Sunday, November 30, 2008

Bryan Park

Planned wilderness, tailored with stone paths and walls; wide, tidy greens and thick spurts of forest. One of the city's parks, I rambled there as a child, at birthday parties or on days when our mothers didn't know what else to do with us. And later, when I didn't know what to do with myself, I took my bike there and rode around, and around. A second, outside home. 

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Third Day

Free of the expectations of that first day, where we did everything and said, what a good day. The next day sank like a cave under the weight of what now. What about the things that escape notice or attention while our lives spin like tops, when those things? Third day and I wake not caring, not feeling the usual self-inflicted stabs for choosing what I want, leaving the rest. 

Stain Fighting

Holidays, the smell of winter smoke and the warm, warm giving and getting make me giddy. Then there is a turn I will take, often somewhere in sleep, a stain spreads and I wake into it. I do not have to remember to remember. If it just happens like this, is it the more natural, the more real state for all things to roll backwards, like downhill? Progress says no, absolutely no.

One Hundredth

A body made of a hundred pieces so far; I may have just shaped out a pinky toe. Or roughed out a thin outline of where a body could be. Not just the creation of something bigger by the dogged little deposits; the persistence itself, the thing before the writing becomes a thing, the being in the doing. I cannot see the body yet, I just know that when I write, I am writing.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Neighbor Down

Fallen, not breathing, gone grey. His buddy presses on his stomach and he emerges, sucking in deep, blowing out white foam. A mysterious mission interrupted, he dropped while walking across the yard with a chain saw. Adam, we say, help is coming. Not old, he has aged himself drinking like he does. Pulling myself away, I think, another neighbor down.

Walking Backwards

I walk out of our house through the neighborhood; past the old big houses from long past farm days. And newer little houses from 1960's development days, when my parents bought their first home here. I walk and imagine this land clear, in the beginning, before anything was built; nothing but forest, pasture or swamp, and me walking alone across it for miles.

Monday, November 24, 2008

Remembering

Land of my own, a volkswagen van, motherhood, trails to nowhere, complete presence. I want, I want, I want. Brought up from an interior stinginess, enforced by the sandpaper of catholic morals, smoothing any edge of longing. Worn down, it can become easier to look over, forget. Did I ever want a thing? Yes. Puppies, scooters, advanced degrees, girls. Now I remember.

Mushrooms

I feel the stems of mushrooms like twisted tree trunks; I imagine them pulled from a forest floor, popping up in an emerald humid. Pushed up from the ground, issued from it, each one with its own sense of self. I like to buy them as if I picked them, not wrapped in cellophane but loose, natural. I can plow my hand into a bin or bowl and drop fistfuls into my bag. 

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Before Light

This morning I am awake before light fills the room. This bed faces east, and without moving I can see the sharp crimson glow of winter dawn through leafless trees. I feel grateful for opening my eyes in time; other mornings I miss it, instead just catching that paler orange, fuzzier crease between the land and sky. I wake up and watch the night shaking hands with the day. 

Wanting Things

Saturday, late afternoon, we do as we please. Right now that means climbing into bed, watching darkness fall. We talk about Christmas and wanting things; we talk about wanting that beautiful thing that terrifies me. My mind twists me up, you don't really want that, it says. Your whole life will change, you will have to give it everything, your heart. Perhaps just what I need.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Grace

Immaculate place settings greet my sister and I in the green, green dining room; carpet, drapes, wallpaper all shades of a placid sea green. Great Aunt Alice is busy heating the water for oatmeal. For each of us, she doles out one or two prunes into a small china bowl. And for her, there is piping hot tea. Well past 95 years old, she hosts us with a grace she's held since birth.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Sliding Through

Driving home the cold, cold air makes the outside cleaner, clearer. I watch the lights turn yellow, red, then green and I feel like I've never seen green like this before. It's because I don't want to be anywhere else but in this car, sliding through the dark city. The Chinese restaurant's broad windows show me everything; a scarlet neon open sign screams out, almost joyful. 

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Mark's Church

This big and wide front room, two stories high, used to be where all the people sat on Sundays. That was years ago, before it declined, before Mark bought it, made it shine again. A stovepipe shoots straight upward to the high, high ceiling in the center of room. We sit in old wooden dining chairs and stoke a fire, drinking beer; holding a small, kind service between friends.

Marriage

I cook and she tells me about her day; what she did, what she felt good about, who she someday wants to be. Me in the kitchen, her in the dining room, I tell her she is going to get there from here. She looks at me and says I am so lucky, I could not have found anyone who matches me better than you. She is crying a happy cry, and I smile in agreement. This, I know, is marriage.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Whitegrass

Snow fell like the sky was pouring it from buckets. No sun, no light but the blinding white flakes, worming their way into our eyes and mouths. We drove in a slow crawl to the small cafe, the center of the ski universe in this little town. We came dressed to kick and glide, but coffee and pie seduced us, kept us sitting, watching the snowfall stick like paste to everything.

Mountain Rain

The broad front porch curls around the side of the house; from all angles I am looking at a sea of rooftops. Smoke and mist hover, thin layers on top of thicker clouds, all obscuring the mountains behind. On top of this hill in this big old house, I feel the deep chill and watch rain pound its million fists down on every surface. The velocity of it sprays me too, leaves its fingerprints.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Dog Joy

Wet leaves layered on the asphalt like a slick carpet, even in my rugged shoes I watch my step. I fall easily it seems, on steps, on trails, in port-a-johns. Two pulsing dogs pull me forward, one on each hand. They know the rules by now; we are walking, not shopping for grass salad or cat poo. Still, their electric joy makes me hum, too. Happy to be out in the air; to be, all in one moment.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

In Bed

In bed, Chris sees me writing my five lines, says, can I help? I like helping you. Says, write about Wyoming. Yes, I say, I'll do that. Eight seconds later, she has more ideas. Say this and this, she says. I say, you go write your country song, and I'll write my blog. She laughs because she knows it's funny, then says, I'm not talking to you; I don't even like you. But I know she's lying. 

To Wyoming

Hundreds of miles, we chugged in the minivan all the way to Dubois. In Missouri we smoked cigars with the windows down, at a standstill in mystery traffic. And in the dead center of Kansas our hearts stopped, braking hard, we both said I think that was a coyote. When we arrived, without looking, we found rings we wanted to bind us. Then we turned around and drove home.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Brown Corduroy

Cold weather brings back to me a sharp, shocking clarity and the justification for winter coats I have loved. This one, brown corduroy, is new from last season. But today, as I absently fingered the buttons, I recalled another coat, my father's brown corduroy. A big bulk of a coat, sizes larger with different buttons, like pebbles, and a warm I will never recover.

Passenger

The bus rumbles north and I watch the sun rise; it was raining when I woke in the dark, the drops tapping on the back porch roof. But now that's over and an orange glow is spreading across the sky. A passenger, I feel a liberation in not having to look at any particular thing, like the road ahead of me. I look to my right, east, crossing the Occoquan River, illuminated.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

The Thaw

These are the ice fields, I say as we take a marathon drive from Banff to Jasper. Like the top of the world, or a moonscape. The forests fall away and there is only rock and ice. I see signs of thaw; a roaring creek of pale green blue water carves through feet of frozenness. Water springs from everywhere, from rock on the side of the parkway. Water, sun and dust.

British Columbia

The river grows milkier each day from glacier silt; we've come just in time for melting season. Down the road from our cabin is the town where we eat breakfast and sometimes dinner; a rich, unapologetic, near Bavarian heaviness. At dusk, we troll past the train tracks in our car, watching for the bears that come to scrape up the grain falling from the boxcars. 

Disappear

Water pushes hard, past the waterfall, down through a worn groove of rock; glaciers or snow somewhere above are cracking, melting, falling apart, letting go. We watch it go by, climb further. The trees thin and the land opens up into the valley of the inkpots. I see the ridges continue on in all directions; I know I could disappear if that's what I wanted.

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Full

Under bright yellow leaves we almost swallow our breakfast burritos whole. One dry picnic table despite recent dousings, we have this oasis to ourselves. We could call this morning kind of perfect; from the market we have bags full of greens, potatoes, cilantro, jalapenos; bellies full of eggs and chorizo. A slow happy moment of not needing another thing.

Friday, November 7, 2008

Just Us

My first double feature; four theatre hours of Newman and Redford. Just my father's speed; western, old-fashioned, good clean fun. It is another recollection of just us; he had four children and only I was there with him. Either no one else said yes or he'd asked only me, because there were things he thought I would enjoy as much as he did. He was usually right.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Almost Over

Wind twists our chimes until they speak; that and the rain are beginning to rub the trees bald of their leaves. It was just starting to glow outside with the yellow and orange, and now it's almost over. Soon it will just be black brown branches against a grey pink winter sky. But in the side yard, the fading hydrangea still clenches its fist around one obstinate bloom.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Obama

In the gap between polls closing and any useful information whatsoever, we fell asleep. So hungry to watch history, to take our place in it, raw and spent and despairing. It could be just like the last time, worse. I held my dear wife until she gave herself permission to let go, close her eyes. Hours later I woke, whispering into Chris' drowsy peaceful ear, it's looking good.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Compulsion

Morning rain visits us in bed on the back and paws of Bob the cat. So presumptive, he heads for the soft white of our still fresh pillows. Awake now, I try to keep hold of that moment of just waking. Seconds of calm, warm stillness in body and mind that I am always chasing myself out of. A stiff compulsion to get up, to fix or finish a thousand creeping demands.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Daylight Savings

A more sensible morning; my body's clock wakes me up at the same time as yesterday, but today there is light instead of the lingering envelope of night. With our one extra hour, we ignite the day with furious cleaning and cooking, then settle down and watch our longer Sunday unfold. More time, always I beg the universe for more time. Only today, it answers.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Adoration

Early morning, I am on my stomach, holding on to the slippery tail of sleep. Bob the cat is sitting on my back. I know, I can tell, he is staring at Chris. They have a love and a telepathy, and he wants to wake her with some projected electricity. He stretches out, his paw on the back of my head, his head next to my cheek. I turn as best I can and see him, in vigil.

Neuroses

In bed before dark, we watch the light go down through the front windows. In the television screen's reflection, I see us, reading. It has been long enough to feel like I've won a struggle, gained some leverage over what came before. But in sleep and other moments, I lose sight and imagine some wave washing it away, leaving me alone with handfuls of sand.