KJPcreations

photo credit: echoforsbergJimmy 74

It’s an acoustic-folk kind of time as poetic verses carry the melody of my life. The chorus changes as fragmented thoughts are reflected from my faithful mirrors – my far-away friends, my close-by family – and my world is buoyed by a wish to heal, a healing of the big variety. I wear my pain like the lining of my favorite red jacket; coveted, I hold it close to my heart and I call out to a now blue sky and sing to myself. It’s all on the other side of the world, my dream and my hope, weighted down by a long habit of doubt now long in tooth and rooting me deep inside a tormented tangle. I reach outside for anything close to a salvation: acupuncture, take multi-vitamins, bake a catfish, learn origami, drink more water, swallow happy pills, quit carbs, eat more carbs, read a book about extra-terrestrial lifeforms, visit therapist, let go of fear, embrace fear, build a collection of something, perfect a popcorn-ball recipe, be with people, enjoy “it”now, moisturize, believe patience is not synonymous with failure, kindly refrain from walking around the cabin until your captain has turned off the seat-belt lights.

In another world, I would stroll down a soft street and count the loose change in my pocket reconciling the pittance with the rich dreams I bought years ago. I would come up even and the less-than bits of paper would be filed away under finished with and the power of a perfect now would find a noble perch, proudly sitting without consent for questioning. The soft street would give away to a broad sky and I would fly high and deep into a starlit expanse and find footing in a deeply treed canyon. I would bury bones in the supple night dirt and whisper incantations for forgiveness, ever-lasting blueberries and the gift of music.

In this world, I negotiate the gap between what I dream to be and what is; and maybe there is some reconciliation that needs to occur in order to live and let go. For now, I follow the direction of my feet and count my steps towards a new world….

photo credit: kygp

I keep cutting my nails down super short because I think they will grow back the way I want them to: long, strong and beautiful. The truth is: the same nail always breaks in the same place from the weight I dropped on it when I was fourteen. I am self-conscious of my nails, my hands, and how they shake. I might be shaking because I am nervous or because I am pre-disposed to trembling or because I drank too much the night before and my blood sugar is low; either way, I am scared of my past.

The numbers with significance in my cell phone have all been erased so I don’t do something foolish like call and apologize; these days, I feel like I am always apologizing but it’s mostly in my head. I know I have messed up to be this alone, like crazy alone but at the same time, I must have done something incredible because I am close to my family again and they seem to accept me despite all the years I spent away.

I gave up on online dating because it sucked real hard and that sneaker kicked me in my face when I wasn’t looking. My weekly confession: I sort of gave up on everything like the running, the writing, and the motivation. It’s Sunday afternoon and I keep reluctantly thinking about a year ago where luxury was a given and magic-mushrooms with a famous cult winemaker every night was a reality and we both took Viagra to make our orgasms last longer and I swallowed pills to sleep at night and I was having panic attacks at the grocery store during the day and the words, “you ruined everything; I can’t trust you anymore,” will not leave my mind. I screamed at him and cut my forearm and tossed an ice bucket in his face and I was shoved back into the sanctuary room where I had been living on wine from his cellar and pills from his drawer for several days. He told me, I was hard to love and asked me to leave.

My nails are super short and my hair is super short and I keep thinking I can start over and be: long, strong and beautiful one day only I am scared of the damage I have caused others and the pain I have caused myself. There’s that bit of sun coming through my window and there’s tomorrow I have to show up for and these things are enough to forgive my weakness. I made a list of things to do: grocery store, clean top drawer, query letter, laundry, organize papers, and for now these things seem to be enough of a beginning.

Sparkling Drops Of Spring, by Steve Wall

The spring is undecided. A balmy heat threatens the upcoming weekend; however, clouds prevail when they forecast blue skies and sun shines when they call for rain. It’s up to the season to choose its conditions and I wait. The days are passing. My drive to work is the same as it is last week and the week before with little variation. Some days I stop for a coffee, an Americano with cold soy, and occasionally sprinkle it with nutmeg. On other mornings, if I have the time, I make a strong cup of tea at home and top it off with steamed soy.

M used to make me tea in the morning for my drive to the vineyard. It was in a big plastic cup wrapped with paper towels to protect my hands from the heat. He didn’t make the tea when he was upset with me and eventually the brewing stopped all together. I think of him when I drink my morning tea and I wish the association would disappear. One day, enough time will have passed and a cup of tea will simply be a cup of tea but for now, I wait.

I measure my windows to fit them for a fan in case the heat turns my apartment into an unbearable inferno. While looking around my place, I decide it’s time to let go of three paintings, each portraying agonizing male figures painted on wood. Years ago, I promised the artist of the two large pieces never to abandon them to a closet, so I choose to leave the paintings on the street. I live in the Alberta Arts district; surely they will find a new home. The other piece, a small wooden block purchased from an artist on the streets of San Francisco, I decide to burn.

There was a time when the artwork insinuated love and lost love, adornment of beauty, hope, connection to a moment and place and person that once made my soul melt in the Rilke kind of way, the mystical yummy kind of passion that I could taste all day long. But now, it’s just sad men on blocks of wood and it is time to let them go.

I relate to an undecided spring, at times unpredictable but choosing my own climate. There is a lonely that chokes me from the inside out balanced only by the expansive inhalation of possibility. I choke, I breath deep, I wait and the days are passing and it doesn’t seem to matter the memories or the dreams or the mundane or the morning beverage choice because life is brazen enough to lead to death. In the interim, there is weather to witness and morning drives to work with caffeine for company.

I am totally and officially he-rah in Portland. I made the required Oregon DMV visit earlier this week and have the new plates and the awkwardly-poised license picture to prove it. 

The time is now to shamelessly sport an Adidas vest and strut the not-so-very- mean-city-streets in vintage boots and call it high fashion. The City of Roses is ruggedly retro and artfully disheveled. I own expensive hoodies and handmade jewelry; I buy organic flax seed and rock the canvas grocery bags. I invest in locally grown and jog for fun; I made the mistake of ordering a, “Grande soy latte,” only once in a non-Starbucks establishment. Only once. I have a friend who rolls with a scooter crew or posse or gaggle; maybe they prefer gang since it sounds tougher? Don’t think I don’t swerve the knitting needles because I do! I have a bag of yarn just waiting to be transformed and the wisdom to know the difference. I have vinyl, I drink tea, I think indie, I am me.  If you say, “Apple,” I say, “Sauce.” Apple-Sauce. Apple-Sauce.

I actually don’t make apple sauce. Rather, I should be making the apply yum-yum-sauce or maybe I should be perfecting a chutney recipe. I should be composting and talking about spring frost affecting my garden or how my boyfriend, the mandolin player, is investing in a portable yurt company called, “I’ll Skin You Alive,” only his company is not using real animal skins but some bio-diesel-sustainable material that if the time should arrive when you are desperately hungry and stuck in some woodland enclave you can soak pieces of the yurt in water and it turns into a delicious miso soup. Mmmm, yurt-tastic!

I might open up an organic cotton candy shop and call it, “Puff Puff Pass,” or I might create my own line of frozen citrus treats, hand pressed in shapes of lips called, “Pucker Up.” I might break-up with my fictitious boyfriend, Lenny (you know the one, the mandolin player) and join a cult of women who have ceased to wax and we would call ourselves, “Betties that Bush.” I might start a country band called, “Natural Detergent,” and we’d sing about how the earth hurts and yearns to be clean.  I might do many things.

For now, I must take leave and ready myself for a weekend in Los Angeles whereby I will enjoy another kind of compost pile all together.