Autumn

Sitting in the Archive on a lovely fall day, I found the perfect words of how autumn touches me:

I would say this for the leaves:
That they comfort me,
And though my heart is heavy,
Such light in pools of color below,
Such light in shimmering color above,
Such a soft richness of quiet turning
Lifts and blesses my eyes
That I might turn like them
Upon a pliant stem
Until the clean break at the neat crescent place,
The edge designed for letting go,
Sets me free to drift,
A bright gash against the dark air.
And seeing grey limbs appear,
Tree by tree like naked bones
Drying in the lingering sun,
I too feel the downward pull of the sap
Hidden and waiting to transform.
~Mary Chivers

This week, last year, already a year, you were still here. You were leaving, but some piece of you was here. I don't understand where you went, nor do I understand how maybe you went nowhere, but plainly ceased to be. I've waited for a year now, to have some understand it. I've went through a few days here or there when I didn't even think about your absence. There were days when I would catch myself realizing that I was chasing some fantasy of calling you to tell you about something that happened or somthing I saw. Those moments were like emotional exclamation points that floored me, knowing that I would never be able to do that again.
All of this, I live with each day, and I get by.
What it is that always tears me into pieces and breaks my heart all over again is to hear John Lennon's voice. It transports me back to that room, with you, playing his music for you, trying to find what I thought would give you some last feeling of peace in this world.
A year ago you were dying. A year ago I still could hold your hand and it was warm.
I still miss you so terribly.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Black bird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
all your life
you were only waiting for this moment to be free

Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.

Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.

Turning the Page

Where do you think I've been?



I've been spending many hours here; getting ready to let you, and anyone who loves a good book, through the front door.
Soon.
The Archive
Come check us out....

Interview with a blog

Let it be for something

This is what death is, most of all: everything that has been seen, will have been seen for nothing. Mourning over what we have perceived.
-François Wahl

Two threads from Rilke

One month has gone by. Full of days, and broken-sleep nights. The hole is still here, it is no smaller and no less painful. I think I do feel a little numb more frequently. Yet still no comfort. I miss you.



I love the dark hours of my being.
My mind deepens into them.
There I can find, as in old letters,
the days of my life, already lived,
and held like a legend, and understood.

Then the knowing comes: I can open
to another life that's wide and timeless.

So I am sometimes like a tree
rustling over a gravesite
and making real the dream
of the one its living roots
embrace:

a dream once lost
among sorrows and songs.



Everything is far
and long gone by.
I think that the star
glittering above me
has been dead for a million years.
I think there were tears
in the car I heard pass
and something terrible was said.
A clock has stopped striking in the house
across the road...
When did it start?...
I would like to step out of my heart
an go walking beneath the enormous sky.
I would like to pray.
And surely of all the stars that perished
long ago,
one still exists.
I think that I know
which one it is--
which one, at the end of its beam in the sky,
stands like a white city...

While My Heart Gently Weeps

My father, who was always my Da.

I do not know how to stop speaking to you, but I do not know how to start, knowing that this will be a one sided conversation. I cannot stand the thought of you out there, waiting for me to start either.

I was always careful about my beliefs, especially about the big things, like death. I have never had an opinion that was fully formed about it, nevertheless, I did have certain ideas. Thoughts on what happens as that last breath leaves the body, where does that life go? What is left, is anything?

All that I held to be somewhat true, in theory, has crashed down around me, and I'm left standing in the midst of all the shattered pieces, and there is nothing. No answers, no comfort, just a huge gaping hole that starts hurting at my heart and moves through me in waves, through my eyes, my brain and my lungs. I am not believing that you are truly gone, but I have no proof of that, only my hopefulness that I'll wake up and be able to call you. I stare at my hands, and see your hands, surely that can't be what people mean when they say you will always live in me. It only makes my hands feel like an echo that never finds its depths, or a response on the other side of the mountain.

All my thoughts of you unravel, and come back to the last days. Watching you by the window, trying to imagine what you were seeing, were you dreaming backwards? I want to remember all the stories, but can't seem to unless someone else is telling them. I have dreams, over and over, of trying to still hold your hand, and being in that room, trying to still talk to you. I walk through trees, trying to see for you, to give you the world that I see, now that you do not have your own.

But all of it feels like a ruse, I cannot understand where you went. And for now, I cannot accept it. Maybe in time, but for now I am not ready to say goodbye.

I breath through the waves of loss, at moments it is almost too much, but really it is never too much. I just keep breathing

Origin

I often think about how my family, maternal and paternal ended up in the town I was born in and where I spent my formative years, until I got the hell out of there. Both of my grandfathers moved to the town to work at the Steel Mill in the 1950s. From California, from Kansas - places that were worlds away from this place. The Steel Mill was such an ominous fixture in the town, that growing up with it you developed a fondness for it because it was part of you and your own childish identity, it was part of the skyline and it was a landmark for knowing where you were at all times - the smoke stacks being the tallest thing around. It was with a sentimental sadness that I noted some of the towers disappearing over the years. A few were taken down when I still lived there, almost fifteen years in the past. Now, when I go home to visit, there remain just a skeletal few to hold vigil on the horizon. It's not that I think the smokestacks are a lovely part of that place, in fact it's just part of the memory I do have of this place that I usually refer as a frozen reach of hell.
If these pictures do not recall inferno-like nightmares for you, I shudder to think of where you come from. It didn't look quite like these images when I lived there, but somehow these old postcards depict, perfectly, how I feel about that place. Except, now, it's just a ghost of itself, and that is even more sad than if it were still going full-steam into the farthest reaches of hell.

Chelsea Green » Blog Archive » Urban Apiculture: Raise Bees in Your Apartment

Chelsea Green » Blog Archive » Urban Apiculture: Raise Bees in Your Apartment

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The New Music Circle Presents:
May These Changes

MAKE US LIGHT

Sunday December 14th 7 pm

Saturday December 20th - 5 pm & 7 pm

at the NEW CITY SCHOOL THEATRE -

5209 Waterman Ave (entrance on Lake) $10

A young adventurer seeks the council of Santa Claus on a quest to meet the most inspiring entities of Earth. On his journey to the North, he encounters other unexpected and yet extraordinary individuals: Atnas, the environmental activist; the Snowqueen, guardian of the North; Mrs. Claus; and many creatures and elves.
Interwoven with this experimental film narrative are performances from a cast of St. Louis talent: The Universal Lotus Lovers Acroyoga troupe, choreographers Rebecca Rivas and Carrie Dobsch, movers and musicians Amanda Jokerst, Amber Dover, and Willy Zep, singers and songwriters Mark Pagano and Celia, the Yuletide Express Christmas Choir, Native American flutist and digeridoo player Brad Smith, Emily Hemeyer on dulcimer and improvisational vocals, singer and lovebomb Na-do with her daughter Safa, video mixer Mike Pagano, artist and actor Jeffrey Miller, visual artist and community mover Lyndsey Scott as Atnas, and visionary conceptualist Kelsey LaPoint as the storyteller.
Experience a radical adventure and remaking of the Christmas myth!

Link Too

Good trash

One Million Beer Bottles Later and it’s a Buddhist Temple

Growing Directions not yet Defined

I have had many journeys, been uprooted, wandered aimlessly and not. Intentionally left everything behind only to find pieces packed away, and have forgotten things that I meant to carry with me. There have been meandering paths that lead to places I've never considered, let alone imagined, and there have also been loops that I've made over and over.
Days go by that I don't even think of the me that I was before I was this me, and times also that I feel that I am still very much the me I always am. Sometimes I get caught up in memories and relive days and moments and slivers of dreams.
I still know what I want and know that I am also only a fraction of the way to becoming who I've always imagined myself to be. And yet I am always just here.
There are gardens in my life, my meditation. I am full in my soul from the beauty that is so unpredictable in this world.
The more roots I am able to grow the more stable and satisfied I become.
The process of this used to scare me, made me feel bound to just one place, one decision, one future. I am beginning to understand that it doesn't have to be that way. I can let these pieces of my life thrive and live more fully in each moment through this realization.
It is good.

Requested by Cassie

Back in some other time, Cassie and I made each other mix tapes. She always made cool sleeves for hers. This was the most treasured sleeve. In fact, I liked it so much that I still have it even though the tape is long gone, lying on some highway where an ex-boyfriend threw it out the window. (bastard)

This is a flat version, the group was actually part of the fold inside.
















This is the inside with the playlist. I almost didn't put this part up due to the appearance of the "essay", but what the hell....
The only thing about it, Cassie, is the Brian Adam's clip isn't even noted on here, but I remember distinctly having to fast forward at the end of the second side everytime it came on.

Digging through my box of tapes I felt compelled to listen to them again and then realized I don't even have a tape player anymore.
Nevertheless, I couldn't pass up posting this cover. After all I was going to marry him....

Ode to an Orb

My new favorite fruit is the Blood Orange.

Everytime I eat one I feel like I'm eating a sunset.

I want to have a tree of them, all for myself.

Here Today, Tomorrow, Sometimes

I'm still around, but mostly I'm busy doing this

A Memory Now

Over the years, we grew apart.
I like to think that every time I came back you remembered me.
You'd greet me as though I hadn't be absent for yet another year or more.
We traveled thousands of miles together, and I'll never forget the time you ripped the door off in fear and frustration. You were the only one there with me, stranded in Kansas. You kept me sane on that trip.
Another time that I was leaving, but this time taking you with me, I searched for hours wandering the streets crying out to you, not willing to leave you behind.
I finally did find a safe place for you, and I think you were happy.
You set my standards high and I always held you up in comparison to all the ones that followed you. It's a little silly, but even my husband has your name.
Now, you are my memory. I'm so sorry I didn't get to say goodbye to you.
The nights we'd lay in bed while I read a book and all of the other times you gave me comfort, I won't forget.
Goodbye Tomas.

The dry streambed that once contained a branch of the Fountain of Youth

It's been a week.
If you want to slow time down a bit,
Try smoking, if you don't already.
And then quit.
It works.

New

I have new things.
Here are a few.
In November Dilaram and I got married.
I quit smoking, this is only my fourth day, but it feels like an eternity. I'm determined this time, and yet I still feel like I could relapse at any moment.
We will be going to Hawaii in less than a month. I don't even own a swim suit, but I am advised if I want to see dolphins and sea turtles I need one.
Oh yeah, I also plunged into this new year with good intentions like doing yoga a lot and being healthy. So far I'm off to a good start.
I think it's a vast improvement over how 2007 started off.

Offensive Carcass

I was just reading a local blog that was discussing a petition for Anti-smoking legislation for any public space, what it really targets is places like food establishments and bars.
Having just returned from a trip that required air travel, to a city that already has and indoor smoking ban through out, I have to say a few things.
Firstly, I have no problem with stepping outside to smoke. I get that people don't like a lot of things that their fellow humans do, and don't want to be subjected to what they don't like. I'm not at all going to try to force someone to smoke with me, against their will. I try to be respectful, I don't stand right in front of the exit where they have to walk through a cloud of smoke. I don't blow it at people as they walk by. I don't even throw my butts at people who give me dirty looks and just generally look annoying.
Talk about anti-smoking anything always raises a few questions - such as - car exhaust, pollution, obesity. All these other things that cause more health problems than second-hand smoke. I've heard just about everything.
One thing I haven't heard, but think ALL THE TIME, is about the offensiveness of the carcass eaters food choices. I hate going to into a restaurant and being immediately attacked by the odor of carcass being baked, fried, sliced, diced, sauteed, boiled and chewed. Should I start trying to get laws passed about the unfairness of this? Why should I be subjected to having my pores being saturated with carcass greases and reminded of what all the carcass eaters will being carrying around in their colons for the next week?
The very idea that I would try to do such a thing would be very unpopular with most people - as most people in this country (and elsewhere) are partakers of animal flesh. I know that it wouldn't get very far and I'd be considered insane and silly.
And so, I just don't frequent places that are overtly focused on carcass-chomping. It's that simple. I don't have to attend Renaissance Festivals where people walk around chewing on turkey limbs, and I don't have to eat a wilted salad at a sizzling-cow buffet. Get over it, you always have the choice to just stay at home, at least then you wouldn't be polluting the air with your car exhaust.

Un-mother

It can come out of nowhere. You might be sitting alone as night is
falling around you and it will rush into your head like a freight train
that has no manners. Sometimes it is a creeping thing that slowly
insinuates itself into your conscious thoughts.
The memories of hurtful words, biting and cutting at your confidence and resolve.
The things that people say to each other, out of anger, jealousy, self-hatred that is misdirected.
I
don't know why, out of all the things that someone might say to me,
that I would remember such things. These words, though, they scarred
me. They touched me more than any of the beautiful poems, the loving
embraces and longing gazes sent my direction. I can't even remember the
goodness -and I'm sure there must have been- because of one very short,
but very cutting remark.
I look at this comment from different
angles, trying to grasp a different feeling from it, but it still hurts
just like the first time you said it.Every time my memory replays it, it becomes more sinister.
Why does anyone carry such sadness with them? Why do I think I've let it go, only to find it lingering?
Surely
I've said things like this, to people I've loved. Something that they
carry through all their experiences, such a horrible way to remember
pieces of me that I've shared with them. Knowing this, that I too have
also caused this kind of pain, doesn't make me feel better, nor do I find it justifiable. But it makes it somehow more bearable in the sense that I can let go of my hatred of ones who have hurt me. For I also, have been a murderer of love.

Take the only tree that's left, and stuff it up the hole in your culture

Quite contrary.
I've a baby-blog that will hopefully be documenting the progress on our community garden. In my links, it is Seeds of change, or garden link
I don't know how much I have in me to write here at the moment, but out of necessity I will be making entries on the other blog, which may seem very focused and perhaps even boring or localized. I guess that's what the midwest has given me.