Vinegar (October)

Vinegar (October)

The house smells faintly
of vinegar
the neighbor's dogs
for once: silent

spicy tea that tastes
of Nepal
rests on the coffee table,
waiting

I am waiting,
with clouded hope,
a heart ungrounded,
guiltily

I should be doing
more of the Right Things:
asserting, projecting
myself into the world
finding work outside
this vinegar-scented house

certainly not
sipping tea in silence

Purple

Purple

I will

hammer that nail
wherever it suits me

stuff my apron pockets
full of garden tomatoes

stand on a stool
to knead my bread

eat my carrots whole
raw, unpeeled, purple

not match my clothing
with my purse
(not even carry a purse if i don't want to)

celebrate my body
in nakedness, in clothing

decide who i am
and (i will) be that

i will be.

09.26.10

The reality of being back in the U.S. is flying in my face now.

The putting-myself-into-the-right-boxes. Being someone slightly off-center from my true self. Being confined, sanitized, respectable. I'm scared of that. Scared because I've been there before, for years. I know.

I must unfurl. I've begun. I am birthing a new self. It is shocking and shattering and healing. It is wildness. How dare I let anything tame it?

Nevertheless, I am attached to a world, a life in which expectations will always exist. What am I to do? I wonder if I've been born into the wrong world. Or time. Or dimension.

Another universe lives inside me.

From 07.06.10 & 08.02.10

07.06.10

It is a split. A parallel world that I know is not a figment of my imagination. It was real that I lived in Nepal. It is real; it's still there. It's real that I am back at home. I'm here. I carry within me that other world. I carry Nepal. It's real.

Why does it feel so much like fantasy? Why does it seem like so very long ago? Why can't my arms stretch far enough to touch both of these very different, very distanced worlds? And why can't I gather all my selves into one coherent Heidi?

08.02.10

Our car smells like crayons. Better than New Car Smell. But I think I'd rather just have crayons.

I've bitten off my nails. Again. I'll keep biting until it's safe to stop.

We're living in a periwinkle house on Mary Street. Our shit is everywhere.

I had to put my shit in a plastic container and hand it to the doctor.

I see topis; my heart swells.

We listened to bluegrass, spontaneous folk music in a warehouse on Walnut Street.

We watched Neal play the banjo on the patio.

I'm surprised by my life.

I hope Ella remembered me. Everyone else remembered me. I wish they (all) didn't.

I spoke my wildest dream out loud; it came true.

I am tired of boxes, straight lines, answers, safety, sameness. I don't fit inside. I'm curvy.

I am wild, evolving.

Goodbye

Goodbye. Life is full of this word. I've said it so many times before, but never with such finality. I may not see these same faces and places again. I can't accept finality. Oh, how I love an open end! The Possibility, the Chance, the Maybe lingering until it fades without my noticing. The long, subtle disappearance of hope--nothing too sudden, too noticeable. Easing out, bit by bit.

But life is sudden. These days, these days are fast and loud and certain. A count down. Specific dates and times when goodbye must be said. Finally. I can't even pretend that it's not real. It's very much my reality.

Hidden

Somewhere like
a clearing in a forest,
a box in a bedroom closet,
that triangular room under the basement stairs,
up the sleeve of your homemade dress

Messages
bones
secret loves
old kleenex

The things we hide
the things we save
the secrets and secret spaces
somewhere, scattered carefully
throughout our hidden lives.

Strawberries/04.07.10

Strawberries

I dreamed that strawberries were $1 each. Too much. I put them back. Back. I wanted to go back. We were on a familiar country road, mom. You and I. The breeze was perfect, you were beautiful as always, the strawberries were strawberry-red. And I ran down that road, trying to go back, getting nowhere, strawberryless.

04.07.10

My hand is shaking, dry, some vague shade of brown. Like a leaf. The wind, the world is swirling. I'm not sure how tightly I'm holding on. Enough to watch earth-colors spinning round me.

Oh, life! Why must everything be so intense and colorful and terrible and wild? I feel it. That life-energy beats inside me; I don't know what to do with it. So my hands shake, my spirit quakes with mystery and being and life. Does anyone else feel this way?