I feel guilty and even anxious when I do my work. Not my writing work. My work work.
Archive for the ‘spring’ Category
memory
My round baby girl’s cheek against mine. The time I went with J to Santa Fe and climbed around in the dark, narrow pueblos even though I was pregnant. The scared thrill in my small son’s eyes as he wheeled around the corner to warn us about the wasp’s nest. The rainy morning I spent in bed with B in my lost bedroom under the eaves. Michael’s flannel shirt – the one I kept with me after he died. Everything I have now, everything I see now, reminds me of something I don’t have anymore. To remember subtends loss. I want it back. I want it all back.
stone
photo credit: bmcollins.
I feel like this sometimes. Tipped over. Not helpless, exactly. Not stuck. Just decidedly leaden. Or wooden. As though I must be here. Right here. Just like this. Don’t move.
pretty girl
photo by bmcollins
The buckles, the gold hardware, the triple rosette, the stacked stilleto heel, the mad hot orange. The bubbly, baubley, whimsy. Buy me a fluted drink. Take me to New York City. All the most beautiful things are ridiculous, outrageous (even offensive) and absolutely necessary.
the madness
In order: tulip trees, pale yellow peonies, and dark purple irises, a man smoking cigarette butts out of the gutter. A man riding an electric scooter in gridlock, a human sized model airplane on a double bus , turkey burgers and pinot noir. Wired magazine, a bath, a klonapin, text messaging. Dreams of shit and monster bites and screaming about failure.
travel time
People are all around me delivering things. Not just UPS and Fed/Ex and the fast messenger boys who sling legal briefs between midtown and Wall Street. The other ones. The illegal ones, I think, the ones that Desai wrote about in Inheritance of Loss. I think of them sleeping in basements. Maybe they are sharing apartments on St. Nicholas Ave. They hustle around on bikes too, but their bags are plastic and their bikes are cheap. They carry take-out coffee and Thai food and prescriptions and groceries. They are always sweet-faced, shy-looking boys. Except for the tired, round laundress named Aggie who makes me think of Dickens, a worn-out, good-hearted charwomen who speaks with an accent.
hurt
My mind is prickly sometimes: this thing – ouch! that thing – ouch! A dirty towel. Weak light. A ripped seam. Loud voices. This word. That expression. The way everything turns on a single cracked glass in the kitchen.
in dublin
Everything is as it is, as it should be. The old things are very, very old – and have echoes. The winebars are tiny, and delicious, and warm, and it’s damp outside when you are inside of them. Bookstores are everywhere – on every corner, good ones, with lots of real books. The cobblestones are so soft with time that they don’t hurt your feet. There aren’t very many “grocery stores.” The pubs really do close late and have tin ceilings. The art galleries are kind of threatening – as they should be – they make you feel alone. Hotels (except the Clarence) are hushed and just the right amount dowdy. And the clouds hang very sad and low when it is November. In the country side it’s a bit sad, but Dublin has just enough energy.
phrenology remix
I’ve been reading “The Mind and The Brain.” I’m interested in neuroplasticity right now, am fascinated by the idea that my mind – my free will – can shape my biological destiny. Schwartz writes about how we are made of little “bursts of experience.” I like the idea that every bit of my being is a dialectical relation.