remember the why
because
it seems
you’re spending a lot of time
convincing yourself of
something
Energy work
God, the Divine
Writing
Uncovering me, udee
Infused water
Plant medicine
Growing older
Scents: essential oils, smudge sprays
Mystery schools
Writing
Photography
The name Maya
Neuroscience
Quantum physics
Music and human voices in music
Language, culture, travel
Bewilderment and wonder
to lay naked in front of yourself is an exercise in your mortality. in learning the difference between loneliness and being alone. let the voices within your thoughts swirl around you and you are echoing in them. nothing is as humbling as ugly vulnerability. stripping yourself of the pride of your personhood. your pride calling out from behind you — a baby’s scream for attention. you release yourself to walk upon the ashes of your ego. let those who watch you come to their own conclusions. their eyes tearing at your flesh and tongues wagging in understanding. do they understand? expectations crack through your window, as daybreak comes to meet you curled into the womb of your thoughts. the cooing of sunlight begs you to rise into it. but you are crippled. again. you swim, paddle, in strained attempts to be free. the task of being plagued! the burden of this affliction. if it were a robe, would you not shed it? if it were rope, would you not find its beginning? find its end? you have toyed with the idea of hibernation, haven’t you? toyed with the idea of laying there until something finds you — until the dew that had blanketed you dries on your flesh with first sun. if that becomes your liberation, so be it.
so be it.
she laughed in contra-alto melancholy
even and measured in wild rhythms
even and measured in wild rhythms
her allure was the spice and honey of which dreams are made
every woman’s most primal desire, every man’s most hushed secret
she lived her life in sweeping whites and blood-stained reds
gap-toothed and dewy-skinned, she bathed her curls daily in jasmine water
her thighs were home to the most straight-backed of generals
she was the reason why wives slept uncomfortably at night
every woman’s most primal desire, every man’s most hushed secret
she lived her life in sweeping whites and blood-stained reds
gap-toothed and dewy-skinned, she bathed her curls daily in jasmine water
her thighs were home to the most straight-backed of generals
she was the reason why wives slept uncomfortably at night
her ears the refuge of said wives by mid-morning
she taught them to tuck lavender oils behind their ears
to sip lemon-water upon waking
she was madam to no one, the community’s untouchable treasure
little children followed her in the marketplace
she danced among them with pineapple caught between her teeth
sharing what she owned with all who asked
she was never in want and never in need and never lacking and never for anyone
so when her hair grew from raven black to a foggy quiet grey
when the tight smoothness of her cheeks relaxed
when her skin started to emanate jasmine on its own accord
her male callers and female companions prepared her home
they gathered orchids and water lilies and roses
they prepared stories and taught their unborn Cofán songs
they lined the perimeter of her mossy home with gerberas and ginger
they rubbed her fingers, the ones that comforted them with coconut oil
as she laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed until their eyes filled and lifted and danced
melancholy hushing into celebration of la doña
Big girls don’t cry.
She cried at work today. Big, saltine tears that heated her cheeks and embarrassed her. She grasped at her dignity, and even it turned from her. The overwhelm of it made her stoop and here she was – bubbling, feeling, silly. Tongue treading lightly in her mouth – dry and moist and numb. The rising heat in her cheeks surprised her, the warm water unable to be dammed up any longer by lower eyelids. She became a wreck no sooner than she began the acknowledgement. But oh the embarrassment of aiming to be great and realising you are not the perfection of Mt Olympus! Her body did not shake, her fingers did not fail to clutch her Kleenex tight. She was defeated and only her brown eyes told the story; mascara failing to proof them. Her emotions betrayed her with uncompassion. What the fuck! Her apologies were prolific, her shame even greater and her tears the truest icing. So she breathed at work today. She took a breath amidst eyes the rawest red and she remembered her humanity. This was her only flipping comfort.
…and may it be that in these quiet moments you truly find peace. that your mind stills from the anxiety of life’s unknowings. that even when none calls your name, you take comfort in the silence. the steadiness of breath. the ease of inactivity. that you do not mistaken this moment of inattention to mean loneliness. you are your greatest company. that you remember that. that you name your disappointments as cycles of living. that you honour your current emptiness. that you carve space for it. that you take not lightly its importance. that you let your mind ease, blanketing you into warmth. that it’s ok to be this way, whatever way that is, for a while. that it’s ok. that’s it’s ok. that you’re ok. that in these quiet moments you truly find your peace.
We need it talk. It’s been years, but we need to talk. …or I need to talk. Doesn’t matter.
I almost forgot we were Facebook friends. I didn’t remember that cyber space had reconnected us in this way. After grade school, I always wondered where in life everyone was, but that was only a cursory musing I reserved for a select few – the few with whom I shared adventures. Honestly, despite my ebbing and flowing crush on you back then, I never remembered to wonder about you. How old were we anyway when you walked into my third grade class …or was it fourth grade? Fifth grade? The details are hazy. Nevertheless, you had the nerve to surface on my News Feed and like a conjuring, I snapped into grasping at fading grade school memories of you.
First of all, age looks inexplicably fantastic on you. Good-ness! You’ve clearly found a pattern to this manhood thing and created a lane that works rather comfortably for yourself. You’re taller, darker-featured… and the look behind your eyes seems inquisitive, in the adult, grown and sexy kind of way. As I unabashedly click through damn near all your photos, I see you’re nurturing a lovely pelt of facial hair. I hope the people in your life tell you that it’s completely striking on you. It is; I hope you keep the look.
I’m not going to assume you remember me because I sat behind you in history class or some such nonsense. That never happened. In fact, I don’t think we ever shared any activities of note together throughout the time we went to school. Not a stolen kiss on the playground… not a strange obsession with postcards… I was the kid who kept thoughts in a journal, the real world being inherently awkward to interact with. I was the kid with too much elbows and knees and height for all the boys and too much of an early bloomer to be comfortable in her own skin. So I tended to shrink from public view. So it’s likely you wouldn’t remember me. It’s cool. I liked foursquare at recess though. Maybe you remember that? I do.
But even back then, I thought you were cute. I was lanky and bones and bug eyed and weird, but I know I incubated a crush on you. I can’t remember how long or even how fervently, but I recall hoping you’d like me. I think. I just hope I was nice to you back then – that I never laughed too hard at you, as I tended to do. I do remember laughing at you once though: when your mother walked to you to class in the morning and demanded from you a goodbye kiss. You were horrified. And I was there, laughing like a fool. I still laugh like a fool. It’s become a bit of a signature, this laugh. Maybe you’d appreciate it more now than perhaps you did back then.
Well, I hope you are happy in life. Your photos on Facebook seem to suggest you are. You are all husband and father now. Geez, we’ve become that old! Nevertheless, I still think you’re cute (perhaps more handsome, than cute now, no?) and I hope people let you know that from time to time.
“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it is raining, but that feeling of being rained on.”
– E. L. Doctorow
every sensory organ tickling with activity
smells of burning ears of roasting corn and pear mixing with suya meat and onions
market women in fading wrappers tied solidly at the hip beckoning foreign customers
jostling throngs of weekly market-goers, saltine rivers streaming from their temples
afternoon blaze making the simple activity of inhalation difficult
motorcyclists carrying dozens and dozens of yam tubers speeding past
unmoved by pedestrian traffic racing across the street
dry sand swept by infrequent breeze, mingling with vehicle fumes
graveyards of broken plastic slippers and rotting fruit stopping up gutterways
and hundreds upon hundreds of voices
imperceptible sounds drowning out screaming child hawkers
bus conductors barking bus routes, slamming amoebic grocery bags into spilling trunks
stray dogs and goats panting up dust and oxygen
and if you close your eyes
you could quite possibly, for a moment, tune out everything
and actually hear silence