Poem from the woods of Laguna

Earthly vessels against the sky

The tree limbs are lungs full of the desert's breath

Branches (bronchi) tremble and sway in the wheezes

dusty with thoughts of cactus and dried sea beds

The trunk delivers love notes whispered from sky to roots

The rocks below feel the vibration of the universe 

coursing through bark and leaf

Jays chatter into the breath of the north,

responses to the shadows of birdsongs on the wind

We Flutter-bys

I want to be at home with you in this skin of ours, the mutual cocoon that forms between lovers. We are wrapped in silk and grace. I want to nestle the valley between my chin and mouth deep into your collarbone, my lips resting in that gorge between bone and muscle. I want to trace the moles and scars and creases of skin with a fingertip that knows the way. I want the nest of our tangled hair to be the home to fluttering thoughts and chirping dreams.

I want it to all be OK.

But our cocoon has holes we’ve yet to mend. And I can’t see the tiny tears behind your back. You capture me with your eyes and even with needle and thread (words, glances, truth) in hand I am unable to reach, unable to pull the fabric tightly between my hands and plunge the needle through this living breathing warp. You know that when I do that, the scar is still there. The seams will never fully merge, heal, replace cells with new like skin. There will always be a weakness there. 
And in my desperate pulling to mend and forget I will distort, rip, destroy other parts of our otherwise totally perfectly imperfect cocoon. We knew this when we started weaving it under the stars, hands and feet into the dirt, talking over riveted roads. We knew then that the chances of survival for such a being as this WE was slim but that trying anyway was as noble and necessary as birth and death. 

The veil is thinning and I am left with myself. I want to trace stories of us on your sternum, near the heart I love. I want to breathe in your spent breath and pick out the molecules you have used so well, full of memories of your lungs and all the other breaths you have breathed, every moment you have spent filling yourself with joy and grief, ecstatic wonder and deafening pain. 

There is time for this all. 

Allow us to be, to break through silk and grace and emerge as long winged flutter-bys, huge hearts swollen with hope and new beginnings we have woven together.

Freewrite: The Story of We

We wander through the streets of this nothing town and take up residence in broken houses, broken hearts. 

We unwrap furniture as if it were dead bodies, dust settling on our thin wrists and tangled hair. 

We cook food on ancient stoves and pretend the war is over. 

We love deeply on the dirty rugs and cover ourselves with clothes that are wilted and holed. It is not like us to be so daring. But nobody cares (we don't) now that the other side has won. 

We tumble outside into the dying light of spring and throw ourselves into the sparse sheaves of grass emerging from cold earth. The flowers aren’t yet here but it doesn’t matter to us. There are branches overhead and worms underneath to keep us company. 

We bundle in blankets and read to one another under the covers of darkness and light.  

We wriggle and squirm and fight off the loneliness and can’t imagine life before/after/with one another.  

We can’t figure it all out, all these happenings and all this tragedy, but we are not built for such things. 

We can just be here right now and take in the wonder and pain. 

We rip each other to shreds and build one another up to be naked and free. 

We are here for this purpose and I cannot tell you otherwise. I don’t want to lie. 

We won’t be OK but in this moment we are alive.  
 

Get Storied

I see him every morning.

He appears before my tea is ready, between my sun salutations and watering of the rosemary and peas. Sometimes I see him walk to his spot, but most of the time he is just there: a boardshorts-wearing fixture next to the catamarans and seaweed resting on the sand.

He is sleeping now, cloth over his face, body tilted in a fetal position away from the climbing sun. Yesterday I watched the seagulls flock around him as he ate out of a plastic bag. Somebody's leftover sandwich? A burrito? Crackers from a cocktail party he threw last night?
I have not seen his face up close. I squint and make out a pale mustache on a tanned face. He must be older. Is he homeless? Where does he spend the night? But he doesn’t have much with him- just a simple backpack, a sweater, a baseball cap. Does he live nearby?

Why does he come to this beach everyday, settling in precisely the same spot to stare out at the bay, the gulls, the airplanes screaming overhead? Is it his communion with nature? Or is it simply the least awful place to sleep the day away after wandering through the night? Is this a choice?

He hasn’t always been here. This is a new thing. Months of a new thing, but my view was void of mustachoed sleepers until relatively recently. The moms with their strollers and running pants and cell phones all in simultaneous use ignore him. The hung-over muscle-y boys don’t give him a second glance as they recount the previous night’s adventures on Garnet beach-cruising on by. The dogs occasionally circle him wanting to play but their owners cut the frolicking short, apologizing while grabbing at collars, their bodies question marks against the shimmering water.

He has a story. I am sure of it.

We all have stories of course. Why does he seem like such a mystery? Do I have the courage to ask? He is a part of my life, my routine, now. I feel obligated to learn more about the face I see (or squint to see) everyday, right?

But that might lead to me becoming more curious about the other folks I see everyday. The man who cleans the common areas with chokingly strong cleaners and a pleasant smile. How did he get that scar on his temple? My neighbor above whose high heals I hear clomping above me long before I see her walk in front of my window to the garage every morning. Where does she go? Is she happy with her job? The barista at 976. What is she studying between frothing up lattes?

The list goes on and on. How do I have time to listen to all these stories? I have things to learn, work to accomplish, places to drive to where I will do lots and lots of stuff. Important stuff.

For my own well being, how can I not slow down and ask, listen to these stories?
They are my stories too.
We all have stories, we all ARE stories.
We complete one another’s chapters, novels, volumes.

Let’s write the world together.
It begins by listening.
And that begins by asking.
Even just a name.

This is my dare to myself: get involved, get storied.

Back on the farm

Dirty fingernails, open heart.

I milked a goat for the first time today. Or I think it was the first time. She munched on molasses covered oats as I took a hand to her udder. Pinch. Rhythmic squeeze. The sound of milk hitting the inside of the metal pail. I was slightly disgusted at first. I mean, what else comes out of a body? Pee, shit, semen, snot, tears, saliva, sometimes blood. None of those are edible (those of you snickering- you know what I mean). So to see something come out of a warm body with the intention to put it in my chicory latte later was slightly disturbing.

And that is why I am here on a farm- to encounter those realities that we have pushed aside for convenience, blissful in our unknowing. We ignore the fact that steak comes from an eviscerated cow or those mushrooms were grown on manure or that the kale leaf has holes because bugs were munching away on the organic goodness. Some of us have a higher tolerance than others. But finding out where and how your food is grown, milked, processed is important. The disconnect does not serve you, the farmer, the earth.

After coming to terms with the reality of milk (and slurping down the rest of my latte- yes, the farm has a quirky tiki-like coffee bar), I harvested broccoli florets and leaves for the weekly CSA. The tiny green buds were sweet and crunchy when I popped a stem into my mouth. I could be happy all day grazing through the fields, a leaf of arugula here, a bitter dose of dandelion there. I brush the occasional bug away (I have a higher tolerance on that front) and chew the sunshine with giddiness.

I dug up baby Mizuna in a hoophouse to give the other adolescent greens some room to stretch towards the spiders in the cloth above, nestle roots unencumbered into the loose soil below. I carried trays of the travelers and transplanted the spindly spiky shoots into an open field. Dig a hole, sprinkle with fish meal and beet pulp, worm castings and ground shells. Carefully break apart seedlings and place them in smaller clumps into their new homes. Tuck soil around them, douse them with a welcomed bath of water. Wish them luck through the cold nights filled with rabbits and gophers. Repeat.

My fingernails are dirty, my belly full of milk and cheese and greens, my nose is pink with sun.  

My eyes are bright with the nourishment of the earth and community.

Eating on the Road in America

I am writhing in anger and pain. My eyes are swollen and itchy, my stomach bloated and confusingly unsatiated. I don’t want to think about moving, but the fake arbor of grapes, the sticky vinyl booth, the sepia photographs of chianti bottles and Tuscan villas are nauseating me more than the scent of fried squid and sour white wine. I know I must get out of this place even if it hurts to stand.

I didn’t think I would be angry. But two bites into my Mixed Grill dinner, I lost my shit. Cutting into a piece of meat (Why did I think meat would be a safer choice than pasta? Why?) drenched in a congealing dark brown liquid, I wrinkled my nose and looked up at Joe, “Does this look OK?” The pink center of the fuzzy textured “steak” looked slimy and dyed. “What did you expect?” he said as he steered his tortellini into a puddle of khaki cream sauce on the faux Italian plate in front of him, a newly refreshed basket of pale sticks of dough off to the side. Wilted iceberg lettuce, faded red tomatoes, yellowing croutons drenched in an opaque oily dressing clung to the sides of a plastic salad bowl between us.

“How is everything?” our server appeared with another basket of bread (unlimited, unneeded). She swooped in and placed a full Coke next to Joe’s half finished glass (why stop with shitty food when you can have shitty drinks too?). We both look astonished and confused at the one and a half glasses of soda on the table. Neither of us usually drink soda at all and to have free refills seems preposterous. I stare at my plate and nod while Joe manages to smile up at her and say politely, “Everything’s great. Thanks.” She walks off and I mumble, “Except for the food!” I pretend to throw my plate across the restaurant. Joe is amused but I feel sort of bad for everyone working and eating here. This is when I start to get angrier.

This is not a restaurant review. There was no reasonable part of me that thought that the food at Olive Garden would be delicious. Sure, there was that little roadtripping voice in my head when we pulled off the freeway saying that This Would Be Fun! Crappy fast food or chain restaurants are a (fun!) novelty on a trip. Enjoy the (fun!) atmosphere that the “typical” American experiences on a Saturday date night! Use those gift cards you got for Christmas two years ago to order up something you wouldn’t normally get (like anything on an Olive Garden menu). Enjoy the family atmosphere and smiling servers wearing the ubiquitous cheeky buttons (Hospitaliano!).

I am angry because my food is barely edible. The meat is cheap and tasteless. The potatoes are dry and over-seasoned. The flaccid stems of asparagus are bitter and fibrous. The salad was elementary school cafeteria level at best. The half a breadstick I gnawed upon (just because it was there) was slick with garlic flavored oil and cloyingly sweet. I am angry because the restaurant is full of families and couples and friends tucking into this barely-passable-as-food food. I wonder how many nutrients (if any) this plate of protein and carbs contains. I wonder if the people sitting here actually enjoy what is on the table. I am angry because an entrée here costs almost $20 and I know of a dozen locally owned restaurants in San Diego where you can get locally grown veggies, freshly made pasta, and humanely raised (and much better tasting) meat for the same price. Maybe you don’t get unlimited (shitty) salad, but you do get freshly baked bread and butter. I am angry because THIS is why people think that vegetables don’t taste good. Because they don’t: HERE. I am angry because a corporation is duping people into thinking that this is what food should taste like, that this is a treat. They are duping people into thinking this is what food tastes like in ITALY! (Even Berlusconi shouldn’t be served this shite)
I am angry that the corporation is raking in profits serving meat that was raised in a corral of shit, that the animal was pumped full of hormones and antibiotics and lived a horrid life. That the vegetables were most likely sprayed with pesticides and grown in fumigated, dead earth and that this corporation could definitely afford to buy organic produce. I am angry that restaurants like these force smaller restaurants (that may support local farms and artisans) out of business by just being there, being an option, being the one with more marketing dollars and a “name,”  and pretend to be an affordable choice. That in certain parts of this country there are no locally owned restaurants or markets or even farms. That a fancy night out is the choice between the Applebees and Olive Garden at the Mall, while on Main Street (or Commercial or 1^st Street) the storefront vacancies are abundant and devastating.

I am pissed that the vegetables taste like shit and a generation will grow up hating vegetables because they don’t know the difference. They will eat more and have health problems because their bodies are yearning for nutrients that this type of food does not provide. I believe that you can eat 3000 calories but if the food doesn’t have the nutrients and minerals you need, your body will not be satiated. You will leave with an uncomfortably full yet undernourished feeling. You will crave more even if it tastes like that freezerburnt hamburger helper casserole you’re reluctant to chip out of the back corner of the fridge because you know it is at least four years old and probably tastes like dog poop. I know it is a privilege to eat food and even more of a privilege to be able to eat out every once in a while. Perhaps that is why I am even angrier at Olive Garden than at a place like Ruth's Chris: both are overpriced, but OG is pretending to have quality food at a low price and that is a lie.

I didn’t finish my meal. I didn’t accept a doggy bag. I rarely let food go to waste but this was not food. I did grumble an order for tiramisu reasoning that cream and liquor is hard to fuck up. Wrong. It tasted like Cool Whip and Quik powder. There was no Kahlua. But I squeezed nearly every cent out of the gift cards because I know I am not going back.

The lack of brand name coffee liquor in a shitty dessert is hardly the point. My point is… Support your local restaurants. Especially when it costs the same as an oversized but under-nourishing meal at a chain. Eat good, fresh, local food when you can. Go out of your way (away from the freeway most likely) to find a place to eat. Make an effort. If you’re at home and have an hour, you can cook up an organic steak and veggie dinner for much less than $40. It’s worth it. Your health, your kids (or your neighbors’), your planet, your gut, and your freaking taste buds will thank you. And I will too. In fact, let's go out to dinner. Just you and me. We’ll go dutch. You pick the place and as long as there is only one of them, I’ll go. And I promise not to rant about Olive Garden, I swear.

Fiction: Silent spines in my grounded sole

It is as if you saw me already. You with your faded jeans and blushing cheeks and dirty dusted hoodie. Your eyes covered by the edge of the fabric. I couldn’t understand what you were saying at first. You mumbled and quavered, your toes drawing dreams in the sand. I bent over slowly, as not to scare you back into the rabbit hole of your past, and I whispered a forgotten hello. But you knew exactly what it meant. The blue of your eyes showed no fear, no remembrance of the time before time began for us. It seemed so clear to you that I was to appear, you were to sigh, I was to breathe, you were to ask. 

I take your hand without a word. It lay limply in my own; a captured dove pale and still in my palm. We walk towards the hillside, towards rocks paused in the middle of their tumble down the slope, as if catching their breath before finishing the descent. We walk over clay red and rough beneath our bare feet. You squeak with pain when the cactus spine tears through the tender underbelly of arched bones and thin skin of your earthbound sole. The dove flies free of my grasp and flutters towards your splayed toes. A fuzzy ball of needles clings to the curve of your point. You don’t look up at me as you take knife from back pocket, position the blade between skin and fiber, and fling the source of pain, of gasps, of beauty, of defense back into the dust where we hadn’t looked before. You examine the tiny pinpricks letting the universe in through the bottom of your foot. You smile and brush at the ruby droplets and microscopic spines intermingling.

Knife back in pocket you climb up my body to standing, my gaze distant and startled at the sudden intimacy. Your hand is a sparrow and nestles its way into the nest of my fingers. You pull me along the path as the sun sets over the hill before us. The shadows disappear and we wonder how they (we) (you and I) ever existed.