Let me sit here forever

with bare things

this coffee cup

this knife

this fork

things in themselves

myself being myself

VIRGINIGA WOOLF

devoted to the exploration and documentation of a 9 month artist residency at el nido in los angeles, this page serves as a communication, perhaps a source of inspiration, and, of course, an outlet of expression. 

the cross of incarnations the cross of incarnations the cross of incarnations the cross of incarnations the cross of incarnations the cross of incarnations the cross of incarnations the cross of incarnations the cross of incarnations the cross of incarnations the cross of incarnations the cross of incarnations the cross of incarnations the cross of incarnations the cross of incarnations the cross of incarnations the cross of incarnations the cross of incarnations the cross of incarnations the cross of incarnations the cross of incarnations

One more walk through the old life

Where it is harder to hear

what life has to say, what i have to say

the morning waking up after me

blue

with little singing things

I listen and forget my body breathing itself

ALL ON ITS OWN DECLARING

I AM HERE

I want to be a simple thing

A rudimentary vessel which life funnels

easily

through

And watching, I let it pass 

I let the hot stove of feeling burn out

The dam near Johnstown broke Under the rains

A trillion ton rush of sludge picking up bits of debris

Barreling down the street of the old home

Years of warning signs tossed lightly in the breeze

How often

how often

how often

Our dams break the backs of what we love

life does not require that i do anything about it

and things seem to go much better when i don’t

I am reading a favorite travel book again. A few sections. I’m tired. Woke up at 330 yesterday and 230 today, an hour earlier than I needed to for my flight. 

To the airport.

Boarding pass.

Security.

Terminal.

Coffee.

Waiting.

Reading.

My mind drifts to a fantasy of writing again. Having the time to write. The headspace. My life feels full now. Full of things, people, and places I love.

Boarding call.

On the plane.

I look out the window and on the wing, against bright yellow reads “howdy.” These small pieces of southern charm. Morning light rims the plane and we take off.

Green and lush from above.

I think of the old me.

I think of the simpler me and a simpler life. I think of trying to be content with a little house on a quiet street, a husband, and a dog. Family near. A few friends. Homesteading. I think of how easy and safe it would feel. I think of the part of me that longs for comfort and ease. This is also the part of me that hides behind these things afraid of being my fullest self or reaching out to wrap my arms around the things I dream of. Things that are being offered to me freely. Then, a gnawing fear that something alive in me was being rocked to sleep, silenced and diminished with projections of cultural and religious ideals and southern comforts.

The plane shakes.

I have a window seat. I feel freest and safest here. I can turn out and face my own world. 3 hours to Los Angeles. I think I will take an Uber home.

I feel exhausted. We spent the last 4 days working on our house— landscaping, painting, sorting, packing. The tenants moved out leaving it with a lonely, aching feeling. The jungle engulfed it, a concoction of green vines and shrubs and weeds stealing all of the sunlight until light couldn’t find its way into the house at all anymore. It felt dark and musty like a cave. The gray walls felt oppressive, the way Nashville had been etched into my memory. Something to escape.  A woman quietly being asked to stay small.

We tore through the overgrowth, excavating our treasured home. But what was underneath still felt different when we finally found it. We took boxes and bags of old things from the attic. We sorted them. I wondered why I needed any of it now, when I haven’t needed it for four years. My old life and my new life. I feel different but Nashville tries so hard to tame me into some past version of myself. Life makes you carve out a space for yourself, I suppose, no matter where you are. But here in swamp lands, you must fight harder and more consistently to keep your stakes in the ground or else be swallowed up by it. By the south. 

I brought a carryon bag, the Patti bag. Given to me by a nice woman named Leah, one of my first friends in Los Angeles. I got on the plane and found 23a.  Someone had to move to let me in. My overstuffed bag wouldn’t fit under my seat, so a nice southern man offered to put it above for me. I was so distracted by the gesture and obliging that I forgot to get any of my books or journal out of it first. So now I am typing my thoughts on my phone instead.

I’m tired. I’ll try to sleep.

Three hours.

From above a little town settled in a valley. Strings of forest separate two sides. I imagine dirt roads winding through connecting them.

There is someone next to me. I don’t know who. I have the urge to lay my head on their shoulder, to hold their hand and fall asleep.

I want it to be Steve and we are together and we are traveling to Paris or somewhere new.

My forearms bubble with poison sumac

The air is still and dense

My body pushes against it

Little things singing here and there in the grasses

Thin bare arms reaching through the screen door of childhood summers

Now I clip and claw through the swap brush

Under here somewhere is a house that once had a pulse

What is it now

I wonder at the buzzing parts of me

A network of nerves swollen with this and that

Every sight

every sound

every taste

every smell

every touch

Every thought

could it really be so simple

breathing in and out

letting life be as it is

making a life out of

the sharp edge of feeling

before soft joy

soft beauty

if it is winter and the air is cold

let the body shiver or brace itself against it

how

very

very

very

much resistance

BONES

MUSCLES

SPIRIT

AND WE JUST SAY OKAY

STRANGE

STRANGE

STRANGE

STRANGE

STRANGE

STRANGE

STRANGE

I find the same thing

under every rock

around the crescent body of my napping dog

in THE round, round tufts of A pink-breasted robin

tracing the lines and shapes of landscapes from an aerial window

inside each pointed spear of anxiety

pulsating through the fingertips of grief

and I never know exactly what it is

there is something

dark and dense

and infinite

mossy, damp, invisible

and my life is a series of moments

attempts at trying to be with it