KJPcreations

There is something forgiving by the touch of love as it seduces your senses and tickles you into believing in immortality. We all need to be touched and feel the loving gaze of something outside of ourselves; the early bloom of spring or the smiling gaze of the stranger we brush past at the grocery store. A tear recalls this touch in both fondness and regret. We never know when it’s our last touch. It works kind of funny that way.

Today, a little someone wanted to hold my hand. Tiny precious fingers clutching mine to remind me that I mean, that I am alive, that I am adored. Her smile forgives all my ugly, and I understand briefly the miracle a child brings into our lives. They love purely. A child rests upon my hips and I feel their purpose for the first time, these hips of mine. They long for the connection between function and child. If my hips could smile, they smiled today. Today, my hips meant something more than sex or shame. Today, my body was artful and vibrant.

My eyes rest upon reflection rarely these days. Age is here. I mean the word actually affects my life: slow down, be responsible, moisturize, drink more water, save, and take fish oil supplements. Whatever. I fear I am forgetting everything. Remember that night you met one of the Nelson brothers – the cute one – and then you called him drunk later on that night? Or the time you took ecstasy with some upcoming, young commercial director and bled all over his sheets. You started your period in your sleep and stained his mattress. He never called again after that night. Remember the coke binge night with the sax player? You made love outside, in several places, and you both fell asleep watching “The Wiz.” You awoke, lost in the maze of a mansion in the Hollywood hills, and found your clothes scattered all over the driveway. You came home with a rash, later to be defined (by your dermatologist) as the “hot tub rash.” You couldn’t hook up for weeks after, well, at least until the rash went away. And then there was the twenty-one year old from Dre’s camp. He liked for you to pick him up from the music studio and bring him back to your place for red wine and frolic. Funny, he stills calls you now, years later, but he is forever twenty-one in your mind. And you never return his calls.

Touch is funny in that it can be apologetic and hopeful. It defines us, really. The people in our lives give us definition. If the definition is too painful, then we erase it. If the definition is pleasing, we embrace it.

I’m not so sure how to sort it all out. My birthday is in a few weeks, and with it comes an age I am not so sure how to sort out. I wish for peace of mind and for kindness. My mistakes have been heavy and I wish too have paid enough by now. I think so. I think my debt has been spoken for. For now, I hold your hand and love transcends. For now, I lift you up and your body rests upon my hip and remembers my strength, my love. Thank you for the smiles. In this now, you don’t know me so well. I am just beginning to know myself. It works kind of funny that way.

photo credit: raistlinsghost

Lately, I’ve been totally addicted to reading Raybear’s blog. Some days, he’s writing about his cleaning supplies and other days, he shares some tasty jams he’s been grooving on; often, he writes witty rants and quips on various topics or ponders about what to do with all the vegetables in his kitchen. It’s very chatty and I appreciate the tiny glimpses into his life since he lives in the windy city of Chicago and I domicile here in the rainy city of Portland. And it’s the little details that inspire me the most, like knowing he uses with hazel and lavender essential oils for pet odors or that he mounted his own bike rack recently because let’s face it, life is all about the little details.

With that, I am inspired to share a few small details about myself that you may or may not know. I love the feel of receipts printed out at the gas pump; they make me feel all silky. Whenever I go somewhere new, I need to know where the bathroom is. I have an annoying habit of leaving drawers open, forget I did it, and quickly become convinced I am living with a poltergeist. I hide all my athletic socks in the back of my sock drawer because they aren’t as cute as the others. I need the arrangement of food in my refrigerator to look artful. I prefer to leave silly, song-filled messages rather than talk on the phone. I hate the sound of cutlery scraping on plates; the sound gives me the squibbly-geebies. Sometimes, I don’t recycle on purpose and I will throw away a shirt that I no longer wear. I chew food exclusively on the left side of my mouth and I have overly active sweat glands in my right armpit; I wonder if they are related? Thursday is my favorite day of the week and I love to eat in bed. I detest wearing panties. I have a high cervix and suffer from bouts of sciatica; these things are not related. I prefer to eat peanut butter and pickles straight out of the jar. My parent’s wedding cake was in the shape of Jesus; they are divorced now but I don’t blame the big J, shit happens. Sometimes, while I’m driving around, I obsess about why you can still see Wonder Woman when she flies around in her invisible jet. Wouldn’t she be made invisible like some invisible cloak? It makes my brain itch. Why Wonder Woman, why?! I have lots of dreams about losing my contact lenses only to find them in weird places but they are too big and too thick to fit anymore. Rabbit was my first word.

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.