HAPPY FRIDAY!

Yesterday, a FB friend posted about this phone number: 707-998-8410.

If you haven't called it, you should do it right now.

It is an elementary school's take on surviving and thriving. It's called PepTOC, a pep talk hotline done by children who are surviving and thriving through all the madness. [You can donate to the effort here if you are inclined. They are crowdsourcing funds to keep the number going.]

This is important and amazing - not only because their pure energy can be felt through the phone line. But also because according to recent studies, children (along with the elderly) have struggled during the pandemic on many fronts, but they are soooo resilient. 

That doesn't mean we shouldn't support them. It's just so wonderful that these teachers realized these kids had so much to give the rest of us. And then they gave it to us. 

As an old high school teacher of mine used to admonish when I was down, "you think you have it rough," read this. [And he was right, and only reminded me when I was on the upswing.] 

This is the opposite sentiment -- we're in this together, here's some pure joy and energy.

The ROI for dialing a number [we do this so infrequently anymore] is ENORMOUS. 

If you want to read/hear more about it, this piece by NPR is lovely. This piece is also lovely. P.S. #5 was my personal fave.

Teaser on YouTube:

If small children are not your jam, try this piece on sound art from the DF. I also found it soothing and lovely to think of city sounds as treasures.

HAPPY WEEKEND! 

work

I have been doing some personal work over here.

It doesn't feel like I am getting anywhere on this work.

It's not to do list kind of work, well, maybe it is.

It is hard.

Exhausting.

Overwhelming.

It is work.

Most days I only have the strength left to pull myself into bed... even though what I really need to do is debrief.

I don't want to talk, so there is no relief there.

Writing would be a good outlet, but it makes the work even more real and thus scarier and more overwhelming.

I keep hoping that I will turn a corner on the work and it will feel lighter, more purposeful or even just done. I'd take partially done.

Instead, it feels like the pushing up the boulder and having it come crashing back on me.

Only it is larger every time it rolls back over me, flattening me.

I don't even have the emotional or physical energy to wander out in search of beauty.

I am just tired.

And tired of being tired.

And sad.

And tired of being sad.

Poetry Thursday, free

 fleeing

~Kara Jackson

everything i do comes down to the fact that i’ve been here before.

in some arrangement of my atoms i was allowed to be free

so don’t ask me when freedom is coming

when a certain eye of mine has seen it,

a cornea in a convoluted future recalls my freedom.

when asked about the absence of freedom, the lack of it

i laugh at the word absence, which always suggests

a presence that has left. but absence is the arena

of death, and we call the dead free (went on to glory), what

is the absence of freedom but an assumption of it?

i have never longed for something

which was not once mine. even fiction is my possession,

and flight is an act of fleeing as much as an act of flying.

Copyright © 2020 by Kara Jackson. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 3, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets.

For the Raza, not Poetry Thursday

Dear Buffalo, Dear Zeta or To a Few of My Dead or Nearly Dead Tíos
 ~Joseph Rios

I see my dead father's face in your face.
My furled eyebrow, these puffed cheeks
weep into a pillow of inherited hands.
Tío, I still don't know what to do
with this buffalo body. I crush tea cups
every time I raise them to my pursed lips.
How do I tenderize the meat on my bones?
This morning, I dry heaved a vat of foam
into a toilet in Tampa and found no art in it.
Who tells us we deserve to die?
My Tío, you, the one with a brown beret,
who saw the hydrogen bomb blow
from an aircraft carrier at Bikini Island,
the one with Hep C and a quiet wife,
I don't know if you're still alive,
but I pray this world has softened
you with its firm kneading hands,
that you are still able to ride your bike
up Homsy to the liquor store on Cedar
and can still reach the oranges in the yard.
Tío, mi tío, when you wet the bed,
is it still my Tia's job to change the sheets?
From the kitchen, I see the twelve foot spear
over the maguey. I see its fresh blooms
and know it is about to die. I wonder
if it is better to disappear into Aztlán
or Mazatlán or Mazapan the way you did
or stay in Prather or Marysville and slowly fade
into a sofa chair and reruns of Bonanza.
Is there honor in being shot and skinned? 
      like Ruben?
Hacked up in a hospital for lymphoma research? 
Poked and drained with the swollen face of 
      a failed liver?
How many more fists will be raised until we can 
     no longer,
or better yet, don't have to? I'm tired of thinking 
     these things.
Come back, Tío, or whatever. My mom saved you 
     a plate.
The street dump came by and I got rid of 
     grandpa's clothes.
I found your mesh t-shirt here and I've been 
     wearing it.

Copyright © 2019 by Joseph Rios. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 27, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.

quote Thursday

We delight in the beauty

of the butterfly but

rarely admit the changes

it has gone through

to achieve that beauty.

~Maya Angelou

Poetry Thursday, a bit late, but totally worth the wait...

I used to be a roller coaster girl
~ jessica Care moore
(for Ntozake Shange)

 I used to be a roller coaster girl
7 times in a row
No vertigo in these skinny legs
My lipstick bubblegum pink
                         As my panther 10 speed.

never kissed

Nappy pigtails, no-brand gym shoes
White lined yellow short-shorts

Scratched up legs pedaling past borders of
humus and baba ganoush
Masjids and liquor stores
City chicken, pepperoni bread
and superman ice cream
                                     Cones.

Yellow black blending with bits of Arabic
Islam and Catholicism.

My daddy was Jesus
My mother was quiet
Jayne Kennedy was worshipped
by my brother Mark

I don’t remember having my own bed before 12.
Me and my sister Lisa                                shared.

Sometimes all three Moore girls slept in the Queen.

You grow up so close
never close enough.

I used to be a roller coaster girl
Wild child full of flowers and ideas
Useless crushes on       polish boys
in a school full of       white girls.

Future black swan singing
Zeppelin, U2 and Rick Springfield

Hoping to be Jessie’s Girl

I could outrun my brothers and
Everybody else to that

reoccurring line

I used to be a roller coaster girl
Till you told me I was moving too fast
Said my rush made your head spin
My laughter hurt your ears

A scream of happiness
A whisper of freedom
Pouring out my armpits
Sweating up my neck

You were always the scared one
I kept my eyes open for the entire trip
Right before the drop I would brace myself
And let that force push my head back into

That hard iron seat

My arms nearly fell off a few times
Still, I kept running back to the line
When I was done
Same way I kept running back to you

I used to be a roller coaster girl
I wasn’t scared of mountains or falling
Hell, I looked forward to flying and dropping
Off this earth and coming back to life

every once in a while

I found some peace in being out of control
allowing my blood to race
through my veins for 180 seconds

I earned my sometime nicotine pull
I buy my own damn drinks & the ocean
Still calls my name when it feels my toes
Near its shore.

I still love roller coasters
& you grew up to be
Afraid
of all girls who cld
                                          ride

Fearlessly

like
me.

Poetry Thursday

Shards
~Aline Murray Kilmer

I can never remake the thing I have destroyed;
   I brushed the golden dust from the moth’s bright wing,
I called down wind to shatter the cherry-blossoms,
   I did a terrible thing.

I feared that the cup might fall, so I flung it from me;
   I feared that the bird might fly, so I set it free;
I feared that the dam might break, so I loosed the river:
   May its waters cover me.

Poetry Thursday, don't forget to vote!

Defiant
~Patricia Spears Jones

Fruit from one vine tangles with another
Making a mess of the intended harvest, yet
the lack of calculation is welcome

that accident that shifts bodies from shadows
into a locus of light midday bright & caustic
wounds un-healed   newsreel cameras trap

this old & angry man in a bespoke suit lifting
white pages & refusing to read them, mumbles
unwelcome threats & thanks the nation

the nation kicks him out—finally defiant
after years of misrule, disruption, murder
and the choked voice youth terrorized

he wants more blood on his hands so that
when he enters his version of paradise
all will be red.

ugh, frustration and exhaustion rant, feel free to skip on by

If I were to judge the amount of effort I should put into my work based on the amount of effort (and attention) my colleagues put into their work, then I should not have come to work today.

I should not address any issues facing my content areas until it is too late to do anything about the mistakes. I should, then, say that taking measures to rectify the mistakes would be too risky.

Finally, I should suggest that these are not truly issues, rather, whatever (and I mean whatever) is happening, is, in fact, a direct result of user error. User in this case refers exclusively to the person who has uncovered the mistake.

I am pissed. Can you tell?

In part, I am tired. I traveled all night, and came directly to work from the airport. I did not go home, I did not collect $200. I am coming off a few days reflecting the shortness of life and the choices we make to spend (or not) time with those we love.

I am exhausted, physically and emotionally. I am tired of being one of very few who cares about the outcome of our work.

And, my teacher voice dangerously near to my lips, I want to counsel my colleagues; I want to let them know in no uncertain terms that the time we spend making up excuses for why will not fix what is obviously not working would be better spent looking for a solution.

I often told my students when I was teaching that I preferred not to have the excuse. Excuses are/were completely and utterly meaningless to me.

Day two...
My first impulse is to look for another job. But then I remember that I have faced this issue before although not always in the same exact way.

I need to calibrate my reactions, I get it.

This situation is dangerously threatening to kill my post-vacation glow. I have managed to maintain it through some very trying situations, both personally and professionally, for a few weeks. I did this by straining to see the silver lining every time an obstacle appeared.

After some sleep, I am going to rededicate myself to see shining through these clouds. Wish me luck.

Not so small victories

homage to my hips
By Lucille Clifton
these hips are big hips
they need space to
move around in.
they don't fit into little
petty places. these hips
are free hips.
they don't like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved,  
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top!

Lucille Clifton, “homage to my hips” from Good Woman. Copyright © 1987 by Lucille Clifton. Reprinted with the permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.
Source: Good Woman (BOA Editions Ltd., 1987)
Borrowed from Poetry Foundation

Today I mark 12 weeks of re-learning to eat healthy (and love the body I am in at any weight).

My not so small victory is that I have lost 20 lbs.

I am trying to change my relationship with food ... not just that I want to eat healthier foods. I want to use food as nourishment. I want to taste my food. I want the meals that I eat to feel satisfying.

I realized not so long ago (in relationship to my time on earth), maybe ten years ago, that I was an emotional eater. I realized it while I was on a meditation retreat. Going deep into myself caused me great anxiety, and I discovered that I tried to take refuge in food. Shoveling is what I called it.

What I didn't understand at the time was that coping with anxiety was not the only time I was compelled to shovel food.  [Subsequently I shoveled when sad, angry, grieving.]

I also did not connect shoveling with feeling deeply unsatisfied. I didn't note how I could not taste the food as I shoveled.

I thought the not tasting and not feeling satisfied had to do with how fast I eat.

I don't know if I will ever master mindful eating, especially as it pertains to slowing down the eating process.

But I can now say that after eating not just healthy but really good tasting food for the last 12 weeks (mostly thanks to my amazing housemates), I notice when I feel unsatisfied and when I don't taste the food.

It has nothing to do with what I am eating and everything to do with my emotional state.

I am getting much better at noticing my emotions; and my discomfort at having to deal with so many emotions.  Noticing the food I eat, tasting the flavor, feeling satisfied and nourished, is one way that I have accomplished this.

I am still working on how to more effectively feel my emotions. That is to say, how to allow my emotions to move through me without trying to stifle them by numbing.

I am learning to notice the desire to be satisfied and how food does not bring the salve my coping mechanism had led me to believe it would.

This not so insignificant victory of shedding unnecessary weight is a leap forward on loving myself, feeding my body and soul, and treating myself in the ways that will keep me on this road to self love.

Poetry Thursday, the journey

Rise up nimbly and
go on your strange journey
to the ocean of meanings....
Leave and don’t look away
from the sun as you go,
in whose light
you’re sometimes crescent,
sometimes full.
~Rumi.

Quote Thursday, maybe a repeat...

I knew life began where 

I stood in the dark, 

looking out 

into the light.

~Yusef Komunyakaa

Poetry Thursday extra...

Age of Beauty

 

Emilia Phillips

This is not an age of beauty,
I say to the Rite-Aid as I pass a knee-high plastic witch
whose speaker-box laugh is tripped by my calf
breaking the invisible line cast by her motion
sensor. My heart believes it is a muscle

 

of love, so how do I tell it it is a muscle of blood?

 

This morning, I found myself
awake before my alarm & felt I’d been betrayed

 

by someone. My sleep is as thin as a paper bill
backed by black bars of coal that iridesce
indigo in the federal reserve of

 

dreams. Look, I said to the horse’s
head I saw severed & then set on the ground, the soft
tissue of the cheek & crown cleaved with a necropsy
knife until the skull was visible. You look more
horse than the horses

 

with names & quilted coats in the pasture, grazing unbothered

 

by your body in pieces, steaming

 

against the drizzle. You once had a name
that filled your ears like amphitheaters,
that caused an electrical

 

spark to bead to your brain. My grief was born
in the wrong time, my grief an old soul, grief re-
incarnate. My grief, once a black-winged

 

beetle. How I find every excuse to indulge it, like a child
given quarters. In the restaurant, eating alone,

 

instead of interrogating my own
solitude, I’m nearly undone by the old
woman on her own. The window so filthy,

 

it won’t even reflect her face, which must not be the same
face she sees when she dreams

 

of herself in the third person.

 

  Copyright © 2017 Emilia Phillips. Used with permission of the author.

more pure joy

I prefer people in small packages. It is not always obvious to others why this is so. But the reality is, these small people provide the surest window into what it means to be present.

They feel whatever they are feeling, right now.

Emphatically, usually.

They even do boring better than any actors can approximate.

They are also especially good at experiencing joy.

They don't think about it, worry if they are deserving, wonder at if they will look silly or how others will react.

Although sometimes they do call for reactions, so maybe they care a little.

I am doing my best to learn from these little ones...
not just about experiencing the sensation of joy, but also the expression of it.

They are blessings.

this is all I got

...for now.

I am regrouping and hope to be able to put my words down soon...

oh, and happy veterans' day

Poetry Thursday

Great peace
is found
in life's
little pleasures.
~Chaucer

Got to spend time with these lovelies last week... truly this is pleasure.

Poetry Thursday

Your task 
is not 
to seek 
for love, 
 
















but merely 
to seek 
and find 
all the barriers 
 








within yourself 
that you 
have built 
against it.
~ Rumi

finding hope

Usually, on a Friday, I try to post some articles... but I just switched that super lean post to next Friday.

Right now it is nearly Thursday (6/16), and I have just finished a marathon day of listening to the Democratic filibuster (why doesn't it have two l's?) while I worked on several projects.

I am a news nerd, well, just nerd in general, so it is not surprising that given the opportunity, I might tune into just this kind of thing.  At various points in the 13 hours I watched/listened, I also listened to other shows.

But, I felt I needed to stay with Chris Murphy and his crew, not only out of solidarity for the cause, but because they were doing it right. I knew that the chamber they were standing in was empty but for those talking or waiting to talk.  I needed to be their witness.

Witnessing is so very important.

And this is a cause that pulls on my heart like many others do not.

I had nightmares, as a teacher, of having gun violence in my work place ... long before Columbine.

I remember the day Columbine happened.  For some reason, I was home from school that day, maybe it was our spring break.  It was the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, and that was bad enough.  But it was a school. And no matter the compassion I have for Dylan and Eric, my heart breaks for the survivors (including the families of the casualties).

Years later, I was colleagues with someone whose mother was the crisis liaison for the schools.  The story of what her mother went through was just as devastating all those years later when we spoke about it.

I marched with the Million Moms in DC.  But we couldn't, for some reason, sustain the effort.
-----
Long before I knew what personal tragedy felt like, I was already mourning deeply the loss of people to this kind of massacre.

Each one of these tragedies tears at my soul in almost as deep a way as the loss of my siblings and my dear Sergio have.  It seems impossible that these people who I do not know, who I will never know, reach me at this level.  But, obviously, it is much bigger than just crazy empathy.

I won't lie... I feel as deeply for those who perpetrate these crimes.  Their need, their pain is more than palpable. But like the child molesters, no pain or injury can justify hurting others.

The bottom line is the pain/grief is almost crippling for me.
----------
This time, I felt that same urge Chris Murphy did ... before the day had ended on Sunday, I reached out to two women I know only through my pseudonym on fb to start something.  We have already planned a strategy meeting for next week ... we have already started a fb page for organizing.

And then, this filibuster.

I think I learned more about hashtags today than I might need to know.  I might be a master hashtagger now... something I thought I would never truly understand.

Indirectly, this will help me with all the other work endeavors I undertake.

Then, one of those women suggested I tune in to CSPAN and Chris Murphy's filibuster.

I didn't get excited, just interested.

I felt the need to stay.

It wasn't until we were rounding the 12th hour together and I was working the hashtags as hard as I could that hope started to creep in.

Let's be clear, it doesn't feel good exactly... it just feels the tiniest bit lighter to have hope... being hopeless is like living at the bottom of the well.  I have pledged not to be there anymore for any length of time, let alone live there.  So, I needed hope. I craved hope.

And in the working of the hashtags and the finding community with people I don't know -- people I may not have very much in common with, I found hope.

And it is sustaining me tonight -- almost euphorically.

I already have a post for tomorrow, it is Poetry Thursday after all.

So, I may have to update this next week after we have the vote... it's ok if the GOP fucks up today (THURSDAY which is actually yesterday by the time this is posted) because if they do, then we will just mobilize to get them voted out.

I am contemplating what it means that this kind of work gives me hope.

I keep dropping the red cape, and it keeps flying back on to my shoulders.

Too tired and too late to really worry about this now... tomorrow is another day.

Poetry Thursday

I am digging 

the dirt to find 

a way to the sea, 

I see how 

the water of soul 

is imprisoned 

in the vortex 

of this body. 

It's your road, 

and yours alone. 

Others

may walk it

with you, 

but no one 

can walk it 

for you.

 - Rumi

levity

I get a lot of junk email -- a lot -- I have one email address that I keep just for junk email and another that is quickly becoming overrun by unwanted email.

Usually it is just ads for something - but in the super junk email account, I still get those Nigerian send me money requests, lots of sex bots and other random requests and solicitations.   I generally just delete them all -- it is easy to see from the "preview" what kind of spam it is.  One of the favorite ways to trick people to open is "re:" -- as if you wouldn't remember sending an email to which someone could reply.  I ignore the "re:" emails especially.

However, this one caught my eye.  Best spam email ever from my "ex bf" -- I laughed out loud as I read it.  I have been trying to enjoy the moment as much as possible -- so I share it with you... a little levity in what has become a fairly gloomy blog:

Subject: RE: Break
Reply-To: luck9000@outlook.it [bullshit email address]

You really got the guts to break up with me over email, bitch??!?!
Tell you what! I just made a nice compilation of your/our best scenes and put it up for download on [file name - surely a virus or bot of some kind]
Here
.
Oh and btw: This email just went out to your parents. I bet they didn't know you're into dirty stuff like this.
Cheers!
Your ex bf