Poem by Martha Postlethwaite
Do not try to save
the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create
a clearing…
Anthology
Daily Write
Junior
It’s complicated. This family. This photo taken during the first family reunion, a celebration of Dad’s birthday. One of the very rare times most of his children were in the same room together. His son Gary is missing, having died from complications due to AIDS decades before. And now Junior, the one in the very center of the photo, has passed due to COVID. I hadn’t spoken with Junior since Dad’s funeral 13 years ago…
Daily Write
You can’t fake a thought
My father, as fathers often do, taught me many things. He did not teach me how to ride a bicycle or how to swim. He did, however, teach me how to make shoes from banana leaves (in case I was ever a prisoner of war in the jungles of Vietnam and needed to escape). He taught me how to land safely from a great height so that I could jump out of airplanes into enemy territory. He taught me how to kill someone with a plastic straw.
Video
shadow+blur, chapter 1: Lost
even when I can see
there’s nothing
I can do
nothing
I can do
nothing
Music
Track 1: Berceuse from ‘The Exterminating Angel’
Before we begin, you should know that I know almost nothing about classical music. I couldn’t even define what makes something classical music without taking a break from writing and pulling up Google for backup.
What I know is that Verdi’s Four Seasons is an incredible listen while driving through Olympic National Park. That anything played by Yo-Yo Ma makes me forget that my time here is finite, mainly because I forget I have a finite body and the world becomes something ethereal and whispy. And that sometimes, as with any genre of entertainment, Spotify will play something that makes me want to jump out of my skin and run as far away from it as possible. It being the music, not my skin. Necessarily.
I have enough of an affinity, however, that when I saw the headline from The New York Times app “The 25 Best Classical Music Tracks of 2020” I clicked on it. And then added “Listen to the 25 best classical music tracks as selected by the NYT” to my list of things to accomplish in 2021.
Today, I started the process.
Anthology
i am running into a new year by Lucille Clifton
i am running into a new year
and the old years blow back
like a wind
that i catch in my hair…
Daily Write
Saint Amy
I’m worried about being exposed. About being asked, “why can’t you be normal?”. About being made fun of for having what is perceived as a peculiar interest or hobby. Like reading. Or studying.
If those examples are confusing, let me explain.
Daily Write
The One Thing
Rituals and routines have had the second greatest impact on my life in 2020. The largest impact was therapy (as much as I thought I didn’t still need it). But for a reason that perhaps might be surprising. It was helpful because I heard myself repeatedly say that I was doing really well. That I was coming to appreciate who I am. That I felt like I was whole, rather than broken. And someone who is healing rather than someone who is damaged.
Left Turn at WooWooVille
Rapture ∞ Rupture
When my world ruptured when voices taunted and told me that I when my world ruptured and voices turned melancholy into madness when ruptured my world and the voices taunted me with ruptured truths when sleep became pacing and the voices became louder when rupture rendered reality moot when the voices made my voice mute when the nurses talked to me of Spring when the meds did not work And another night at least one…
Anthology Vade Mecum
Security by William Stafford
Tomorrow will have an island. Before night I always find it. Then on to the next island. These places hidden in the day separate and come forward if you beckon. But you have to know they are there before they exist. Some time there will be a tomorrow without any island. So far, I haven’t let that happen, but after I’m gone others may become faithless and careless. Before them will tumble the wide unbroken…