Blog
Quote Winter
“What’s died wants to fall away
what’s mine isn’t mine to stay
when I try to keep something close to me
it keeps me from being free”– Nine Days
I am trying not to fight winter. It has been years since I’ve had to sustain myself through the freezing rain, feet of snow, and numbing cold that blankets Pennsylvania. Something about Oregon made it easier – it was a gentler season, with so much that remained lush and green. There wasn’t this sense of barrenness, this impression that everything living has stalled, frozen. I know there is something that remains alive through the dark, that all of life must adapt and change in order to survive. I am learning to adapt.
Here is the distance between two seasons of outward growth. Here is the stillness, the space to mourn the life that is gone and use what remains to begin planning the life ahead. I have been grieving the relationships I had cultivated in Portland, the comfort of physical proximity and presence of people very dear to me. I have been touched by their words and voices, their presence within me that ushers me forward along the path they have walked with me this far. I have been grieving my maternal grandmother, whose departure from this life last week has left a deep and unsettling emptiness. I have been compelled to fill that emptiness with the unconditional kindness and warmth to others that she exuded throughout my life. I have been grieving for the age of dissonance we live in, for the cruelty we inflict by turning people into abstractions, into the darkness in ourselves we want to control and wipe out. I have been looking my own darkness in the face, mindful of the ways I diminish or hurt myself that result in my unkind treatment of others.
I have returned to my source, to my family, and spent many nights in the studio my brother built as we cultivate this project to completion. My urge for outward connection, for finally sharing these songs with the world, is tempered by the desire to be true to the character of each song, and so in the spirit of winter I try to look deeply and be patient with the slow flow of life. There are days when I want to burrow into the blankets and sleep until it passes. It is much harder to be present to the difficult seasons. But how much we miss when we are trying not to look at something. How much it hurts when we try to cling to an old way of life, to remain static in our relationships. How many colors we miss when we try to shut out the cold.
30/30
The Spotlight and the Cage
You don’t know me now
I made it out somehow, I cut
myself from who I was when I
was always in your gaze
She’d dance and she would hide
She’d hold you like the tide, she’d try
try to wash you of your sorrow,
Try to carry all the weight
And oh, I know she
had to go, but I
miss the self that I thought I could be in your gaze
In the spotlight and the cage
We talk about the rage
The cities set ablaze, you tell me
not to get caught up,
that I can never end the hate
If I learn anything
from years of listening to you,
I won’t keep helping someone
who mistakes their fear for fate
And oh, I know I
had to go, ‘cause I
missed the self that I never could see in your gaze
in the spotlight and the cage
I don’t know me now,
the script I write without you,
how could I cut out the part of me
that would not let you down,
while it dragged me to the ground
And oh, I know she
had to go, but I
miss the self I could finally see in your gaze
I miss the spotlight and the cage
29/30
Adam
Something was missing
from his anatomy. He searched
his body without knowing
what he was looking for,
what it would feel like,
how large it was.
His hands always landed
on his smooth stretch of belly.
That had to have been significant.
How lonely, to bear no mark
of being tethered to anything.
How relieved he felt,
seeing Eve, cheeks full of apple,
handing him an answer to consume.
How incomplete it felt,
being perfect.
28/30
Each day is a rewrite of the rest so far.
Today, I write myself patient.
I give myself breaths that fill my lungs
like two plump balloons.
I float rather than walk.
When I open my mouth,
the sound of light rain on leaves comes out.
If it hurts where the skin is stitching back together,
I name it lovely and divine.
When I look at myself,
I do not use words like broken, or burned;
in fact, I try not to use words at all.
Tomorrow, I will be angry again.
I will name the violence in and around me,
make my own fire and watch what lights up.
I will not be afraid of hearing, of creating, dissonance.
But first, I need a bed as soft as a night sky.
I need the harmony of breath.
I need a peace so deep
I may move in and out
without kicking up the mud,
without making a ripple.
27/30
Ten Things I’ve Been
1. The hunter.
2. The man on the screen.
3. The fire of a hungry torch.
4. The stone of the walls.
5. The sea cradling relics in its arms.
6. The deer.
7. The man on the screen.
8. The smoke in her lungs.
9. The sound trapped inside.
10. The mist rising from the awakening earth.
25/30
1.
Before something is born,
there is discomfort.
There is nausea, vomiting,
the body cleansing itself of toxins.
There is the swelling of feet and joints,
the stretching and growing of protective tissues.
There is pressure on the organs and diaphragm,
pain in the breasts and back.
There is the widening of blood vessels,
the feel of flinging limbs against the walls of the uterus.
Before something is born,
it is carried.
Before something is born,
it acts on the body that holds it,
preparing for the act of radical severance.
2.
The videos and photos show city after city,
signs and hands in the air,
masks held over mouths.
Hundreds of thousands of bodies
bearing weight older than their bones.
The shops are boarded up.
The newsfeeds are saturated with names, verdicts, quotations.
There are voices advocating change,
silence hiding from it.
There is stretching, swelling, discomfort,
as everyone is confronted by truth
they must make room for,
or else shut doors against the burning streets.
3.
We know not what we carry,
but it is much more than the past,
much greater than what we already contain.
Gallery
Solidarity, on a global scale.
Wow..
23/30
I was wearing my brother’s pants
when I got in the accident. The denim was broken in
to where it felt like my own skin.
In the right hand pocket was a mala,
prayer beads made of aquamarine,
made by one of my best friends.
In little black shelf above the gearshift
was a ring made by another dear friend,
a protective crystal glued to a metal band.
The rips in the knees were the first things I saw
through the swirling white smoke of the airbag.
As I sat on a bench nearby waiting for the police
and looking at the passenger side, completely crushed in,
the beads slid through my damp palm.
The ring lay exactly where I’d left it
when I went through the front seat
picking possessions out of broken glass.
How powerful, to wear each other
over our own bodies.
How lucky we are,
being delivered each day by hands we trust
into a sudden and dangerous world.
22/30
Stuffed Cat
It wasn’t what it would have expected to become,
but it had no memory of ever having
expected anything. It just was. A strange
assortment of grey, fuzzy cloth, thread,
stuffing, and plastic. The junction of
the head and body pieces was feeble,
the head flopping weakly to one side.
The little girl fell asleep clutching it
with all of the strength of her tiny arm,
pressing it firmly to her side. Children
are so clumsy with life. It spills out of them
and stains everything they look at. The more
faded its eyes became, the more energy
collected in its soft fibers. The secrets she
whispered into its ears, the songs she sang
as she toddled, holding it by one paw.
It started to feel her terror when the lights
were turned off, wonder with her
in her solitary flights. It became its own form,
the giver of the comfort that she needed,
that she learned she could create.