get blindsided. and since i am then super red ass pissed off that you would leave, of course i am broken in half, tired, weak and needy when you return.
which is a shitty way to treat anyone but also is a pretty impossible way to live in relationship. and i told you i can't help it and you said i can and i looked at you and in your eyes and i remembered how vulnerable you are most of the time and how i've often hoped, when you couldn't hope for yourself i took it up and hoped for you, that you could do something you never thought you could and that it actually felt good to hope for you and i wasn't going to punish you if you didn't deliver because you just don't deserve to be treated so badly. so who would i be to deny you that same pleasure by dashing your hopes for me against the rocks of my need to be angry at myself?

but that is just it: i've always needed to be angry at myself, it was the only way i knew to respond to myself in any meaningful way. you know this firsthand: in an atmosphere devoid of anger the child of a mother like yours and mine is like a fish out of water.
and though i didn't mean to make you angry, i probably had to a little or else i would never have listened to you. and it was beautiful to see you angry but not so angry you couldn't still access the words you have to tell me that you see me, hope for me, need me to grow, be, become, learn this.
you sat there, a good foot away and facing the screen of your computer so i could tell myself that you weren't even aware of me and said
i feel you.
you didn't say the things i was afraid you would say. even though i was desperate to make you.
you didn't say i should get over it, or that i had to grow up.
i read your exhaustion as a way to slough me off but maybe everything about you was working, grinding, striving, climbing over boulders and jumping hurdles trying so hard to find the way to press past my defenses.

it just might be true.
in fact i am beginning to hope it is true because i am growing tired of playing the game the old way with my friends, neighbors, spouse, coworkers, classmates.
it is a fuck off game and i've really got to quit it. i know, so thank you for hoping i will even when i try to tell you not to.

i think your hope is your best feature.

**
To a Triune God:
(excerpted from a letter to a friend)
...and as the memories of crashed bicycles,
bloodied lips,
childhood lost, stolen
innocence and bittersweet independence shine
like sunlight stealing through the trees in the thick forest of my reserve

**
you are

God
who weeps over
little birds showing up
early in spring,

God
Who hopes in the promise
Of milk
And honey,

God
Who can't look down
Only over or across and laughs with me
Not at me,

God
Who tears up, warms up, looks up
Tears down, turns down, lies down
God beside me

God with big hands
God Crafting tiny hands,
Amid flowering trees' blossom petals and
God holding on tenderly
Before it all turns loose

God making
time enough for betrayal and reconciliation,
of learning from growing pains and hunger pangs,
Redeeming forgotten freedoms and half-assed apologies.

Because that is what the earth has offered me,
it is all
(I see for myself)
who the
I am
is

**
Juniper bury:: my planting s pot, where hallelujah s top

By the blade s of t his forevery grass you hedged in and the creek swollen with pride
For having grown so near your thin and peeling
arborized trunk and begging that you drink in all that black water rippling s lowly
dig a place for me beneath the prickling points of your healthy, steely points
Nourish yourself with my brining sweet turning down edge s lapping
At your root s wear you never thought of her s heaving those very same edges
After running s cared for you to s heared limp s
Lopped a s way
Like s winging angelic toward a cloud over hea(r)d

What I want to say is this:

Build a house of the lumber from the dismantled bridge
We walked across
So much
many times
reaping like willows weeping with our heads down
because I miss you
so
when you are
so away
busy
growing

**
Unreadable
safeelingeniouservitudeploymentaltercationusurprisedificellophaneverradica
teacheellopenalmostarguableafterrainsultimatumbrellabialtruistic
kletterraticklishapetaliverticaliforniambiceyestrangeograp
hymentalertediousurythmicalleducatelephonearticleffectoplasmart.

Posted by crymytinyflood at 9:13 AM | Comments (2)

18 de Febrero 2009

The poetree

there is this huge turquoise house on greenwood and it has a crazy yard all around and a chain link fence painted purple and there is this giant tree limb sticking up out of the ground with a ledge nailed to it. and a small bird feeder looking boxy thing that always has little poems rolled up with rubber bands.
and it says free poetry, take one. and i don't ever take one.
but today was a particularly weird day so i stopped and read this and thought i should send it on to you.

Birds Again by Jim Harrison
A secret came a week ago though I already
knew it just beyond the bruised lips of consciousness.
The very alive souls of thirty-five hundred dead birds
are harbored in my body. It's not uncomfortable.
I'm only temporary habitat for these not-quite-
weightless creatures. I offered a wordless invitation
and now they're roosting within me, recalling
how I had watched them at night
in fall and spring passing across earth moons,
little clouds of black confetti, chattering and singing
on their way north or south. Now in my dreams
I see from the air the rumpled green and beige,
the watery face of earth as if they're carrying
me rather than me carrying them. Next winter
I'll release them near the estuary west of Alvarado
and south of Veracruz. I can see them perching
on undiscovered Olmec heads. We'll say goodbye
and I'll return my dreams to earth.

that is helpful, isn't it?

Posted by crymytinyflood at 6:02 PM | Comments (1)

17 de Enero 2009

&

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. ... Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

~ Martin Luther King, Jr. Where Do We Go from Here : Chaos or Community? (1967)

Posted by crymytinyflood at 1:50 PM | Comments (0)

23 de Diciembre 2008

look at this: http://nathanhollifield.blogspot.com/2008/12/snow-days.html

if you went to nathan's blog you will see exactly what i mean when i say
it has been snowing way too much around here and we are all making the best of a messy situation. we are no longer constrained by our functional fixedness, due dates and deadlines: when it snows in seattle everything, but everything, comes to a slushing hushing halt. baristas are writing poetry, pastors are popping pain pills and buying boots to slide all the way to preside over holy communion, small children are volunteering at food banks, busdrivers refuse the fare.

and then,
i got this great little email from emile about hope and i thought i should make like a graduate student and tell you what it means to me, the overeducated critic:

here is how it all went down, as i imagine it:
her stepmother calls her early enough in the day to catch her before the daily distraught sets in and she is less than shocked, but more than surprised that not only is she waking for another day, but that she isn't feeling too many feelings about this phone call happening.

and the voice on the other end explains why there will not be wine, that someone in particular is battling the booze

(and Emile, who in this part of the letter is finally able to out-allender dr. daniel b., the former president of my graduate school, quietly thinks to herself:)

who isn't?

and then she goes on to confess, in her own way, how she has come to be addicted to hope and she isn't sure but maybe it is getting a little out of hand,
and yet she is none the worse for it.
which is why i love her: she can't help but hope. she thinks Christmas is a time to wish, to make wishes and grant wishes and get excited. she likes the tradition and bears the family gatherings gracefully. she wears gratitude close like undergarments: under her outer layer.
she unabashedly busies herself with something other than drama... it must be that she enjoys the mundane because she knows how to relax into circumstance and make do. she has let go the outlandish expectations frothing on the bit
and, though we thought they would run madly off in all directions and be lost forever, they are somehow tame and lowing: less like wild horses, more like cattle.

she has a way of evening the playing field, which is what that crazy locust eater John the Baptist wanted us to do. how does she do this, you might ask? well, for one, she has suffered so much loss already, been handed so many lemons in this life ...and seen mixed nuts so many times.

and so it is in her honor that i am writing the first Jimenez family Christmas letter. (don't worry--i won't be mailing it, that would be too much.)

here it is for your perusal:

Dear you,

you are probably receiving a slew of letters written by proud parents attempting to keep you up to date and wish you a merry holiday at the same time.

i'm writing to tell you we are fine, fixing up the house we bought and staying out of trouble. we read a lot and walk the dog almost everyday.

thanks for thinking of us, we comfort ourselves with memories of being with you whenever we feel too far from loved ones.

we hope to inspire you to tell the truth and try not to be too judgmental.
these are trying times and some good, old fashioned kindness--not the blind niceness you get so cheap and easily, but real kindness--goes a long way.

M and I will be Masters of Divinity in a couple years; we hope you'll celebrate all the acheivement in your lives the way we celebrate the end of term graduate student style: with a cold beer, a hot meal and a good friend.

take care of yourselves, and if we don't see you soon enough, keep hoping we'll be together again when circumstances allow.
Abigail

Posted by crymytinyflood at 2:55 PM | Comments (1)

28 de Octubre 2008

high class enlightened behavior, if you will

this morning at chocolati there is a man sharing the velvet comma shaped chair next to mine, with his dog and they both seem pretty okay.
and also, there is a puppy wrestling match going on between the two little dog brothers (cappy and apollo creed murderface mclovin) who hang out here now. so i keep thinking that it is a good enough day to lay it on the line.
here goes.
i thought i might make a list of all the people who probably read this but then thought better of it. instead i will just explain that there are others out there, who are just like you and me and you don't need to know what they look like (this ins't facebook) and you don't need to know all their favorite shit (this isn't myspace) you just need to know that they are there, or here, rather and that they keep coming back for more.

see, the things i write here are not just for one of you. i think i know you pretty well, Readers, and i only tell you about the things that will be helpful for the plural you. so if you think i wrote this for you, i did, but i also wrote it for at least one other person and the fact that you are reading it on the internet means i put it here so you two or three or 20 could read it at the same time and know that you are with each other.
if i had something to say just to one of you i would write you a letter or send an email or call you up and be with you like that.

while i'm at it, i should explain one more thing:
the skinnytree started as a place to sort of carve my initials above yours. it is a way to tell you all the things i wanted you to know, the nice things and the mean things. it is my way of cutting you and me, who we are, our names and feelings, into something that will eventually grow and change and perhaps hold onto us in spite of ourselves.
i hoped you wouldn't argue when i made a personal dig.
i hoped, suspending my deepest fears of turning in to the narcissist, you would know i wanted you to see it even when i wrote it about someone else. but mostly i knew this would be helpful for me and so i divided the selfish parts into three categories:
help yourself, which is less an invitation and more a command.
helpful, which is the nicest way i can point you in the right direction.
and just in case, which is where i put things i really want you to know even if they are not helpful, kind of just in case you were wondering or just in case i was too mad to articulate
in a helpful way.
and then there is this, which factors in every damn time:
i am becoming more and more resigned to the fact that i have this sort of maddening sensitivity. it is like a sweet tooth that loves to tear up over sour candy, or a wild hair that threatens to ruin all the family photos, or or or...
and so the only way to let you know that you are, regrettably paying dearly to be my friend is to be honest with you.

my feelings are so inconvenient and i know people who can't change, which makes me very afraid that i can't change, and so i should just be honest. if i'm honest with you, you know ahead of time you will have to pay the tax: if you love my sensitivity and brilliance, you will have to sit and cry with me sometimes. and i am quite ashamed when it happens but this is the price we pay.
i must take it or leave it about myself. and i have it on a good authority that i have to live with myself more often than you have to live with me--it might be hardest on me--so spare me your judgmental fears, i have plenty of my own. i have to take a risk and want to be honest enough to tell you i'll be crying under the stairs, take it or leave it, join in or don't, pay the fare or walk.

when you stop trying so goddamn hard to be normal you strike a bargain with others and force yourself to hope, which is where i am today... knowing you are probably there too.
and with those who are unwilling to uphold their end of the bargain you just put up boundaries because you will hurt worse than they will should the fences fail or the walls crumble. but hurt is just hurt and there is God in the hurt.
in her next life my good sensitive friend Donna is going to come back as a thick-skinned, unfeeling jock mindlessly loyal to the home team and drinking in the bleachers.
but for now she says that crying under the stairs is high class, enlightened behavior and we all should be crying under the stairs. she says that buying a home is buying a safe place to cry.
she says that normal is to hide behind the game face which means you will die behind the mask. and that is how you become exhibit a: the failed suicide attempt, bomb building, gun toting, narcissist too much in love with the reflection because you can't see yourself anywhere else and neither can anyone else.
of course, no one has the right to judge madness, i'm not attempting to do that. i'm trying instead to avoid it for myself and to show you who you are to me.

just think of all the things we really ought to feel
sad about
grieve,
mourn:
wouldn't it be understandable if your best friend with all his hangups and traumas went under the stairs and stood there naked, yelling and crying, just for a little while? just imagine how appropriate it would be in light of all the terrible things that we have done to each other? imagine your best friend stripped and bleeding, crying out on behalf of all the worst things we have done, even the things we have left undone. imagine him thirsty and angry but refusing to dry his tears and suck it up.
who am i to say all the crying is finished?
what of the people i love who can't cry for themselves? would it be wrong to consider me a hired hand to mourn? i mean, if i'm going to go cry anyway, you might as well get in on it.

it is who i am:
i prefer passing out halloween candy to buying christmas gifts
i like lots of church on sunday mornings and wiping noses all day long.
i'm into brussel sprouts and beer milkshakes,
for the record i quit smoking pot when i was 20 and yet i can't deny my slight lifelong secondhand and firsthand nicotine addiction.
i am proud to say i fell in through the ice on sarah palin's lake wasilla one time but didn't drown and when i was 13 i kissed a really beautiful boy and then he hid from my mother, in her shower, for half an hour.
i believe in rocktober and autumn leaves, God killed God and
i am working on crying every chance i get because i think it will actually minimize the drama.
i am a poet and pastor: i won't tell you which way to vote but i will tell you i will be with you when democracy fails you.
i like to tickle and
i would take the ocean over greenlake, and stars over snowflakes
i find your accent to be a miraculous wrapping around the gift of your voice.
i admit dance saved my life, fiction is a good vacation and television probably won't kill you.
i maintain that addictions are chemical reactions, psychotherapy works if you show up and running away is a fantasy--it is never going to work the way you thought it might.
in my opinion loving her makes her more beautiful
truth is what happens when you close your eyes and jump
creeks dry up sometimes but not all the time
childhood sticks with you
and grown up is when you are finally able to tell your step parents what is really going on, whether you really love them or don't.

my new friend told me yesterday that her daughter had a great time with me, carving pumpkins at a youth group event, even though i gave her a real knife and she cut so deeply into her middle finger that us leaders were afraid she would need stitches. and it is possible that she had said wonderful time because (what pastor in her right/normal mind would do this?): i figured we needed to blast Green Day's dookie and sing along as i rushed her back to her father so he could assess the damage to the precious mid digit. honestly, nobody needs a middle finger more than a junior higher.
i recommended that the patient watch all the episodes of Joan of Arcadia because it is a show about a girl who gets to talk to God.
lizzle looked at me and said, 'abigail, what would i do without you?'
i immediately fired off a snide comment in response but when i woke up this morning it sunk in.
the gratitude in her face and the honesty in her voice were written on the bedroom ceiling this morning when i opened my eyes.
normal people don't get their friends' daughters sliced open and then recommend canceled television shows.
normal people don't listen when someone asks what they would do without you.
this kind of behavior is reserved for painters, poets, and other crazies, hand picked to help with the sorrow and point out the lovely shitty shit all around:

molly made me my double decaf americano in a 12 oz paper cup: room, no sleeve. she warned me it was really hot and then said, 'you look like you're wearing tight clothes today, you're all sexy, what a hot little figure, who knew?'
the world series was rained out for the first time in history
and i voted for a black president last night.

see, there is a lot going on and it isn't that you have to feel about it all, but i do and even though each day i grow up a little more i will never outgrow feeling, as much as i dislike it as much as you dislike it.

good luck trying to get over getting over it.

if you need help crying over it, i can do that, i think.

Posted by crymytinyflood at 10:09 AM | Comments (1)

24 de Octubre 2008

i like you

this is why you are my friend:
even if you only said three words, here is what i heard:
"i like you
[not because of your pain or past--that is just pity. not in spite of it either--that is denial. not because you are honest about it--that is just voyeuristic of me. not because i need you to use it to understand that you are just like me--because i don't need you to be like me. not because you have to use it to earn my sympathy or i'm leaving--that is bribery. not because it makes you experienced in a sort of self-destructive sexy way--that is just opportunistic.
i like you because whatever is behind you or in you or happening to you is a little complicated and a lot honest and when it shows up something in me rises up to greet you, and wants to hug you and i'm not sure why. but something in you calls to something in me and it feels good to be called out of myself by your joy and your sadness, whatever the cause. and i just want to be here with you, even if we aren't going to save the world or spy on the neighbors. even if the decoder ring tells us what we already knew.]"

it is like we can be 11 years old again, hiding under the stairs from the drunken brawling grown ups and we don't have to worry about ruining anyone's life just because we feel ruined ourselves. we don't have to worry about rescuing our families from their dysfunction because we aren't aware that we aren't that powerful, even if we are already aware that we are supposed to and failing miserably. it is like we are young enough again, but this time we worry less about trauma and more about a friend coming close enough, not to focus on the drama or give advice, or be afraid, but just to be,

to be with
to witness
as we climb higher into the next apple tree
how many times the rock will skip across the creek
the 16th mosquito bite
a wrestling match with the dog
the race across the meadow
the perfectly roasted marshmallow
the big dipper
nothing but net
secret handshakes
a butterfly emerging from the chrysalis and staying long enough to watch it taking flight
dandelion seeds blown from the stem, carrying wishes safely to the ground on
clean white parachutes that never fail to open
goldfish swimming
tadpoles wiggling
autumn leaf kicking
rubberband shooting
paper airplanes looping the loops
a pretty dress
a home run for the home team
bloodbrother scabs
potato bugs
garter snakes
swinging so high we fly
hot dogs in the macaroni and cheese
bubble bath beards
a new brown crayon
bubbles popping
sprinkles on the hot chocolate whipping cream
what the half-chewed food looks like on my tongue
what my bellybutton looks like
or even just to say 'ewwww' about grownups kissing in public.

the biggest problems are beginning to feel like the things on this list, like confusing amazing discoveries rather than catastrophic ultimatums... they are sad but they are not big enough to kill me when i am safe in this spot.

when i did 11 years old the first time i had to skip all the age appropriate triumphs because i was left alone to deal with the great losses. and now i am feeling the way those simple good things would have felt because you are reminding me that there is time and space to hide out and regroup, to hope for you when you can't hope for yourself, that if i just hold still for a minute you can look, even though i can't bear to, at the splinter in my thumb and tell me it isn't in so deep or quite so small that it would be impossible to dig out.

the problems are deep and insidious, don't get me wrong, but for once someone sees there is more to me than my extraordinary problems or fantastic useful talents, i am worth more than my contribution to your grown up world, your gnp and wisdom mongering
and i know. you prove it to me by feeling small with me,
by managing to hide out but not from
you give me space to work it out
you built me a fort when i asked.
when i told you what i wanted,
you didn't just say 'i don't know what to do.' maybe you were just bullshitting me when you told me about a safe secret spot, but i guess you have just enough of a peterpan, neverland fantasy focused brain, or i make you feel young enough to imagine the sort of spot i needed. and what is really helpful: you gave me a place to go but you didn't force me to go there. and you didn't assume you were invited and later, when i called to invite you, you whispered because you knew it was holy ground. and best of all: you didn't say you were too busy with something more important. and when you saw me in it you complimented me, there was joy in your voice that made it ok, for the first time, to curl up and cry until i was finished. you took one look at me crouched and crying in the corner and you exclaimed as though we were playing sardines and you were so glad to have found me because hiding with me was going to be the highlight of your day. hiding with me meant you were a winner even if we were just going to keep on hiding and keep quiet and still. it seemed like maybe if we hid long enough all our friends, all the answers might find us.

i never had a place like that before maybe because i never had anyone to help build it. i never had anyone with enough childish strength to help in a way that doesn't invade or dictate.
because when you are with me you aren't so grown up, so concerned with my drama that it keeps you from seeing more of me, hoping for more of me, celebrating with me.
it is a place where we can just watch the miraculous half-hopes that float to the top of our problems.
they slowly unfold the way stars come out: bright burning gaseous trouble spots in our heads and hearts, we can look up at them in wonder, knowing the irresponsible adults voices won't butt in, and we can celebrate the tiniest discoveries for ourselves without judgment, without wondering who will be hurt, who will be killed, who will be at fault and why it took us so long to figure all this out.

i like you too.

Posted by crymytinyflood at 1:36 PM | Comments (0)

18 de Octubre 2008

Kj meets wino

when Kj aksed me to write for vespers, and address the incoming students as well as the usual suspects, i went home (shocking, i know), poured about 20 fingers of some 2buckchuckred in a juice glass and wrote this.

it helps if you know that i kept thinking about the sunny day real estate called 'what it feels to be something on'... its called

what it feels to return/arrive

like the feel in your throat when the tone is perfect and only clear and matches the sound of my heart or when the strings in the bow vibrate just right up through the tendons and soft muscle in your arm or when an old word makes a new sound in your ear because you understand it for the first time
or the first time you kissed and it is just like that
like the first time you heard a baby cry out just to cry
or the way her heartbeat fills in your empty places without even trying.
or his sweatshirt under your hand when you hold on too long to his body hugging you.

and you remember the journey so suddenly when you do
the moment when the road opens up and 75 is as good as flying and the yellow bands in the road and the rows of corn finally tick past faster than you can count the blank spaces dark with fertility

the way you knew as you packed up
you know when you closed the door on the old ways
you broke someone's heart and you had to--
in order to escape.
and their disappointment in you is drifting off
like clouds move across the sun

you had to come see
you had to go where they can't follow
you had to follow the sound of the siren because it was your own heart seducing you.

of course it sounds like a stupid old love song
because it is
the song that says i'll love you for the rest of my life and i'll be here when you need me and i'm not ashamed of you.

i like you.
(which means a lot coming from someone who is really good at hate)

i like-like you.
which means that all the things you are about to say are like the little dreams i never dreamt
(i wait for the night to come, i wait with all my being wrapped around the first star coming out so i can close my eyes and see what comes in the colors you invent).

because when you are here i am here and
little by little
we will both be very soon indeed
drunk with the possibility that
God arrives
God returns
for another sigh another hurricane of grief
for another tear another storming hope
another knock knock joke from your favorite six-year-old.

knockknock
who's there
God
God who?
God who do you think you are to make every day such a trial and such a triumph?

so when you collapse against the sofa in the field abbot's office like a withering vine against the augustine heat of theology
and describe the way
your heart is breaking

just remember
me.

remember those who never intend to master divinity
or those who used to hate you
until i learned how
you can turn rotten carrots into friendship and make the pages of a theological text feel like home.

i hope i will stop imagining your hatred for me because it is not as deathly as i think.

i've always wanted to go home, i've been so homesick.
that is what led me here. to you, who i try everyday to hate.
but you prove me wrong everyday
you tell me i've let you in and i think
hell no
i think i don't change that quickly
but i do. because when i can't hate you like
i want to
it breaks me open.
it breaks my heart
when i see you take communion
when i see you carry your children
when i see you hug each other
or hold hands
when you argue, when you lie
when you cry over deciduous tree leaves falling the same way i do.
and i see your lovely swollen eyes and
runny nose
i break open and see your shame
like a little spark and you hold it out
cupped in your hands like water to drink and you tell me
this is all that is left of Fantasia
one tear
we are so sad
you must invent more
we have so much sadness yet to come
take room for our tears
make a room
make it in the house of your hearts because, and i know it isn't good for your broken down hopes to say it: 'you can't go home you can't go home'

yeah, i like the one about space a little better too, but i really edited that one for hours. this one, what you see is what you get. and i'm practicing being less ashamed of things for now, if i start to shake and cough i'll just return and edit. that way you can watch how it changes too. won't that be fun? sigh.

Posted by crymytinyflood at 3:50 PM | Comments (0)

16 de Octubre 2008

non-violence policy

from the brochure i wrote about the nursery:
Our nursery has a non-violence policy. Toy guns or other toys that shoot, slice, or otherwise intend to cause bodily harm are not permitted. Our plastic dinosaurs are friendly and our toy police car is mobilized only for retrieving kittens from trees.

nightmares notwithstanding, this is pretty much how i like to live my life.
last night i had another one i couldn't wake from.
i think it was about my mother. i'm sure it had to do with my inability to behave violently toward her.
oh, but aren't they all?

speaking of nonviolent protest:
all saints day is coming and i have decided that if i am ever up for sainthood i would like to be:
Patron saint of
the lewd barista,
sympathy sex for seminarians,
children who no longer believe in God,
television addictions
those with eating disorders
and
poetic break up letters.
i could talk God's ear off on those subjects.

on a more violent note:
is there a book out there about break up letters? there should be, it should be part sample, example and part how-to. if there is, then i think we should do a new edition every few years and really keep up with all the heartache out there. we could include text messages and email and lost and found and personals. and i'll bet i've written a few good ones and they aren't published yet so... a second edition may be a good idea.

Posted by crymytinyflood at 11:05 AM | Comments (0)

15 de Octubre 2008

poet on poet action!

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
On Donne's Poetry
``With Donne, whose muse on dromedary trots,
Wreathe iron pokers into true-love knots ;
Rhyme's sturdy cripple, fancy's maze and clue,
Wit's forge and fire-blast, meaning's press and screw.''

this is what you say when you know your friend needs you to admit that you don't know what he is talking about but you really love that he just keeps talking.

it is also like this: when things seem to be changing for the ancient mariner, but not quite enough, just yet, because it takes such a long time to undo a very big wrong. sometimes the birds begin, like friends trying to help, but there is still so much and you must repent.

"Sometimes a-dropping from the sky
I heard the sky-lark sing ;
Sometimes all little birds that are,
How they seemed to fill the sea and air
With their sweet jargoning !"

Posted by crymytinyflood at 10:36 AM | Comments (0)

13 de Octubre 2008

maybe this will help:

Who am I? This or the other?
Am I one person today, and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
and before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army,
fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?
Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, thou knowest, O God, I am thine.
-from Bonhoeffer's 'Who am I?'
which was in a footnote for one of the theology texts... there have been quite a few of the old poets in theology this year, it is fairly helpful to have read them.

Posted by crymytinyflood at 9:43 PM | Comments (0)

3 de Octubre 2008

in case this is news to you too:

cynicism is born of disappointment

Posted by crymytinyflood at 11:59 AM | Comments (0)

30 de Septiembre 2008

en media res

remember art history class? or even comparative literature? i think i live there, in the middle, like a slice of life and today it is frustrating because yesterday i had to tell a story in practicum and
it seemed to me like it was time to begin, but I didn't know how to introduce myself properly or explain things so everyone seemed as though they felt a little jerked toward the story. That bothers me because I can't figure out why it was so sudden to them when i thought i was doing everything right so that it wouldn't be, sudden. And I get that a lot, from martin or whenever I start talking--there is a certain shock value perhaps because of the delivery system/method. Part of me can't figure out why they feel as though I have interrupted them, their thoughts, the expectations, and part of me doesn't want to figure it out because I want them to be shocked awake. I don't often want to make things intelligible, I like the idea of parables because unless you really want to know what is going on, you won't. it is something similar with poetry; unless you bring yourself to the poem, you won't know what is going on because the poet isn't about the business of explaining herself, but rather is explaining your life to you using her way with words. That is why poetry is an art form, why parables are art. You have to interpret, you are expected to interpret, experience, be interrupted even if you read the introduction, or know the poet personally. it is about confrontation,in which i am well versed.
my guess: people don't see me coming. They don't think I'll open my mouth and they will easily understand but the truth is they won't understand me by using the same tools they use to understand everyone else. It is like I speak another language, sometimes, most times, accidentally. And it only hurts when people are angry with me because they don't understand. And it is only confusing when I forget how possible, how prevalent this reaction is. And it is only inconvenient when I want to speak their normal English and I simply can't figure out how to. and it is only sad when i think i will lose myself if i try to do what is expected just to communicate how very much i am losing by doing so.

but there is good news:
The one hurdle I am happy to jump is the disassociation hurdle. I am pleased to say that I am more able to feel it happening and recognize it, and even, occasionally, pull myself out of it in a timely manner. next up, if i can keep in rhythm as any trackstar will tell you is to learn what causes it. And also I am a lot less ashamed of myself than I used to be, in general and i think that helped yesterday. I wasn't destroyed, i didn't destroy anyone else (both of those possibilities are now just possibilities, not certainties). It should have been a celebration when i got home to tell martin of all this triumph. but as i try to talk to him (and i think lots of people in love will understand this) I keep tripping over the things I need on my way to where i think i will get them and I am bruised and bloodied from the falling down.

Posted by crymytinyflood at 9:07 AM | Comments (0)

20 de Septiembre 2008

on second thought

this is the poem i put here and then took down but now i think it isn't quite as violent as it once was so you can have it back.
"i know i would apologize
if i could
see your eyes
cuz when you showed me myself, you know,
i became someone else..."

Home-things ::

I find nails rusting like heartbreak
and giving way to the slow steady sanding,
patching time and crime and punishment holes in the wall
first I smooth off

the first layer, then I see
a line in the second layer:
as wide as a grain of sand.

i think about you and whisper to myself
about all that insulates, me,
it could have been yours.
But like a murderer,
I do
the time
when the heartbreak ache is home improvement.
And to escape
I burn off my fingerprints

(the first layer, then I see
a line in the second layer:
as wide as a grain of sand.)

Over the sound of a squirrel rustling in the attic I recommend the story of you-
how I lost myself:
"If he has a tattoo on his arm
hopefully its just three backward sounds
that way, when I reach to hold him,
to use him
to steady myself, by the feel of soft skin and ink stretched over the sweet strength of life and limb
I feel, the ancient word,
grace, under my thumb."

All the while thinking
There was grace in the skin as I held it--
burning away who I was--I was
unafraid
to be unidentifiable--

(the first layer, then I see
a line in the second layer:
as wide as a grain of sand.)

Now I feel
differently:
a thumb tack slides, silent, like divine intervention,
it glides through the white space
atop a photo of your face and I press so hard
the knuckle, not the print, strains under the pressure
of holding onto you.

Posted by crymytinyflood at 10:52 AM | Comments (2)

5 de Septiembre 2008

vespers again

Kj asked me to speak about this little by little part of the Mary Oliver poem she chose as text for the vespers service, so i put on my train shirt, that says "Family Where?" and read this little chapter at the vespers service. (i'm getting pretty good at new student orientation stuff!)
"But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode"-from Mary Oliver's The Journey

My mother is a singer. In a most generous, professional way she used to tell me "your little voice carries" (I could match her pitch, and then some).
I knew, even at five years old, that she meant my voice was too big, that my self, was taking up too much space,-- burning through the sky like a rogue fire cracker, bleeding through the walls she built to protect me, threatening to set the forest on fire.
And try as she did to teach me to control myself, I was explosive.

I am ambivalent about my little voice carrying on, I love the way my whole body resonates when I hit the high hard A as I attempt to shout something straight to hell. I love it, until the people who love me run for cover.
So I try to sometimes, keep quiet. But when I do
I think of that little-girl-me behind big bangs and thick braids, little by little losing her way
The scratchy little voice moving slowly away, unfairly pitted against the science of the Doppler effect.
The question that darts around in my mind, the mean little thought that ricochets off one fear and then another: how will I be heard over the static of your desires?
I see now that
My hopes and fears form a constellation of fireballs looming loud and wild in the black night above the rooftops where my loved ones live. It is hard to know what to do about the way these thoughts rumble, pop and hiss.
if the Pleiades threatened to engulf you, Would I silence the strident roar of all seven fireballs,?
How would I tell a whole constellation to lower its voice? And why?

The answer came like a red star collapsing. I began to believe there had to be another way, a way toward being heard, a way to tell, without so much yelling. So I called Zach Brittle and begged to come to mars.

When I landed here I began to think the oxygen had been sucked out of the atmosphere because I heard deprived, depraved things about finding voice--but mine was not lost! I thought these people were nuts to encourage me to keep talking, keep writing, obviously they were just being nice to someone who had already said too much, and too loudly.
Turned out, here (on mars?) the atmosphere is different, the voices don't carry the old things, in the old ways. And so they said, if I kept at it, there was more to find,

to be refined.

In the heat of healing, my fearful, abrasive little voice and the ideas it carries soften like grains of sand becoming clear smooth glass.
the what and way it carries, is changed. The frantic tones that used to force their way through the violence of my childhood are little by little changing into something stronger, able to carry more than simple shame,
Little by little the voice that forced its way through chaos is more a joyful noise,
a barbaric yawp over the rooftops, crying out in holy contradictions and bearing good news of great joy for all people.
In gentle, brave tones that little voice keeps me company on the long dark days and nights of the sweeping seminary cosmos. Each little idea on the wind in my larynx, even the little bits of ideas humming around in my brain are like lightning bugs bobbing playfully, joyously.
And what is more, little by little, I am learning to capture the tiny fiery sounds before they disappear,
With the pen in my hand like a sparkler on fire, I draw them out against the dark, I quickly put to right the lines and circles, order them on the page and they look so fancy against the justified margins. (Justified!) Just in time, before the flame tires out and when it does I learn to wait a little in the dark, for another one to light.

So you have landed here on mars, up near the sun in between a few sexy stars where your desires mimic the flame and light of the sun, your bright hopes are settling in, set off against the sweet cover of night. Yes, you've landed on planet seminary, somewhere in a system held in place by the gravity of a good solid graduate education; woah. let that sink in. Hear my little voice telling you: you have landed, here, where the little voices you were once ashamed of will, little by little, stop sounding so awful, as impossible as that might seem. Soon you will reach out and turn down the volume on the editors trying to out "you" you and you needn't be afraid of their silence. Out of the quiet your own voice will rise like a comet,
and ours will rush to harmonize with it, and a song will go, lilting out over the landscape that used to confine you, your little voice, my little voice carrying light out into the dark.

and that was that thank God.

Posted by crymytinyflood at 10:58 AM | Comments (1)

14 de Agosto 2008

with unflinching confidence

a good friend came into the chocolati during my office hours,
she read through a paper over which i had an anxiety attack
after i turned it in
on my way the beach
where i built two sandcastles and dug one trench
from our blanket to the ocean
with my nephew, who still answers to his
nickname: Mocos
she told me to
show up to the page with unflinching confidence
and get it all down.
then, she ate two truffles and, left.

and somehow she has managed to silence the motherfuckingverballyabusive editors in my head and in my heart and i thought i should send this news out into the abyss. because i wonder what it looks like in the rss feed.

and now it is back to the nestle-aland.

Posted by crymytinyflood at 12:13 PM | Comments (0)

9 de Julio 2008

woah

i almost just published a really mean entry. that was close. here are the nicer parts:

i just thought i should clear something up: i can't stand facebook and i refuse to join. the only reason i keep this blog up is because there is still a great deal of stuff out there, written about me, on the internet, whether you know it or not, whether you will read it or not. And as long as it is out there i have to have a voice of my own and this is it.
at least i think that is why i do this.

i made a new friend this week, not by meeting him on facebook. his name is nathan. he offered me the nasty brown part of his carrot today in such a funny "from the carolinas" way i laughed and am still laughing about it. i may never forget that moment; it was real good. so when you read this, nathan, these are your propas: i think you are a good person, which is quite a feat because there are lots of people i don't like. and i will tell all the pretty girls about you. its not facebook but it will have to do. and i can't believe you were in the stranger want ads, i mean, i believe it because you probably offer nasty carrots to all kinds of potential friends all across the country but the stranger ads--that is like being famous! i've never been that close to being in the stranger so of course i admire you.
that concludes the message to nathan.

the moral of the story is this: internet is a good place to make yourself or someone else into a ghost that just haunts and howls and cries over the sad parts.

Posted by crymytinyflood at 10:28 PM | Comments (4)

30 de Junio 2008

God tends

for vacation bible school we wore tee shirts that said "...on earth as it is in heaven." we went to the transfer station and we went to the forest and we went to the museum and we played some games and nobody won and nobody lost and we only cried on the first day and we sang about hippos and each other and it was very good, just like the bible says.

and what did we start with: toe hoo wah boe hoo.

which is what i always start with and we ended with the saddest day because it had to end and we had to rest like we always do.

sometimes when things go really well i feel very small.

so we went to the beach. and slipped slurpees and then i went home and my dog was there and he was so happy to see me, just like you used to be. so happy.

when you see something really beautiful you should say something because why not? you should definitely say it. that is one thing i am learning this summer... say it out loud and maybe point if you have a free hand. kneel down and with confidence just say it carefully, slowly or maybe your eyes squinting in the brightness of it whisper it so it lands gently because she doesn't know you are thinking it. she doesn't even know you are capable of thinking it but she might need you to be brave enough...

i have this thing i think about love. i think about love.
and i can't stop doing it

here is one reason why i am not the wife i wanted to be:
everyday dinner time comes and all i really want to do is eat a carrot or something stupid like that.
so if you think of it, send snats that is all we can handle right now.

Posted by crymytinyflood at 5:14 PM | Comments (0)

24 de Abril 2008

for emilefoggyheart

use the arrows to go to the song called sunny road. it is very helpful. the first two songs are OK but the others are, well, consider it free spiritual direction from someone who is certifiable... i mean, a certified spiritual director.

Posted by crymytinyflood at 2:04 PM | Comments (0)

17 de Marzo 2008

on the brink

"How can I, how dare I presume to form you from my rib?... To do justice to you an essential injustice is required. That is the heart of my dilemma. I can never be you:yet in order to be myself I must imagine what it is to be you."
--A. Brink, The Wall of the Plague (London: Fontana, 1985), p.446.

Posted by crymytinyflood at 10:52 AM

10 de Marzo 2008

cfm like peterpan

last year at the easter vigil i led the procession of children away from the altar and out the main sanctuary doors.
afterward someone said i may be the new children and family minister but i am a little more like an imp, or the pied piper or peterpan.

but i don't do it for the parents to be rid of their children. i am careful to engineer each event so that children will have access to their parents. and slowly, and much to their dismay, the parents are beginning to realize this.

now i don't claim to know what the parents are going through as they struggle with flash floods of parenthood ambivalence. i don't have "my own kids". but i meet their frustration and pain with genuine concern and THANKGOD genuine curiosity--that is the prerogative of the childless children and family minister.

Dan allender says that really being with a family is like being on the autobahn and if you don't know where you're going to, you'll miss the turn off.

sometimes all i can do is believe in the healing power of a casserole. othertimes, well, miracles happen.

but the parents often respond to even the most genuine curiosity the way groan-ups often do:
we're fine.
we're well.
we're just tired.

they think i can't see behind the sad crinkles around their eyes or the way their lips tremble, just a little when they look to the left and try to evade the questions about what they did with the dead cat, or said about the dead grandpa. they don't think i notice the gray hairs they have grown this year or the tired way they slump to the altar railing for the host.

you can't depend on parents to understand children--it is so difficult. they spent so much energy trying to separate themselves from childhood and now, they somehow can't get back to neverland because they have run out of pleasant thoughts. sometimes they are, in the best innocence of the word and also in the worst way: children themselves.

they should call me the children and grown up children's minister.

you know, in the gospel reading from last week Jesus wept.
and i told the children sitting on the wine-soaked carpet stairs up to the altar:
weeping means big, giant tears come pouring out.
and they were looking right in my face. so i told them, i said it right into the lapel mic: it is OK to not be OK.

but i can't force you.

so today when i sat in my car and thought of the way i send mixed messages, and the way i confuse people because i hope beyond hope that they will read between the lines,
i felt real not ok and real bad, and so
i was weeping.
and i had this one tiny wonderful thought: even if you don't understand, i do.
i know exactly what is going on in my head and if you just stay with me a little, and get creative, and add in your two cents, and then ask a genuine question or two, you could understand too. but that is all debunked now.

i think today will be the first day i can stop expecting the adults in my life to understand. i think i can finally see how badly they want me to explain things to them in words they understand. not that i will be able to do this, but at least i have a new view of the problem.

and i called my husband and he said, "you have a prophets heart and you have to call these parents to more." and then i said that i feel like i chose to be in two worlds at the same time and he said, "because that is what you did."
because he just knows this stuff.

and i think its real difficult when i wake up on a gray morning in March and realize that my very presence is pressuring parents to put one foot in their child's world, and keep one foot in theirs and it really sucks to have to be both places. the word is "ambivalence" but it might as well be ambivolatile or ambifuckedover.

i know, because i am dumb enough to hope, they can do it; there is plenty of casserole around here and still a few miracles yet to get born.

and you have to realize that every week when i give the children's word as part of the liturgy the room falls silent because the children are interested (which is to say, not fidgeting behind a pewback too tall to see over) and
the parents are taking notes on how to talk to their children and
the grandparents are grateful that somebody can keep this shit simple, for once... and
the pastor is praying thankyouGodthatwasonethingicrossedoffmytodolist and
the childless couple is heartaching in the back row, holding onto somebody else's baby girl, as she sleeps in the barren arms hopefully realizing that Jesus probably fielded the questions and accusations about why he didn't get married or have kids or settle down or whatever. and
even my husband sits with the young adults and they listen in out of jealousy or hope for an entry point or something funny to happen because they want so very much to enjoy church.

i do not want you to think that i am in anyway tooting my own horn because you can see now the pressure i think i am under, i think we all just want out so bad that when i tell them that Jesus' sadness is, in fact, good news... well, it doesn't take a genius to hate me or at least smile knowingly that this is pretty insane, and think silently, to oneself, "oh, no she didn't".

and yet, they haven't fired me yet.

i may look like peterpan, leading your children off to some safe place where their childhood will stay the same forever... but really it is more like i'm hoping you're jealous and looking back and forth at your own life the way you watch a tennis match.

neverneverland is named such because i haven't been there and i can't suggest it: you have to take yourself with you when you grow up.
and that is why i am here to help, in my mixed message sort of way.
go on, give in to the morbid curiosity--lean over the casket and get a good wiff of or at least a good long look at the dead body of your dream that adulthood would be better. i'll be here when you look up again, just hanging around like some sort of good idea, bad idea whore on the corner, tempting you to dream a new, violently hopeful dream.
hinthint: adulthood is just another childhood but now you know the names for all the colors, all the flowers and all the people you just don't like, and some of them are the smallish folks you yourself named.

and that is ok with me, sad, realfuckingsad, but OK.

Posted by crymytinyflood at 10:45 AM

3 de Marzo 2008

when to say when

i may have told you this before but i've been on the roster at quite a few schools.
two preschools
presby kids
mudpies
one grammar
Harmony School,
one middle school
Salmon Creek Middle School.
El Molino High School
Shorecrest High School
Meadowdale High School
Edmonds Community College
Santa Rosa Junior College
Bethany Bible College
St. Mary's College
El Diablo Valley College
Sonoma State University
San Francisco State University
San Jose State University
Mars Hill Graduate school
read'em and weep.
over the past seven years i have taught at
Bryant Elementary
Campolindo High School
Fairmount Elementary
Jackson Elementary
Little Sonshine Preschool
Phinney Ridge Lutheran Church, ELCA

somewhere in there between schools, when
i was a barista or
a landscaper's assistant or when
i sold designer jeans or when
i was a cook at the summer camp,

i harnessed the power of a lateral lisp,
i buried a few friends and relatives,
got married and
wrote a pretty good poem or two.

so now you know my qualifications, i want to tell you something that you may not learn at anyoneschoolinparticular:
somebody really important in my littleworld, somebody who has a two year old son who sang to me holy holy holy
told me today that
sometimes i don't have to do what i don't want to do, which is sort of like last year when somebody else told me that
sometimes trying harder is not the answer.
i think this falls under the category of learning when to say when or learning about enjambment and also under the heading of seeing the past redeemed.

i just thought you might like to see it all here in lines and circles. maybe,
seeing it
written down like
a prescription or
a contract or
a receipt or
a love letter
makes it easier to refer to when you wonder what the hell is going on around here. and why i have finally landed, even though it ought to be about time for me to participate in commencement or transfer out, or something like that--i mean, two years at the same school is a long time for someone like me.

and if you want to know
why i do what i do, or
why i like what i like or
why i don't have what people call "kids of my own", or
why i am suddenly discovering
that having boundaries is a lot like having
a superpower
i think this might help to answer those questions too...
i'm already doing the best i can and i have a sneaking suspicion
that you might be too, so i'm pretty damn thankful--
confused, but thankful.

and since it is lent and we aren't so say all*l%&!, i won't, but i'm thinking it, and God knows and that is probably OK.

Posted by crymytinyflood at 11:09 AM

18 de Febrero 2008

a confession in favor of the church of gay

sometimes i am really selfish...
there is a midpoint between thinking only of myself and not knowing who the hell i am, it is a moment when i am not entirely myself, i am just sort of a self: self-ish. and it is still in its experimental stages.
and it is very messy, like when all the little ballerinas would show up with their laces out and their hairdos all fuzzy and falling out and it isn't quite right but it is OK, for a little while at least, because the only alternative is to shellac their baby bangs with hairspray, which is pretty gross on a five year old.

and i have these momentary lapses in judgment.
like telling my friend (who happens to be gay which isn't a huge part of our relationship but it is a huge part of this story) that if my church won't hire me full time i can just stay home and make babies. which turned out to be rubbing his face in it because he would love to do that but he doesn't have the parts. and then i just kept going, i didn't even apply the breaks. I said, "You should be a children and family minister; you'd be great." because he would. and that is that.

i honestly think i have the best job on the planet and if my theory about the importance of children's ministries and his idea about the church of gay would or could or might someday (if i have my way) intersect, then things would be even better.
I told my lovely straight husband (who happens to be straight which IS a huge part of our relationship as well as a huge part of the story) and he said, "people would freak out." and i said, "not all of them." which is also very true.

sometimes people are concerned about their/my qualifications: "if i'm not married can i offer premarital counseling?" "if you don't have kids, do you think you should really be working with families like you do?" (in all honesty, my poetry professor would freak out at me if she heard the details of my life at present "But are you getting your WRITING done?!" she would squeak out at me.)

And then i remember that there is Amy Sedaris who wrote a book about entertaining called I Like You. Now i don't know if Amy's parties are any good but i know that she thinks that when you invite someone to a party it is just her way of saying, "I Like You". And that is how she goes about throwing fabulous, iingenius parties... i guess.

what if my only qualification was that i care. my resume would just be a long list of times when i really liked my students, or times when they tried to make me not like them, but i did anyway. and the educational experience part would be about some poems i wrote about how much i like you.

so how can things get so complicated that such a rare person who really cares about these little kids would freak us out by doing so?

it is just hard to see where my friend's heart breaks and then watch him walk away from that ache because he is too tired or too busy or he thinks he is too fragile or just hasn't figured out how badly we need people like him or whatEVER it is that keeps him from doing what he really wants. Don't get me wrong; i could just be putting words into his mouth and not doing this problem any justice. But that is my prerogative i guess because you don't know him and you might never get to but i think you ought to at least think about this problem.

It is like a sad super hero hanging up his tights because the headlines were full of bad news. And i understand certain kinds of exhaustion but i also understand the power of exhortation.

so you better know that i am sort of sorry for being so self-ish and dragging you back and forth across the desert of your desires by way of exulting my own.
but i'm not that sorry.

because i like you.

Posted by crymytinyflood at 10:36 AM

17 de Enero 2008

on a less upsetting note

pretty much another PSA, for your own protection.
i thought i should tell you that i am running into a lot of people named Abigail.
you should tell you: they are all very good people. we are a group to be reckoned with.
just be careful not to confuse one for the other, that will probably piss each one off. And be sure to ask whether you will be allowed to call us Abi, Abbey, or Abby.
some of us hate it, no matter how you spell it.
Thank you.

Posted by crymytinyflood at 2:28 PM

30 de Diciembre 2007

short cut

sometimes a hair cut is the answer.
just consider it.
it is often more helpful than not.

Posted by crymytinyflood at 4:35 PM

26 de Febrero 2007

lent

best for praying
when you are most
lonely
http://web.mac.com/benjaminoldham/iWeb/Ask%20For%20Wonder/Lenten%20Prayers/Lenten%20Prayers.html

Posted by crymytinyflood at 3:47 PM

2 de Mayo 2006

arty tooty,

he was there, in the photograph, a large white spot with blue stripes, behind the giant Lego sculpture of Darth Vader. I could have taught them how to write his name months ago (a couple consonants and "the second number in the alphabet"), I could have taught them not to shout out when they are excited but I just think that at the right moment I am glad they are still calling them as they see them... after all, I'd be hard pressed to tell Jo Jo, "no, baloney isn't one of the fine foods the city mouse fed the country mouse when the two sat down to a fancy dinner."

Posted by crymytinyflood at 9:06 PM

17 de Marzo 2006

we go over the rules sometimes

at morning circle.
this morning i chose the one about poop on your finger:
don't panic.
that is what i told them.
and i think it is pretty good advice.
or at least a good rule... i mean, if you have to have rules to keep poop off the stall wall.

Posted by crymytinyflood at 6:10 PM

21 de Agosto 2005

one funny thing

Martin happens to have taken pictures of most of the people I stare at when we drive through Gilroy. Today it was a kid who looked too young to be driving a 1968 Volkswagen bug painted to look like Herbie.
"I know that kid."
"Which one?"
"The one you were looking at. He has chickens."
"Oh." (Keep in mind I am still feeling a little under the weather, trying to sit still and keep quiet.)
"They call him the chicken whisperer. His chickens are real calm."
I laughed really hard and kind of honked.
He is a very important kid. This is the second article.
This is the first.
Just thought you might want to know what it is like around here right now.

If that doesn't work, you can wait until September 19th at 8pm and watch the season premier of Arrested Development... whee!

Posted by crymytinyflood at 8:33 PM

14 de Agosto 2005

Super glue.

Swan Lake is back.
And just in time to glue yourself back together after the holidays.

On the flight home I sat next to a man who grilled the pilot in the aisle seat until the latter opened up his copy of the new Harry Potter book. I have come to understand that landing a plane is like playing the drums, all hands lifting and dropping at the right time while feet and ears follow a rythm.
But I have known for some time that playing the drums is about toes and fingers too.
The ballet explains all of this, don't you see? landing gear, trap sets, Tendue, sur le coup de pie, (French spelling abilities aside) you learn to curve your arm for a drop of water and it tells the truth, and you can even be taught to keep yourself from getting dizzy in the turning. No wonder we send little girls as soon as they can stand still; it is good to know what your arms are doing and how to keep from falling down when things fall apart.
Find your Bill Withers record and put it on. That works even if your eyes are closed: we have to stick together.

Posted by crymytinyflood at 10:36 PM

13 de Agosto 2005

+,-

While I was away my cat fell out the window and landed in a bush with purple flowers. At least we know she lives with the right family; it has been a difficult week.
Two good things: first, taking showers at someone else's house means you can use all the fancy potions they keep in there. I can't recommend using the bar soaps-that is gross-but the sparkling moisturizing body wash and the fruit salad fortified microbead facial and the sea salt exfoliating scrub that feels like scratching itches you didn't know you had. If you are really lucky they will offer you a washcloth and you can just stand there with a hot washcloth over your face and breathe in, out and think about how to get your poems to rhyme or a word for the sound of your friend telling you "I don't know" and how comforting it is.
second, when you get home there are welcome home phone calls.
Home is a very new thing to me; it is important to keep track of what it is like to be home and not home... that way, when I begin to panic at the idea of sleeping in the same bed every night, I can tell myself to shut up. After all, the cat wasn't trying to run away, she was trying to take a nap.

Posted by crymytinyflood at 11:43 PM

6 de Agosto 2005

since more than one person asked:

I think this might make marriage out to be bad, but it isn't: I just want you to know what it is really like so you know the strange parts a little better
Lots of people will tell you there are good parts but they won't tell you how the good parts of the lollipop have some little bits of fuzz to get around.

I have heard that for marriage you choose someone you really want to annoy for the rest of your life.
What I have found to be true: you come to understand that this person has every reason to hate you, absolutely, but he is unable to get past the promise to be loyal and take up for you and live in peace. And so he doesn't hate you, even if he should. It just isn't in him because he would have to hate himself enough for making those vows in order to break them, and he isn't about to hate himself and you at the same time, it would really be worse than imaginable... so he doesn't hate you. It is a mystery how two people become folded together like this. It has something to do with hope and (ouch) love, I think.

Continue reading "since more than one person asked:"

Posted by crymytinyflood at 9:18 PM

5 de Agosto 2005

Tout le monde est une nonne

Gerard Manley Hopkins is still one of my favorite poets ever.
And when I begin to think I really messed things up and I am definitely going to get what I deserve, I read The Wreck of the Deutschland. It is nice and long so that by the end of it I either feel bad enough to really do something about my most recent offense or I feel much better.

The aforementioned Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket has a similar effect but it is short a nun or two.

Posted by crymytinyflood at 9:04 AM

2 de Agosto 2005

Good luck exploring the infinite abyss

A friend of mine was recently smacked in the butt by a bus driver on account of her questionable behavior and the way I am feeling right now, I can't let this one die.
I am coming to think that we are responsible for helping each other out.
Being married is supposed to give you another chance to get holy. Do we really know, instinctively, that love leads to commitment?
There are plenty of people out there who know me; People who will tell you how much I like beer and hate to nap alone. But what they might not tell you is that I am very stubborn and I have to watch my favorite movies on a rotating schedule just to stay cogent. Oh, and I never know how to end a phone call; I always count to three or else I don't say goodbye at all: I just clap the phone shut. Also, I have a pronounced uni brow but I pluck it so I don't scare my students' parents.
I have been to exactly one very catholic funeral. The Priest kept saying "blessedartthowwwah MUNnnnnnGwimmen." It was my husband's grandma Celia's body lying quietly behind him (she was taking some romance novels to wherever she was going-- they were there in the pink casket with her). I couldn't really cry. I had to be brave. It is a wife thing.
I nearly cried the other day when the hairspray I took from her bathroom clogged up.
I think I didn't talk to her enough before she died, which is wierd because I sure as hell can talk. But, by marriage, we were responsible for each other. Its this spiritual connection, see.
It isn't as if I was her bus driver, obligated to let her know if her bad personality took over.
You just have to know to whom you are connected and your obligations, that is all.
I'm telling you, try to figure out who you belong to. It is important.
"Don't tease me about my hobbies, I don't tease you about being an asshole."-Garden State

Posted by crymytinyflood at 7:19 PM

27 de Julio 2005

slow choosing

Grape soda will not quench even a weak thirst
You would do better to sit still and watch a good movie to take your mind off thirst entirely.
I'm just saying, is all.

In fact, I am finding that it takes a great deal of thinking to figure out what I want when I want something. And, do you think I could be the only person who has this problem?
My students are not like this. They give names to the things they want-and right away. (They are still pretty small.)
I am getting to be a slow chooser.
Sitting still, waiting for the answers to come, I've been watching a lot of good movies.

Of course, I'm supposed to be getting my writing done. Somehow writing turned into this horrible way to poke at my problems and make fun of them. But the way poetry works--hiding things, semantics blur and syntax breaks things apart--makes me a little too reliant on taking my time.
I am reading through, um, Robert Lowell... all the while telling myself I am working.

A blog is a consolation to my inside editor, and good practice at a bad habit... did you read Harriet the Spy? You have to at least go look at it. The book is such a heartbreak. Let me know what you think of amazon's new features. I haven't yet decided if I like it, especially when my computer wouldn't allow me to link you to the sneak peak page... which is really nice.

Posted by crymytinyflood at 5:23 PM