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following cords

I’m walking up a hill, and my legs are like lead, struggling with each step to lift the leg enough off the ground to move it forward and set it down again, and then the next one. I’m embarrassed by my infirmity and try to hide it from anyone’s notice– I can’t hide the slowness of my progress, but I hide every other telltale sign, grimacing only inwardly. finally, in sheer gratitude, I make it to the top of the hill.

we’re in a lawyer’s office to discuss some type of pro-bono case, when the lawyer has to rush off to a high-profile meeting– he seems kind of hassled out that we’re there, but we have nowhere else to go. he’s rushing around, looking for something he’s misplaced– at first I think it’s his pen, but then he says his cell phone– he’s all irritated and can’t be bothered to ask for help looking. I suggest the couch cushions, and he impatiently says, no, no, I already looked there, but the couch has a bunch of stuff on it and looks to me like the likeliest place– so I go over and start pawing through the piles of newpapers and stray cushions and see a couple of cell phone earbuds and am sure I’m on the right track– I hear a beep, followed by a girl’s voice saying, hello? hello? out of the depths of the seat cushions and dig around and find a blackberry, all illuminated, and a girl on the other end of the line and hand it over to the lawyer– but it only turns out to be his daughter’s cell phone, and her voice on the end of the line– so I go back to searching, following cords down into the very guts of the sofa, inside the stitching, but come up only with dead ends.

I go down the hall in my dormitory to the room of a girl who keeps to herself and whom I’m not entirely sure I like– I think I’ll catch her while she’s out, but she’s there, just for a moment– I’m eyeing a little dollhouse-type structure that looks like it’s filled with tiny chili pepper lights and trying to figure out how it works– she lifts off the roof and unwinds the lights from the tiny chimney and hands me the plug end and points past my shoulder to another plug end, and I attach them and, hey presto, string lights. I’m a little disappointed that the lights aren’t set up the illuminate the tiny house– there’s some resistance I feel about investing in this temporary place, and it bothers me somehow that she’d blythely set up string lights in the room as if they’d be there forever.

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home and away

I’ve spent all day at some fun, sxsw-type conference with friends and am planning to go back out again but have stopped back at home to change. the family is having dinner, so I sit down with them– just my mom and dad and one of my brothers, actually– and my mom starts pissing me off and I don’t feel like humoring her or backing down– so I start to say all the horrible things I feel– like, it always has to be about you— which feels like the greatest sacrilege, speaking such a huge, bald truth. my brother leaps to her defense, putting me right back in my place, making reference to what I’ve been doing before I came to the table– and it’s true that out with my friends I’ve had a couple of glasses of wine and smoked some pot– but I know that’s not really why I’m saying the things I’m saying, that they’re true. I keep saying this, and my brother mimicks me, you keep saying that, (his voice going up) ‘it’s true, it’s true.’ at that point I lose it, so angry at being made into a cartoon, and fling my plate at the wall like a frisbee, and, amazingly, it doesn’t shatter, only bounces off and crosses the room and bounces off the opposite wall and ricochets back again, finally clattering the the floor whole. we all just kind of sit there for a minute, processing, and then I get up and walk off to change.

I’m in maine, walking down a sandy road, when I glance over and notice some people standing by several tall bushes that line the roadside, and as I walk by, I realize they’re blueberry bushes just laden with fat fruit. I rush off the road and over to the nearest bush, exclaiming to the person who’s walking with me, look! look! blueberries!— but she just doesn’t get my ecstasies. I’m thinking of huron mountain, thinking of the best kind of home I know, represented here and now in these dark-shining berries– and it’s better now, here, something I have discovered all on my own– more generous than the mean little bushes of michigan. there are people riding horseback along the road, and I want that, too, want all of it, am so full and grateful and happy.

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inside the wright house

we go to see the frank lloyd wright house in san francisco, that neighborhood by the golden gate bridge– we walk along the steet outside of it and look up along a high cliff wall, and there are planes of water, right angles, staggered parallel lines– we can just make it out overhead, water glinting in available light. my friend has her camera and tries to shoot up the cliff– I’m dubious of the results from our angle. we find our way to an entrance, and the whole thing seems boarded up, closed down, deserted. we recall some story about the well-to-do family who had owned it, famous people, american royalty, and some family tragedy– like the lindberg baby. we sneak in through the dirty boards– I’m wearing white painter’s pants and think to myself, great choice, as I kneel on the filthy stairs. inside upstairs is still and dim, perfectly preserved– expensive, old-fashioned heavy wood furniture– darkness more like a castle than a wright house– yes, it’s sort of hearst castle, post- patty’s abduction. there’s a huge mahogany fireplace. but it all seems to be abandoned. we walk through once, whispering, looking at everything, and then leave– it’s when we go back that we get in trouble– walking through again, we notice a door closed that had been ajar before– and just as I see it, before I have time to alert the others and get us out of there, he appears, saying, well, well, well– to what do I owe the honor of this visit? we are so busted, stammering, apologizing– all but the little sister, who, unabashed, asks him for a momento. we’re down the stairs in a flash and only looking back for the little sister, wishing she would come away– but she’s unpertubed. finally, in her own good time, she shows up with a fistful of jewelrey he’s apparently given to her, none of it terribly precious, but pretty stuff. we sort it out into necklaces, bracelets, and so on, and carefully undo the knots.

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treasure

weekend in chicago was lovely and bright, the possibilities there beginning to take concrete shape in people and talk of different jobs, hearing others’ moving and settling-in experiences. I’m also aware that I’m happy and awake and aware simply because I am— that I respond to everything in the outside world based on my internal weather– and the climes in here the past week or so are simply, unaccountably sunny– so the entire weekend in chicago is bright and easy because I feel bright and easy. and then back in iowa feel warm and wonderful with the circle of friends. and then all things everywhere, too many pieces to list, making me feel good connections to other people– and I just want it to go on and on– this— this feeling of all right, everything just okay. but I know it can’t always be this easy, and one thing to do is simply to be grateful for it. but really I wish I could bottle it up, save little life-saving ounces of it for the other times. make some kind of hay while the sun shines. keep writing– just writing whatever whatever whatever. god, this is a gasp– to be up out of it, in fresh air– to feel good-light, as opposed to unmoored– energized, head unencumbered, some huge impossible weight lifted so I can move freely. and from here it looks like nothing is so dire, so make-or-break– only what I do today and then what I do tomorrow, all equally viable and fine and tying together into the fine whole which is My Life– and that it doesn’t have to map to a master plan, doesn’t have to make a tidy narrative to a stranger at a dinner party– that I am me, fine, regardless of what I do– and that it’s going to be complicated being someone who wants to do so many different things– that there will be whole swaths of time when it seems to make no sense– but the sense it makes is slow and intuitive and just right for me. this is what I have to remember to trust. giving myself the time and space and permission to move forward blindly and trustingly, ending up here, here in this good good good place– warm and bright and aware that everything is just okay. I want to remember this, make a map back to this place, remember the steps it takes to reach this very spot.

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hauntings

I remember the precise look you gave and the way you put emphasis on which exact words. I could write it, like music, with accents and phrasing notations– and do what with it? music for whom? why write it, what use even remembering? no use. use not the point. just something you sit with, that humbles you. because after the other person picks up and moves on– the lover, friend, whatever– after the connection is severed, the tendril hangs until it atrophies. lots of people feel a ghost limb all their lives. others train themselves to see the air that sits there and move through it, unobstructed. I keep thinking of photographic double-exposure, three-dimensional chess, avant-garde film, club sandwiches, british buses, ladies’ bathrooms with mirrors set reflecting mirrors to infinity…

vanity talcum powder that itself seemed to pull through those mirrors from another decade– so still, so expensively appointed, the very room persisting from another era, a nicer one, in the classic sense. and when I was in there, running the silver-handled hairbrush through baby-fine, staticky hair or dousing the air with sneezy powder, it was as if I too stood inside a different time– an imaginary, tidy world where I could pretend for that moment to belong.

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lingua interna

nickleback, rolling waves of days. spent penny, blood penny, violet amaze. rain willow, wind pillow, tossing on breath waves. sung song, sprung wrong, toppled in a haze. catapulting wishmares, rocketing rolly dreambeasts, slow minutes, fast years, funhouse mapless days. second person in the dark, first weird in the mirror. you’ll be here, I’m leaving here, here falls through the map. they talk about bermuda, but iowa stumps the compass just as well– or anywhere the traveler works with a sensitive instrument. chasing waking sing-words, they rattle through the bones, hollow want, swollen urging– difficult to turn off the conscious mind and just listen, tune into the singer… shhhhh, quiet, mind– who’s humming in the dark, so tiny? shipless, rock-weary, speaking in riddles, humdrum harmonies on looping raw wings– stop stopping it! let’s try automatic writing– king space wrecked window lenses drawn dastardly down spilling raucous ringlet tears– so sad how the judge stomps in and says, no, no, no— turn him off and just transcribe– harmonies in my heart, silly songs that carry codes richer than dna– dreamier sequencing– shiver-plated rest wind, show sarah something– friable freezedried wicked will, hush, husk. tumble the sounds to see what pops out of its own fine accord—loud sprung half-cocked from a mussel shell—who baked it so literally—black naturally, but if you chip it, white lurking—tho then no longer the thing it was. reason here is twisty—stop chasing it, trust the sounds. she’s walking over miles with the small one on her shoulder—what should they encounter? confounding tribulations to get through in the end, with a minor base note setting the final harmony just off center… stop talking, and listen– shush me, somebody– words work wiggly-like– shape trader, shipwright billy, clubbed and smelling of smoke, sleeping in the dockside urban noon– pierced quite through– billy boy, where to? the inside of your head looks like something unfamiliar, hankering for a glimpse. all you billies, so other. slipping here, tiles slick with listening– tread too carefully and it will all get away… winter-spun cloud crowds staking down treetops, smoke stairways, vapor trails, paths through the blue so unsteppable– what looks solid, looks like something you could put a foot down on, doesn’t hold weight and you slip through. only in dreams does gravity give upwards. so this is writing, just-writing, spilling the words willy nilly, order hoped for later somewhere maybe, even just the wash of right now, this letting-go, discovery of something I didn’t know I could do. the spill on the page. whoso rude, so lavish in trash, split felt, rigorous– nonsense with sound– some sense where. hope alone. hope. so small, so much. slipping transcription, holding the reins only lightly, keeping loosening, trusting the animal under me, gallopy and frothing at times– bigger than me, certainly, never tamed, but courted with sugar and the occasional oat.

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not graduating exactly

I’m moving out of my boarding school dorm room, all these years later– all the other students are gone for summer break, and I’m scrambling to find enough boxes for all the accumulation of so many years– the boxes I had once seem to be long gone. what I’m doing living there still is a question never really answered or even properly addressed, but there’s a strong sense that I’m there long beyond my rightful time, something of an embarassment to the current students– and to myself, of course. so my moving our over break is a courtesy for everyone’s benefit. the ex-best-friend is around, voice on the answering maching or cell voicemail, somewhat at the edge of things, lurking.

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geologic formations

dachshund boxes– sometimes we fit snugly into odd spaces, shady alcoves with dishes of holy water to wash by– the places pop random and queer-fitting, tuckable with granite and pointing that squares us in– living sarcophagi we shake off and move out of with each shout of the alarm– out in the world where corners only occasionally invite you to crawl inside– suitcase closet, back booth, the palm of someone’s hand– but then they’re reaching for that glass, or a pile of shoes digs into your kidneys, and you realize it’s time to act like somebody upstanding. it’s a lot of work not to let the crumpling show. for some of us the bed pulls like north the needle. what do you do? keep getting up again, feet on the cold floor– practice gratitude for vertebrae that stack right, for certain mercies of random fortune like food in the fridge, hot water to stand under, transportation– for friends stretched wide like a net to catch you across the country. sometimes it’s hard to feel them so far away, like across town. all too easy to imagine we’re unconnected as we go through our glamorless routine and see the face in the mirror change. maybe inevitable to become strange to ourselves, as we’re always different than we were, what we thought we knew, but never did at the time. in the middle of the night the clock slows down and wakes you with the clamor of its gears– all the things not done: you think through every one, as if thinking were work itself. daily stacks happen– envelopes you can’t bear to open, gifts received, all the residue of that upright march that amounts to something unaccountable. another day you might sort it, find places to put new accumulations, brave the letter opener– in the mean time that day takes time arriving, and the drift across the desk develops sedimentary striations to mark events, anniversaries– left long enough it’ll grow petroglyphs, and maybe some scientific analysis might be performed. they’re doing amazing things with carbon and dna. left long enough, who knows, the scientist might even make some sense of what lived here. to be sure, the inhabitants themselves have little clue. the gods grumble and the ground erupts, just like that. not like our drilling might have anything to do with it. as if we were instrumental in our own doom. nobody in here but us primitive cultures, off the hook by shortsight. I’ve got glasses somewhere but can’t be bothered to wear them, dents on the bridge of the nose presenting a formidable obstacle.

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I am awake.

in the middle of the night during all these bouts of insomnia, I think and think through the different possibilities, turning it this way and that– never really arriving at any stunning conclusions– but just to have written one poem can carry me for days. forget audience, forget marketability. here’s a lifeline. forget a book. so many clumps of stuff that don’t quite cohere. so what. just keep trying to push myself to do some kind of work, some kind of play. don’t make it a project. there’s the struggle between the part of me that works intuitively, to the beat of an odd clock, and the other, magisterial part that tries to organize, oversee and plan ahead– feels like they’re positioned so at odds with one another. but keeping going needs to be enough.

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the little engine has to believe it can.

nothing seems to have more gravity or anchor than anything else. so I fight consciousness with every stitch and fiber, struggle just to stay sleeping, where the wheel is handed over to someone a lot smarter than conscious me and, to boot, there are no actions with disastrous and disappointing consequences.

I have a sort-of date later this evening, and I approach it with utter dread, sure that toads are going to climb out of my mouth and splat all over the table. I seem to be caught in a downward vortex of not-trying, of avoidance and shame and hiding out, and everything I do seems only engineered to spin it faster, to sink me. I know I need to kick upward, push back against the momentum, but it’s hard hard hard and I can’t quite see why.

am I sinking myself? determined to fail? urging for ruin? it doesn’t feel that way. feels like I’m struggling to get through. but so much disappointment. it’s like falling asleep, like letting oneself freeze to death, succumbing. I try and try and am not sure I know how to get someplace better. it’s been so, so long, and the more progress I make, the longer and harder seems the road. part of me says, well, that’s life, chica. it ain’t easy. but I just keep thinking: broken toy– sprung mechanism.

I know it’s going to keep being hard, pushing back against the pattern of habit, hard to drag myself into thinking in new ways. I need to pick myself up, brush myself off and start trying again– just start– a little bit here, a little bit there. start with the sit-ups and keep going. treat myself like a precious object. if I don’t, no one else will. this is my life. I have opportunity– if I can just pick myself up and try to quiet all the clamoring fears– possibility blooms kind and unjudging before me, spreads wide open– only believe in it, believe in myself– and stop buying into all the mean mental rot. I have a choice– to be perfectly okay. I have the say-so, no one else. it’s up to me.