Wrap your head with this material...

Sometimes when I want to read, I can't. I fill with distaste and disdain for each book I pick up, because none of it is Maya Angelou, or Toni Morrison, or the literary meal I need to sate my soul's craving for meaning and a cosmic guide for that moment in life. The problem with the book I’m reading isn’t the story. It’s the problem of my living. The rote nature of it. The sentences– simple declaratives, the tasks –things that get struck from a list, done and redone. Remember? See it? Done. Life. Life is not merely written down like any other list of things not to be forgotten, but witnessed so never forgotten  even after memory failed to hit record,  because a day was witnessed at its onset is the answer. It’s the lack of feeling mornings, not the story of what happened. The lack of witnessing. Mornings, that time of awakening at t he birth of the world watch an egret’s legs in water, slender limbs glistening beneath a cool tide pool surface barely moved in the stillness of a d

Rob was talking about how a presenter at a conference he was at hadn't seen him until she was mid-slide. She interrupted her presentation and said, "Hi Rob. You still look young even with the gray hair." The kids picked up the rope and Gavin argued, "Mom looks way younger than Dad." Magnus whispered, "she has more wrinkles though." "That's cuz she smiles  more, no offense Dad." I've always known I'd have great laugh lines because I smile a lot. And now I do.

Rumi said to treat each morning like a new arrival to ourselves as if we are a guest house . A day may bring darkness that sweeps us of our furniture and destroys parts but doing so makes room for another guest. Another morning.  I wonder if we treated this life like a Meow Wolf exhibit imbued with fervent curiosity, would that work just as well? Here wonders expand us and allow our minds to be at once separate yet converging on a moment of experience.  You are here.  I will die.  We are here.  We will cry.  Not denying the fear of death/misfortune/endings but not avoiding either.  Enthusiasm and curiosity, a drive to see and touch and feel the bright colors drives forward. It all compels you too. Forward from room to room. Open the sky.  Treat each moment like an experience that has a place and allow it to expand us, to be curious about it. Where does regret live in my body? Does it have weight or zip? Tendrils or a forcefield? How does it vibrate my body to bits or shake me to feel h

 For Christmas, I found my first silver hair, then more and more and more of them. They're hard to detect in the ash blonde surrounding them, but they're there. I saw them in the fluorescent hotel bathroom in Mexico. I have two reactions. I am elated at the idea of winning the hair lottery with first a beautiful color of blonde hair followed by the best color of gray.  And I am thrown by the idea of not being blonde and the way it chucks my identity around like I've just found myself in a rock tumbler. 10 years is what it takes to go gray. 10 years bouncing around, aging to old.  What if you don't recognize me or think I'm beautiful anymore? What if it means you don't know me? And the most bizarre is the idea that I don't know this self I am set to become. I'm the person who still jumps off cliffs and dances and blares music.  How do I reconcile that concept of self with a silver haired woman? I'm not cute and quiet and docile. I don't bake cooki

 We're in Mexico. The kids are watching TV. "Is that a soap opera?" "No, it's The Smurfs!"  

 I'm writing again and it's good to be in another world in my mind. I build it from scraps that interest me. A sound wave I ride into another 3D world created by sounds themselves.  Climb a tree with giant knots and consider how your foot fits into its crooks and know the reds in its bark even though you never left the library. I smell the cedar.  Anywhere's exactly where I needed to be for the story to come free. Sometimes I hunt factoids and digest them instead of weaving them in. Sometimes, I put them in a box to save for wrapping up just right in story and language. Tissue paper placed just so, box-lid laid down slow. And don't forget the bow. This tale I'm weaving is becoming a scarf over my head protecting me from thinking too much about the unraveling world around me. I will pull you in, give you a cup of hot story tea, and you'll drink down the magic wending its way through these threads. I have lost myself entirely here and good riddance too. Attachment