Aunt Doris' Petunias

The earth, The water, The roots

Last night Anna Banana, Lukey and I all went to a journal launch called "Origins" and it was amazingly wonderful with spoken word and singing, samosas and chai and a really wonderful feeling of other people exploring where they came from and who they are and what has shaped them. And of course it made me think about me and my roots all over the place.

My cousin Gary did some research on my dad's side of the family ancestory and of course there are holes in it and branches that end and then branch out again. Just knowing the names, let alone the stories behind them make me feel all mosaic.

And of course Lukey is here, and so I am thinking about all the things that make him up and the little town where he's from and how different being an American can be. And what kind of a mixture, a colour he and I make.

But really this whole thing, this whole experience and the sun shining and me all in black listening to Luke breathing makes me want to sing/shout/yell/prophesize/play/remember who I am and who I will become and who will be born out of me and my leaves.

errrgggg

it's quiet and i'm trying not to cough and wake up philly cause his head hurts and tomorrow, now, yes just, is monday and that means work and alarm clocks.

i'm doing my laundry cause i can and that means one less thing to do tomorrow. they are revamping the laundry room for a week so soon i'll have to wash things in the sink and hang them up to dry. my throat is all tickly and i've gotta wait until i've folded all my clean clothes before i take any cold medicine cause it's gonna make me sleepy. i shouldn't be sleepy as i slept the day away hoping that when i'd wake up my head and throat and mind would be clear.

i see annie in a few days and then lukey will be here. it is so wonderful to have company but that means people to clean for and be awake for and be healthy for. i wonder if it really is mind over matter if i can make myself all better by just wishing it so. or is it that i really have to trick myself into thinking, no, knowing that i'm fine and then i will be. kinda like how smiling when your sad makes you forget.

blooming

the clouds and gray come in and block the sun when you are not looking.

come in

you only notice when its gone - the light- and only remember when it's bright again.

the voice that brings me here is my own and hers that is so much like mine.
when i'm alone and lonely it is that that brings me back to the light
that i can turn on with a switch
if i want to.

i forget and i remember so easily it comes sometimes, so easily that it is effortless and the other times it is too hard my fingers don't work or my hand made up of them.

but it is time. time for me to get dressed and do my hair get it out of my face put on my jacket and walk out into the rain and the wind to the subway, to people that are awake in their own thoughts, awake to what they are feeling and to them i am a stanger whose face they can read only if i look them in the eye.

i will be a writer
and you will take my words
and drink in them me
spread them on your toast
with jam and open your mouth
bite chew swallow.

but i am like the fleeting leaf
fleeting flurry fighting with the wind
for value for weight
the right to be on the ground
and tread upon.

in leaves are veins
in me too they flow
with bloody water
and i want to see them
see them working
know how they make it move
the water all through me
all steady
no waves.

i will be a writer
when this is read.

I want to work like this cause that's what saturdays are for.

Happy Birthday

It's Jenny's birthday and so I thought I would dedicate this post to her because she reads it and thinks that it is enjoyable because she knows me and my thought processes and how I am forgettful so I want to make sure she knows that I remembered her day and that I remember her.

oh the run-on sentences to drive an English teacher mad

but that is how/who I am.

Jenny is my friend, my wonderful friend who made my years away at university memorable. She was the girl with the best clothes in her closet, the best tunes on her computer, the best hair dying techniques, the best hair washing techniques, the best drinking at Ducky's, the best rememberer of how I like my coffee and the best cookie baker ever. She still is the girl that I would love to get dressed up and go out with and laugh at myself with. I miss her because the city is so big and the girls that I have here are so wonderful and I love them but she is the best moments of my past.

and I said to myself and aloud that this space wasn't for the step-by-step protrayal of my day and the hierarchy of my thoughts and so it won't be. I won't write here about the papers I have to write critiquing international metadata standards and how to serve multilingual multicultural youth in a public library environment. I won't write about the vacuuming and the laundry and how I firmly believe this is a day that I won't get out of my pajamas until well after the sun goes down.

Happy Birthday Jenny, cause you know my day-to-day and love me anyway.