sea kelp canopy
great heron cries miracles
walking on water
the last leaf to fall
descending and wondering
will her tree survive?
aching year-long crush
each atom of your body
vibrating harder
today you hugged me
later I held my arms tight
trembling aftershocks
something that I said
made your temperature rise
this small victory
Silicon Valley
empty weekend parking lot
learning how to drive
straining at the leash
two mallards just out of reach
tentatively quack
tender Christmas Eve
under a watchful white moon
look! up in the sky
battling the wind
seagull helicopters down
into white-capped waves
pushing the vacuum
extending the week's patience
with small household chores
welcoming the beach
sand in her bellybutton
the grit in her teeth
end of the season
the emptied farm rows waving
to cars passing by
our footsteps soften
a blanket of pine needles
covering the path
in his Santa hat
a Buddha statue laughing
harder than before
our sneakers slipping
on the shiny exposed roots
of sturdy-boned trees
surrounded by deer
rustling underbrush and twigs
their tell-tale whisper
winter's long darkness
lingering on my pillow
a chill in the air
cold moments waiting
our furnace groaning to life
out in the garage
sea otter and pup
swirling to one another
safe in mom's eddy
beyond the barbed fence
a field of black birds singing
to a winter sky
tangled potatoes
emerge from the dark pantry
wiping clear their eyes
racing the wave's curl
the board hangs for a moment
and then disappears
green porcelain frogs
motionless for their portrait
the crickets less so
familiar tremors
rattle this old house on stilts
the roar of the waves
For anyone who has been paying attention to this blog, you will know that I have a hankering for haiku. Well, I've decided to try something different today. I will call them Dream Sequences. Make of them whatever you will (that is, after all, the entire point).
It's an amusement park and you're so amused. Hanging upside down in your air lift ski lift aerial view of the sunset strip. And, boom!, with a click and a yank you've pulled the cord and gone done parachuted outta that cat bird seat. If this was a reality show, you'd be the winner, and I'd be the viewer flipping absent-mindedly through commercials featuring you.
Sitting across from me in the dining hall talking randomly about class notes class experiments class wars, I watch your mouth move around a stale biscuit made from an instant mix and a dull cardboard box. I look at your blouse and wonder why you're still clinging to the price tag, and I wonder what's on the price tag, and then I look at it more closely and the numbers are rising and falling like the tiny heartbeat breathing chest heaving breast of man. Only then do I understand supply and demand.
It's Paris in the twenties and you're surrounded by a circus of flappers and freaks. You light a cigarette for each one in turn, and from the smoke rising you detect a lie, a scent of deceit, and in that moment the future clings to you like a bad habit. The one closest to you looks up from her black rimmed spent eyes, and were in not for the mood lighting you'd quickly realize that he had other plans for you. It's a hard, nasty, battered and blue truth.
My ability to decorate is seriously flawed. I look at the walls full of kittens hanging on and raccoons peering out their beady little eyes. What magazines featured these centerfolds and thrust their way into my hands and forced their way onto these walls? Was it a junior high school fund raising subscription drive? Or was it something more sinister? A demon of perpetually bad interior decorating taste? Next up you'll show me a bathroom that features wide eyed drawings of children, or dogs playing poker.
Stepping into the bedroom, the house tips. It tips to the ocean, in the general direction of you, in the general direction of wetness. I can see the tide coming in, through the window, and I think to myself that this would be a nice way to die, drowning in you. But my habit of breathing forces me to step away from the window, back towards the center of the house, in the hopes that I will tip away from you, and in that moment I think "deja vu!" When, rather, you are my deja dreamed.
In the daylight I had seen the amulet, the elephant that never forgets. By night I had encountered the bald man. He tells me that he had an elephant tattooed across his chest, but that the execution was imperfect, and that he had just had it redone, in the form of a chick, only a chick wearing a beard, not unlike his own. I laughed and said that was delightful and suited him just fine. By morning I knew I had forgotten some essential fact of the situation, and tried to remedy the affair by wishing for an amulet of my own.
And thus concludes this installment of dream sequences.
So, 'twas mid-morning on Saturday November 24, 2007. I was hiking out at the Shoreline nature preserve. Then I looked out to the skies above Silicon Valley (in the general area of Mountain View and/or Sunnyvale). Was it a bird? Was it a plane? What is a Flying Google Nerdman? Heck if I know. I can only say that I couldn't identify it.
Caveat: I live near NASA Ames and Moffett airfield. So, I'd really like to believe that my UFO was piloted by little green military men instead of little green martians.
My observations of the mystery object in the sky follow:
- It wasn't a helicopter, plane, blimp, or zeppelin -- or, if it was, I couldn't identify it.
- It appeared to be triangular in shape, slow moving, and low to the ground -- which is why I thought it might be a hang glider and/or kite at first (even though it was not windy).
- But then I realized it was quite large, was moving much higher into the sky, and was rotating or spinning (sunlight kept glinting off of parts of the object).
- And at this point I was really PERPLEXED, as was the other person with me.
- After about 5 minutes of watching it, it wandered over the foothills toward the Santa Cruz coast.
I know at least two other people saw it -- two guys jogging pointed at it and kept jogging and pointing. Everyone else on the nature trail kept nattering away into their cellphones. That's the funny thing about Silicon Valley. Little green martians COULD show up hovering over highway 101, in broad daylight, and no one would notice as they've already been taken over by their gadgets.
If anyone else in the SF Bay Area saw it and/or knows what thing to my wondering eyes might have appeared, please leave a comment. I'd also like to add that I wish I hadn't seen it. I'm all for open inquiry and revealing the mysteries of our universe, but I was just getting used to the idea of quantum physics -- and now there's this OTHER little crack in my reality! Fabulous.
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 can condensed milk
1 package chocolate chips
1 package peanut butter chips
1. In 13x9x2 pan, melt butter.
2. Sprinkle crumbs evenly over butter.
3. Pour condensed milk evenly over crumbs.
4. Top with chips and press firmly.
5. Bake 25-30 minutes until lightly browned at 350 degrees.
I wrote the following "essay" as an undergraduate, circa 1993, circa the tender age of 18. It appeared in my college's campus newspaper, and I haven't looked at it since. However, recent discussions in the Girl Germs Vox group made me dig it up out of the archives. Reading it today I am simultaneously charmed and annoyed by my younger self. In any event, I offer it as an artifact of what one young feminist was thinking way back in 1993...
It awoke inside of you with a gentle stirring. At night, you tossed over in troubled dreams to feel it shifting. And when it awakened you from your slumber, you softly lulled it back into submission. But it began to awake with greater frequency, and eventually it even refused to go to bed - a petty child revolting against its bedtime. But after your own tired and fitful sleep, you soon gave up and merely crawled back underneath your sheets. But it stayed awake. And the longer it stayed awake, the hungrier it became. So it began to feed... on you. And you slept right on through the feast.
And when you awoke, there was nothing left of you. You raised your head from the pillow to squint bleary eyed into the starkness of a day you did not recognize. The world that had said good evening to you the night before was gone. The dreams that had formed in your troubled head had become the nightmare devising of someone else. Suddenly, with the dawning of one bleak day, you had lost your power to dream the reality, as bleak as it might have been. For although your fretful visions might have been dark, they were your own. You had control over them, commanding their appearances and performances in the lives around you. But suddenly you were no longer the director of your own thoughts. You were no longer the mother of your own world. And you did not know why.
And you were angry. Your own son had risen up against you. You had nursed this infant child, and he had revolted. He had fed upon your resources only to destroy your ability to call upon them again after he had grown. And with that right violently taken away from you, you were so very sad. And you were so very, very angry.
And you were not just angry. You were furious. You were mad. Raving. Hysterical. You were a misplaced woman who could no longer determine her own worth - could no longer measure her own dreams. Your fellow man had stolen your ruler and erased the increments you were familiar with, using the senseless wood instead as a weapon to brandish upon you.
And you felt the ruler slap your knuckles even when it wasn't actually there. Your sister told you that she had been abused. Her aunt told her that she had been oppressed. Her neighbor told her that she had been violated. Her hairdresser told her that she had been victimized. Her employer told her that she had been objectified. Her lover told her that she had been sexually harassed. Her co-worker told her that she had been discriminated against. Her mother told her that she had been raped. And women everywhere echoed their cries.
And that made you even angrier. So everyone came together in one big and very upset group. Only it wasn't a group. It was a mob; and it had its own mentality. And for a while this was good. You were so caught up in being furious that it helped if you didn't really have to think. And for a while just being furious was good. Because when you were furious, you got to talk freely, openly, and loudly about your pain, your oppression, your rage, your hate. And this was also good. And although you were just talking and not really thinking, the mob was busy dreaming a reality for you. And you were part of that mob, so it was like you were doing the dreaming as well. And that was, after all, what you missed the most.
But after a while, it began to lose its appeal. Your eyes started to glaze over, and you were tired of being so furious. You were tired of talking freely, openly, and loudly. You wanted to start thinking again. And you even wanted to start dreaming your own dreams again.
And some of your sisters didn't understand this; but that was just because they weren't through being furious. And your father was still reluctant to give you an opportunity, but some of your sons started mumbling that maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea after all. And one of your lovers even let you borrow some of his dreams so that you could have a little taste of what he had by birthright.
But this didn't satisfy you. And that was when you began to understand.
You were not equal to him; but you were of equal worth.
You did not live like him; but you needed to live side by side with him.
You did not know like him; but you knew just the same.
You did not dream his dreams; but you dreamed anyway.
And once you had understood all this, you stopped raining anger on everyone around you. And then you turned to those immense reservoirs of rage that were so close to breaking the dam, and you diverted them back to the source. You took that enormous power of being able to speak freely, openly, and loudly and began to think. You took that strength of hostility, and suddenly you had the strength of creativity.
And you began to create.
It was an enormous explosion from within yourself. You drifted in and out of a trance; but this was nothing like sleep. This was being brilliantly awake, radiantly alive. You skimmed the surface of emotion, and dove deeper and deeper into the colorful abyss. You soared to touch the sky, and you singed your wings in the sunny fire. And you had never been happier.
And you had never been stronger.
For now your father looked at you, and saw your buildings. He saw your poetry. He saw your gardens. He saw your products. He saw your markets. He saw your success. And he was proud.
And that was fine. But it no longer concerned you.
For you were healing yourself into perfect health with your own pride.
And then your sons looked on, and they tried to suckle themselves on your glory.
And that was fine. But it no longer concerned you.
For your glory was enough to nurse every single sand through your own shapely hourglass.
And then your lover tried to share your dreams.
And that was fine, too. But even this no longer concerned you.
For now everyone could share your dreams; you had dreamed them into being. You had reawakened to create the reality once again.
And nothing would ever lull you softly back into sleep.
Last night was a monthly salon chez moi. The topic of discussion was "pick 3 people that lived during the 20th century to have dinner with..."
My first choice was Marie Souvestre (1830 - 1905). Marie Souvestre was a feminist educator. At her school in France, Natalie Clifford Barney was a student. At her school in England, Eleanor Roosevelt was a student. Marie Souvestre is clearly a pebble in a much vaster pond. She was a mentor to 2 of the most influential women in the 20th century. I don't know much else about her, except I'd like to have dinner with her.
My second choice was Peggy Guggenheim (1898 - 1979). Peggy Guggenheim discovered, nurtured, and created genius. Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Picasso, Magritte, Dali, Jackson Pollock. She was also a regular at Natalie Barney's influential salons. She also gave Djuna Barnes a place to stay while the latter was writing Nightwood.
My third choice was Daniel Lanois (1951). He got an early musical break working with Brian Eno, and went on to be a mentor for Pierre Marchand. Pierre Marchand is the producer for Sarah McLachlan -- who is, like, my most favorite singer ever. Daniel Lanois also produced fabulous albums for the likes of Peter Gabriel, U2, Chris Whitley (a fabulous artist that died way too soon), Emmylou Harris, Robbie Robertson, and Luscious Jackson. His album Acadie is also one of my favorites.
So, that's my list. As you can see, I selected folks who influenced and nurtured others, folks who surrounded themselves with genius, folks who acted as hubs for change. Who would you invite to your dinner party?
