cedar
sharpened pencils
sidewalks with really old dates on them
forgetting facts about american history
walking through tall corn fields
ice skating
coffee beans
oceans
your heart beat
sounds like
a brand new box of crayons
the sound of all those colors at once
i want to draw you a napkin map
to my house
we'll walk past living rooms glowing late at night
i'll tell you made up stories
that are also true
avocados and oranges
snapdragons
a cheeseburger, fries, and a shake
good poems that don't rhyme
old irish folk songs
lullabies
but mostly
the smell of your hair:
cedar pencil shavings
sunshine
earth
and sleep.
a very short monologue. for an actress. or an actor. whatever.
“so i stole his copy of marat/sade. The one he had marked up when he played the marquis in college. The one that changed his life. And the sadder of the things is- that when he goes back to look for it, if he goes back to look for it, he won't even realize that somebody took it- he'll just look, and look again, and shrug his shoulders and turn to his westward opening floor-to-ceilings and see the decaying ocean.”
Friday, September 25, 2009
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
"man on wire"
the film does a wonderful job of explaining why what phillipe petit did was so important: when art is made up of the right ingredients and intentions, death should be but a millimeter to each side. but between those millimeters, absolute peacefulness rules. of course, phillipe was walking on a wire hundreds of feet above manhattan and sydney and paris, and i am sitting on my bed with a keyboard. but the footage was an amazing representation of how i feel when i am writing: energized and exhilarated, understanding a little bit of everything, but forgetting just enough to be at peace and relaxed. so my death isn't the same as phillipe's, my risk isn't the same as phillipe's. but it should feel like it is. everything hinges on the next sentence or the next line. if it's well-placed, and balanced, or if it's correcting my balance with a shove to the left or right, then i am relaxed. and i walk across the wire. and if it's not, if my brain decides to betray my body, or my body decides to succumb to the the populist gravity, then i tumble, end over end, and all i can do is close my eyes.
was phillipe worried? no, because he'd never taken that wrong step before. he's an artist. and since it is truly his art, then he never has to worry about taking a wrong step, as long as he takes his own steps.
i believe that any artist is at his or her best when only their own steps are being taken. art can never be wrong when created this way. it's when others' steps are taken that an artist tumbles off the edge of the wire.
it's a beautiful and inspiring film, a home-movie look into the rarely-thought-of world of wire-walking as an art. and it's a pretty neat love story, too.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
collecting
i want to find you things
metal things and stone things and things shaped like explosions
things that remind me of home
things that have oxidized
and things that have lost a bit of their shine
but are surprising in the right light
things that have been buried
things that have been forgotten
things that used to be expensive
and things that never were
i want to find you things,
and collect them for you-
not usual things
and not the things that
everyone else would think of-
because i want to see
what you will turn them into
and because
you
are not
the usual things.
metal things and stone things and things shaped like explosions
things that remind me of home
things that have oxidized
and things that have lost a bit of their shine
but are surprising in the right light
things that have been buried
things that have been forgotten
things that used to be expensive
and things that never were
i want to find you things,
and collect them for you-
not usual things
and not the things that
everyone else would think of-
because i want to see
what you will turn them into
and because
you
are not
the usual things.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
strings, shapes
When we were three
a spider came to us in our dreams.
He said to me, “Boy. Listen to me.” His voice sounded like eight legs moving across bedsheets. “I am secret. You won't remember me, not for a long time. But you need to listen.” He told me everything about how it would go. “You will break your arm when you are five,” he said. “How?” I said. “In a tree by a lake,” he said. “Which arm?” I said. “Left. Below the elbow,” he said. “Which lake?” I said. He answered me slowly, turning his compound eyes to the moon. “I could tell you, but you won't remember.” I rubbed my arm. My hand was covered in cobwebs. “That's not all,” he said, “not even close.” The old ceiling above my head began to fill with stories, with spiderwebs. “Not everything is permanent. Some things are, but not everything. Not even close,” he said. “This place?” I said. “This place will always be here, but not for you,” he said. The old farmhouse raced in the wind. I imagined it always being, but spider interrupted. “Not like this. It will be abandoned, and the windows will break, and the roof will collapse. Then I will come back, and make it my home.” He told me that I would have trouble with the brake lines in the old red car. He told me that I was going to lose my grandparents, one by one. “I'm not sure I believe that,” I said. “But they will send you things. People. Ideas. Feelings. Just because you lose something, doesn't mean it isn't still somewhere to be found,” he said. One by one, the things he told me have been remembered. The way the mountains looked ahead of me on the highway. The important phone calls. A song that would be the happiest song I've ever heard would also be the saddest, and back again. “What shape is life?”, I asked him. “It's not really a circle, nothing is ever that perfect,” he said. “I build my web where I can, between clotheslines and gutters filled with leaves, where you will walk through it on summer nights... it's never a perfect circle.” I brush spiderwebs from my hair. “I am afraid of you,” I said. “You are much bigger than me,” he said, “even if you are only three.” He was on my shoulder now. “Do not be afraid of me. I am life,” he said. “Hold out your hands,” he said. I held up my palms. The moon was covered by clouds, when the spider jumped into my hands. The window in my room turned to look at the moon, which just then ran free of the clouds. The spider began to spin a web. Between my hands, his thread was silver. “I don't think you are going to catch any flies in here,” I said. “This web is not for that,” he said. I watched, and he spun the secret shape of life, between my hands. “It's not a circle,” I said. “No, it is certainly not,” he said. The web was everything it should be. Nothing more and nothing less. It reflected my sleepy eyes, which would always be blue. “It is time for me to go,” he said. “Would you be so kind as to open the window?” With the web between my hands, I opened the window with my foot. I could hear the old trees settling into the earth under the weight of the stars. “Keep that,” he said, pointing two legs to my web. “It was nice talking to you,” I said. He hummed as he tied a single strand of web to my big toe. “What song is that?” I asked. “When you are older,” was all he said, finishing his knot. And taking the other end, he disappeared out the window of the old farmhouse, into the night.
a spider came to us in our dreams.
He said to me, “Boy. Listen to me.” His voice sounded like eight legs moving across bedsheets. “I am secret. You won't remember me, not for a long time. But you need to listen.” He told me everything about how it would go. “You will break your arm when you are five,” he said. “How?” I said. “In a tree by a lake,” he said. “Which arm?” I said. “Left. Below the elbow,” he said. “Which lake?” I said. He answered me slowly, turning his compound eyes to the moon. “I could tell you, but you won't remember.” I rubbed my arm. My hand was covered in cobwebs. “That's not all,” he said, “not even close.” The old ceiling above my head began to fill with stories, with spiderwebs. “Not everything is permanent. Some things are, but not everything. Not even close,” he said. “This place?” I said. “This place will always be here, but not for you,” he said. The old farmhouse raced in the wind. I imagined it always being, but spider interrupted. “Not like this. It will be abandoned, and the windows will break, and the roof will collapse. Then I will come back, and make it my home.” He told me that I would have trouble with the brake lines in the old red car. He told me that I was going to lose my grandparents, one by one. “I'm not sure I believe that,” I said. “But they will send you things. People. Ideas. Feelings. Just because you lose something, doesn't mean it isn't still somewhere to be found,” he said. One by one, the things he told me have been remembered. The way the mountains looked ahead of me on the highway. The important phone calls. A song that would be the happiest song I've ever heard would also be the saddest, and back again. “What shape is life?”, I asked him. “It's not really a circle, nothing is ever that perfect,” he said. “I build my web where I can, between clotheslines and gutters filled with leaves, where you will walk through it on summer nights... it's never a perfect circle.” I brush spiderwebs from my hair. “I am afraid of you,” I said. “You are much bigger than me,” he said, “even if you are only three.” He was on my shoulder now. “Do not be afraid of me. I am life,” he said. “Hold out your hands,” he said. I held up my palms. The moon was covered by clouds, when the spider jumped into my hands. The window in my room turned to look at the moon, which just then ran free of the clouds. The spider began to spin a web. Between my hands, his thread was silver. “I don't think you are going to catch any flies in here,” I said. “This web is not for that,” he said. I watched, and he spun the secret shape of life, between my hands. “It's not a circle,” I said. “No, it is certainly not,” he said. The web was everything it should be. Nothing more and nothing less. It reflected my sleepy eyes, which would always be blue. “It is time for me to go,” he said. “Would you be so kind as to open the window?” With the web between my hands, I opened the window with my foot. I could hear the old trees settling into the earth under the weight of the stars. “Keep that,” he said, pointing two legs to my web. “It was nice talking to you,” I said. He hummed as he tied a single strand of web to my big toe. “What song is that?” I asked. “When you are older,” was all he said, finishing his knot. And taking the other end, he disappeared out the window of the old farmhouse, into the night.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
the impossibilities of earthquakes
i remember my first earthquake. my eyes were closed, and it was dark outside. i wasn't sleeping, because the dog was licking her paws next to the bed. it was warm, and all of the windows were open. the feeling i had was pre-thunderstorm. if there had been clouds, they would have been green, the way they get before a tornado. we know nature, but we don't like to listen to it.
the order of events:
1. a rumble like a bus, down the road, pulling away from a bus stop.
2. the bus grows. it no longer rolls, but it stomps. it is a bus monster.
3. the bus is not one bus monster, but a herd of bus monsters. they stomp up the canyon.
4. just before they get to my front door, the dog stops licking her paws. her ears go up, and she lets out a small bark.
5. the bus monsters pass through us like ghosts. they rattle the things hanging on the walls. they open the refrigerator door. they use the coffee table to tap out morse code on the floor.
6. and just like that, they're gone. i can hear them rumbling over the hill across the street. birds have taken flight. there is no wind, no due north, and my heart is racing like i've just fallen in love.
because, where i come from, it was always taken for granted that the earth was not about to move.
what they don't teach you in school: it's not only earthquakes that can shake up a world, and it can sometimes be quite a lovely thing.
the order of events:
1. a rumble like a bus, down the road, pulling away from a bus stop.
2. the bus grows. it no longer rolls, but it stomps. it is a bus monster.
3. the bus is not one bus monster, but a herd of bus monsters. they stomp up the canyon.
4. just before they get to my front door, the dog stops licking her paws. her ears go up, and she lets out a small bark.
5. the bus monsters pass through us like ghosts. they rattle the things hanging on the walls. they open the refrigerator door. they use the coffee table to tap out morse code on the floor.
6. and just like that, they're gone. i can hear them rumbling over the hill across the street. birds have taken flight. there is no wind, no due north, and my heart is racing like i've just fallen in love.
because, where i come from, it was always taken for granted that the earth was not about to move.
what they don't teach you in school: it's not only earthquakes that can shake up a world, and it can sometimes be quite a lovely thing.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
definition
different[dif-er-uh nt]
1. (adj) different from all others. not ordinary.
2. (adj) unlike in nature or quality.
3. (adj) left-handed.
4. (adj) lovely.
"Toast with cinnamon is different, and a yummy way to change up your morning routine. It also makes my coffee taste better."
1. (adj) different from all others. not ordinary.
2. (adj) unlike in nature or quality.
3. (adj) left-handed.
4. (adj) lovely.
"Toast with cinnamon is different, and a yummy way to change up your morning routine. It also makes my coffee taste better."
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
thoughts on today, 9-01-2009
my t-shirts are getting thinner, like the ones my dad used to use as seat covers in all of our old cars. the vinyl seats were brittle and sharp, and the t-shirts protected us when we wore shorts in the summer. we only tuned the radio to the am stations, and i learned all the words to the beach boys songs. i still think about that whenever i drive through la jolla. i never thought i'd be here, or anywhere near here, when i was little. california girls was just a song. now they're a way of life. my favorite old car: a red 1966 dodge charger. a fast-back that had gauges like a jet plane. the transmission was on the floor, and it had bucket seats that folded down in the back. i swear when i drove it fast that parts flew off. ask me. i'll tell you stories about it.
the new apartment has a view of downtown, and the sunset, and a little part of point loma. i have a list of things i need to do this year, in this place. being a starving writer is near the top. i'll write words pretending they have calories, and then i will eat them for dinner. but i can't give up coffee. i'm convinced that the coffee bean is an ultra-concentrated collection of words. dramatic-dark-matter. so i grind it up, distill it in hot water, and drink it when the sun goes down and when it comes up. something about that filmy light allows things to twist just off of reality, like a record skipping to a song you've never heard before. a song that you've written yourself.
the new apartment has a view of downtown, and the sunset, and a little part of point loma. i have a list of things i need to do this year, in this place. being a starving writer is near the top. i'll write words pretending they have calories, and then i will eat them for dinner. but i can't give up coffee. i'm convinced that the coffee bean is an ultra-concentrated collection of words. dramatic-dark-matter. so i grind it up, distill it in hot water, and drink it when the sun goes down and when it comes up. something about that filmy light allows things to twist just off of reality, like a record skipping to a song you've never heard before. a song that you've written yourself.
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