a quiet dark place is all we need

The other day I kept driving through these themed scenes of exquisite beauty, the kind of trite urban images that catch on the edge of your consciousness until you see them, oddly, three times in a row and on the third time finally slow down to watch.

At the time I made a note of it, to write about later, here. But then I felt a little self-conscious-- after all, one of the repeated scenes was the trapped breeze-dance of a solitary plastic bag. Is everyone sick of that after the movie? It still affects me, although maybe it was just the particular day.

we'll cut our bodies free from the tethers of this scene

Listening to a favorite album from the year 2003, I began to feel restless deep inside as the music stirred body memories and made me painfully aware that I've lived here in the same zipcode for just over five years. Except for the house into which I was born, I haven't lived in any one place for more than a year and a half. A decade-long stretch of moving around suited me just fine; I always knew when it was time to leave.

oneaday

I've been writing much more often over at my everyday photo journal, but it's incredibly mundane. I feel like I've sunk deep into the couch cushions, snuggled close with my man and cats, and stuffed my face with plentiful, hot, home-cooked meals. It's the most cozy hibernation a hairless ape could hope for, but it's not been particularly good for my creative output. Rather, the seemingly minor task of taking one photo and writing one sentence each day has taken quite a lot more energy than I anticipated. I've written far more than one sentence most days, but it's more of a diary of daily goings-on; perhaps a separate, more creatively charged single sentence journal is a good idea.

nobody has to know

Crunch of gravel, and ice-rain falling through the bamboo rakes zen lines through the path in front of my footsteps. Walking across the wooden bridge at night, pink snow-sky overhead, I'm chanting the words I don't want to forget, unable to see passing faces for the back-lit glow from glass buildings.

This morning, dark mirror image, I chanted "Jabba the Hutt" to myself over and over, to try to remember the dream from which I awoke.

This morning it didn't work, but this evening it did.

Sound waves, star waves

There's a connection through radio, when you realize that someone in a distant location hears the same sounds as you at the same moment, experiences the same sensory input, reacts with a similar recognition. Thus radio transcends earthly broadcast to heavenly status-- it's a locale for lovers' trysts, like wishing on the same star or looking up at the same moon in the sky.

On the way to work, driving over the Hawthorne Bridge where it carries you over the train tracks (east side), and a small cloud puff rising from underneath gives a moment's warning before the whir of the horn, directly below, permeates the bridge structure, my car, my bones. The pleasing magic of the Doppler Effect as I swing past the tracks and over the water.

On the way home from work, small patches of low cloud break the unseasonably smooth blue, two lights in the sky send cylindrical beams ahead of an airplane that meanders ponderously onward like a friendly, celestial manta ray.

Cast vitriol and stones

(From a Vandaveer song I just heard on WOXY, a lovely turn of phrase that stuck to my mind's ear)

Watching drippy drops form and fall from skeletal branches just outside the odd, low window in the yoga room. Everything in that room darkened to my mind as the rain lines slowed into focus.

Oh leaf dreams

Stir in my chest, the ache in a short breeze plucks at the top. When I slowly turn to look, I will close my eyes and breathe deeply instead. The smell of earth, dark and heavy, waits for my hands and heart, waits for the collapse of leaf-veins and all of the between parts. With an ear to the ground, you can share the dark secret and giggle with the rest of the roots lifting their arms to the sky in supplicating green blades. I won't give up, but in my sleep I will dream of giving in and returning to the tree.