this morning at dawn on facebook i read this by joy harjo who lives in oklahoma. this, before the tornado. i read it over and over. the words saturated with ominous fact.
"Awakened by a woodpecker making a rhythm for food. The air uneasy. Many of us listen to what the birds are doing for signs. They were not there usual bright selves this morning. The robin who who is the speaker/singer for the neighborhood bird community is quiet. Everyone is waiting, listening."
Monday, May 20, 2013
easing up on cleanse, the bad white on the tongue releasing into the brain - fog of fogs. think of stephen king learning to write without doing lines, stephen king coming back from the accident, sucking lost language back to himself from its origins, norman mailer learning to write without cigarettes, the patience with oneself as infirm. kaput. viewing infirmity as untruth. not accepting it and demanding more. reading the flamethrowers is an exercise in concentration but it is my favorite topic - mobility and it's relationship to violence and the war machine. a hot chick on a motorcycle, injured on the salt flat, cared for by italian speed racers. on another note spanky is revealing herself to have special powers with dog aggressive dogs. she can beg at the table all she wants. she came here to do special things.
Friday, May 17, 2013
day one: raw food cleanse guided by the amazing kathe izzo. here we go. morning smoothies, "energy soup" with rejuevelac(fermented quinoa water,) ginger apple sauce. hemp seeds, chia seeds, avocado sprouts and greens as well as amazing pickled things like this...
my tongue is thick and i feel a little fuzzy headed but relieved to be in the container of disciplined food intake. meant to start this a few days ago but postponed. many hamburgers and pizzas were had in my procrastination. last time i did this on day three i was down for the count, but as the sweet girl in trader joe's said. you never know what will happen this time. there are always so many factors. indeed.
my tongue is thick and i feel a little fuzzy headed but relieved to be in the container of disciplined food intake. meant to start this a few days ago but postponed. many hamburgers and pizzas were had in my procrastination. last time i did this on day three i was down for the count, but as the sweet girl in trader joe's said. you never know what will happen this time. there are always so many factors. indeed.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
saw eduardo galeano read last night via lannan foundation. the sacred experience of being in the presence of a particular sort of elder. i never felt comfortable as a teacher of writing. i felt often like a fraud as i was not engaged in serious writing by the time i hit the teaching junket. not a good feeling. i just had one thing to say to my students. eduardo galeano. eduardo galeano. his paragraphs. WATCH HIS PARAGRAPHS. his hijacking of a form that exists in all of us that he made visible. the true haiku. the blood and guts of truth. sandra cisneros called him a woman writer and it is so sweet as half of his pieces fall into bad but still great sentimental nostalgia no matter how bloody they offer the delirium tears of that relative who reveals, surprisingly, fierce leftist politics and anti homophobe trite platitudes over iced tea and you are like, i could die now. finding myself googling heather lewis who killed herself wrote about horses, only two books, very lesbian books, eduardo lived in a groove of noisy ancestors and positioned himself in a place where he would reap the life, but there are writers in cobwebbed grooves, like heather lewis, who die chipping away at small things, unseen, and then others, later, fall into what becomes a river that would not have existed without them.
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
yesterday in "tinytown" off rt. 14
the face of a french priest carved into a bone of a buffalo by a sioux person from long ago...the strangest most magical reversal of appropriation, his face baby like and pure, diminished by the covet. this is justice.
and a boat that had been around the world, parked in the desert, the scent of salt water and ancient sea creatures wafting from the rotting plasticine canvases.
she told my fortune.
i'm not going to tell you what it was because it's too good.
i never expected that today was to be so good reading the flamethrowers, the chapter on the woman racing, crashing on the salt flats, how the salt in the sun is bright white but in reality it is the color of sand, but you would never know. and i planted kale as if i was being chased by a bear. and picked up cigarette butts from the ex all over the back yard. oh how nostalgic.
the face of a french priest carved into a bone of a buffalo by a sioux person from long ago...the strangest most magical reversal of appropriation, his face baby like and pure, diminished by the covet. this is justice.
and a boat that had been around the world, parked in the desert, the scent of salt water and ancient sea creatures wafting from the rotting plasticine canvases.
she told my fortune.i'm not going to tell you what it was because it's too good.
i never expected that today was to be so good reading the flamethrowers, the chapter on the woman racing, crashing on the salt flats, how the salt in the sun is bright white but in reality it is the color of sand, but you would never know. and i planted kale as if i was being chased by a bear. and picked up cigarette butts from the ex all over the back yard. oh how nostalgic.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
happy mother's day - we are all mothers
this morning spanky and i were having a connection with a random child of about four. as i was getting in my car he asked, "do you have a kid?"
"no," i said, awkwardly. i did have a kid a month and a half ago. now i technically no longer have a kid. i was a mother and am no longer a mother in a matter of weeks. co-parent. helper girlfriend. even though my name was "mamma b,' some would say a mother is only a mother if they have given birth or signed adoption papers but i took my role as seriously as if i had done those things, was committed for life. i was a mother. if a mother loses her child to death, is she no longer a mother? of course not. once a mother, always a mother forever. but now, when asked if i have a child, i say no so as to avoid a painful awkwardness. i used to have a child, uh, a few months ago.
happy mother's day to me and all the co-parents, ex co-parents and helper girlfriends everywhere. what i know now is that i will always be a mother.
i am a mother to the child in this coffee shop who is crying. i am a mother as i try to live my life with honor and dignity so it may be a place safe for future generations. i am a mother when i manage my own addictions so i can be conscious and awake to myself and those who may need me. i am a mother to my dog. i am a mother to the plants i grow. i am a mother to the child i helped raise for two years even if i never see her again. i am a mother when i put thoughts outside my mind and look at the mountains i am driving through today from a place beyond ego, if i am lucky, from that place where my consciousness just might be of benefit to a living thing somewhere.
we are all mothers. even the father's are mothers. the young guy walking down the street is a mother as the psyche is genderless.
i have had to forgive myself over and over for never feeling bonded to my own mother, for recoiling in her presence nearly all the time unless i was drunk. she was only truly awful for a period of a few years in my life but i was never able to reconcile my aversion. i sought mothers outside of my home and fell in love with them. they raised my psyche and my heart more than my own mother. like artaud's "mothers of the heart to be born," there was a twisted darkness to this love that likely has to do with the trauma bonding of my adult relationships. perhaps it's time to move beyond any individual at all being a mother into the world of the wonderful children's book where the baby duck goes up to every inanimate object and creature and says, "are you my mother?" yes, the tree says, yes the dog says, yes the river says. yes, i am your mother.
this is true.
too many real mothers today are drowning in arrogance over being a mother. we are all mothers. dear mother's drowning in arrogance, we have to live with your children on this planet, they affect every aspect of our life. unless we know we are all mother's we remain disconnected. unless the real mother's realize all of us have as much to do with raising their children as they do, they will remain in ego and isolation. dear real mothers drowning in arrogance, you have no idea how hard we work to raise your children. even the lady making the cappuccinos over there. she works hard raising your children.
dear mothers, take your friends, co-parents, helper girlfriends and neighbors out to brunch today and thank them for their honorable kindness for not only putting up with your difficult children, but making the choice to actually love them and participate in their lives with great consciousness. because many of us are. if you don't realize how much we are, you are arrogant. you are surrounded always by mothers who are not mothers.
last week i was sitting at a table with visiting guests at my house. they had a four year old. it was late at night and the kid was drowsy and manic but holding it together. a month and a half ago i would have spoken with the parents as a mother, sharing my own stories about what it's like when my kid gets that way and what i do to deal with it. now i am forced into silence so i don't completely freak people out with an overshare.
a special mother's day hug to myself and others like me who have experienced this very specific kind of loss. you never lose what has grown in you. and in some way what has grown in us has a kind of honor that birthmothers don't have, because we did it without certain specific ego rewards, without ever claiming the egotistical ownership of the child that most mothers never seem to be able to avoid. my loss only makes me fall into my heart further, into the mother heart that does not own another human being.
on that note, here's a mother's day video....
"no," i said, awkwardly. i did have a kid a month and a half ago. now i technically no longer have a kid. i was a mother and am no longer a mother in a matter of weeks. co-parent. helper girlfriend. even though my name was "mamma b,' some would say a mother is only a mother if they have given birth or signed adoption papers but i took my role as seriously as if i had done those things, was committed for life. i was a mother. if a mother loses her child to death, is she no longer a mother? of course not. once a mother, always a mother forever. but now, when asked if i have a child, i say no so as to avoid a painful awkwardness. i used to have a child, uh, a few months ago.
happy mother's day to me and all the co-parents, ex co-parents and helper girlfriends everywhere. what i know now is that i will always be a mother.
i am a mother to the child in this coffee shop who is crying. i am a mother as i try to live my life with honor and dignity so it may be a place safe for future generations. i am a mother when i manage my own addictions so i can be conscious and awake to myself and those who may need me. i am a mother to my dog. i am a mother to the plants i grow. i am a mother to the child i helped raise for two years even if i never see her again. i am a mother when i put thoughts outside my mind and look at the mountains i am driving through today from a place beyond ego, if i am lucky, from that place where my consciousness just might be of benefit to a living thing somewhere.
we are all mothers. even the father's are mothers. the young guy walking down the street is a mother as the psyche is genderless.
i have had to forgive myself over and over for never feeling bonded to my own mother, for recoiling in her presence nearly all the time unless i was drunk. she was only truly awful for a period of a few years in my life but i was never able to reconcile my aversion. i sought mothers outside of my home and fell in love with them. they raised my psyche and my heart more than my own mother. like artaud's "mothers of the heart to be born," there was a twisted darkness to this love that likely has to do with the trauma bonding of my adult relationships. perhaps it's time to move beyond any individual at all being a mother into the world of the wonderful children's book where the baby duck goes up to every inanimate object and creature and says, "are you my mother?" yes, the tree says, yes the dog says, yes the river says. yes, i am your mother.
this is true.
too many real mothers today are drowning in arrogance over being a mother. we are all mothers. dear mother's drowning in arrogance, we have to live with your children on this planet, they affect every aspect of our life. unless we know we are all mother's we remain disconnected. unless the real mother's realize all of us have as much to do with raising their children as they do, they will remain in ego and isolation. dear real mothers drowning in arrogance, you have no idea how hard we work to raise your children. even the lady making the cappuccinos over there. she works hard raising your children.
dear mothers, take your friends, co-parents, helper girlfriends and neighbors out to brunch today and thank them for their honorable kindness for not only putting up with your difficult children, but making the choice to actually love them and participate in their lives with great consciousness. because many of us are. if you don't realize how much we are, you are arrogant. you are surrounded always by mothers who are not mothers.
last week i was sitting at a table with visiting guests at my house. they had a four year old. it was late at night and the kid was drowsy and manic but holding it together. a month and a half ago i would have spoken with the parents as a mother, sharing my own stories about what it's like when my kid gets that way and what i do to deal with it. now i am forced into silence so i don't completely freak people out with an overshare.
a special mother's day hug to myself and others like me who have experienced this very specific kind of loss. you never lose what has grown in you. and in some way what has grown in us has a kind of honor that birthmothers don't have, because we did it without certain specific ego rewards, without ever claiming the egotistical ownership of the child that most mothers never seem to be able to avoid. my loss only makes me fall into my heart further, into the mother heart that does not own another human being.
on that note, here's a mother's day video....
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