I dreamed I rode a blue bicycle,
Hair streaming out behind me,
I dreamed Apollo was flying above,
And that you were there beside me.

See me, feel me, touch me, heal me

It amazes me the extent to which my dog stands epitomizes the visceral need we living things have for physical contact. He would sooner sleep in my lap, or curled up in the small of my back than any other place. It honors me so when he displays this unfiltered and absolute desire to share space, sleep and dreams. Partly because I need it too.
My current life schedule sees me spending around two hours a day in transit and as such, I have sufficient opportunity to people watch. It’s one of my favorite things to do, watch people. But somehow, on the subway such observation can become disheartening. I guess that’s why so many New Yorkers seem permanently plugged into various and sundry electronic devices.
I love my Ipod, it is a treasure for its ability to inspire the choir of my mind. But its knack for connecting me to myself also results in a disconnection from those around me and I often find myself floating through the city, detached from the beautiful mess surrounding me…which can get rather dangerous.
Indeed, I’ve been so overwhelmed lately that I’ve opted to leave out the earphones. This conscious choice invites a degree of unwanted attention from people who can be sure that I can hear them. What’s most interesting however, are not the random comments (though they can get quite intricate) but the very real emotion that walking through my day without distraction can incite. Not only am I more vulnerable to the ideas of others, but I’m more receptive to my own as well. The more I ride the train, the more obvious the unnatural detachment of the average new Yorker becomes. I’m frightened to end up permanently cut off from everyone around me. I fought so hard today to keep from spontaneously hugging the man sitting next to me when just hours earlier I had been exasperatedly elbowing my way through the morning rush hour. So I’m either bi-polar….or the dualistic blessing/curse of New York City’s anonymity has caught up with me after the three plus years I’ve called myself a Manhattanite. Maybe it’s time for a break…or maybe it’s just time to throw in the towel and fucking hug the random dude perched beside me on the evening express train home.

Now, I don't think I've ever posted a link without sufficient essay-ing to go along with it.
But...I think this one stands on its own.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Tx1XIm6q4r4

Kundalini

I came here to find you, Kundalini,
And in looking, lost myself.

This cycle, a serpent's tail,
A tale of love lost, of life, and this path I choose.

Of my own mouth over my own skin,
My own body eaten,
And digested in my own gut.

Spit back up for you,
Regurgitated in a form I imagine you will like.

Perfect and pulled together,
and masking the mess
The thrown up bits and pieces,
Of yesterday's consumption.

You’re in trouble now, mister.

I’m gonna hold you down, no mercy.

You’re gona flip me over,
Lay me out,
Give me deep kisses,
And short-sided sighs.

You’re gonna chew me up and spit me out.
Because for all my armor,

I’m a Lima bean beneath your boot heel.

Mental check, is there anything I need?
What am I missing or is it just me-
Why did he choose her what was it about her,
That made him forget me, his own little daughter.

Years later these questions I pose,
The answers to which I guess nobody knows.
I look for them anyways, coming up dry,
And so I keep after unreachable guys.

Oh daddy, talk to me more,
Give me the meaning that I’m looking for.
Don’t know where I’m going,
Don’t know where you’ve been,
But I don’t want to lose myself over again.

A hallway of mirrors,
Purple painted stairs,
I think I can fly them, I wonder who cares,
I know that you want to; I know that you do,
But I don’t want to lose myself,
Looking for you,

It takes something visceral,
Rarified access to some deep seated pain,
To make me sob the way you do so freely.

Take it from me,
You take your tears for granted.

You can tell a lot about a person by their hair. It somewhat reflects their personality, I think. Mine's always been curly. When I was a little girl, it hung around my head in a fuzzy halo of golden ringlets. Usually, I quite like it, and enjoy with a rebellious lilt a hair do that's divergent from the blown-out masses.

That is not to say that I haven't oftentimes gazed longingly at the silky smooth locks of other women’s hair. Somewhere along the line, I came to equate straight styles with a certain type of person, one who carries the expensive handbags I peruse on ebay and goes on real dates with the guys I just hook up with.

Last week, I borrowed my friend's ceramic iron and straightened my hair.

Maybe I thought the change would make me one of them. In actuality, with straight hair, I felt invisible. But the ritual of it felt calming and sure, a solve-all inspired by a flat iron and the satisfaction I felt from watching the kinks flatten and the frizz become smooth. It was as if, by straightening out my hair, I was straightening up my life.

I recently remarked to the amazing Ariella, "When the going gets tough, the women in my family do our hair"

Twelve years ago, in the midst of familial turmoil, my mom went off to Washington D.C. for a weekend with some friends. When she returned, it was as a white suited businesswoman, with shockingly straight hair, highlights, and high-heeled shoes of python printed patent leather. The transformation was especially drastic as her free spirited artistic nature was usually mirrored by her appearance. But gone was her long and curly hair, her paint stained button ups and her red converse high tops. My mom suddenly looked like everyone else's.
In retrospect, it is clear that she was trying to be seen, controlling the only thing she could in a fucked up environment. It’s funny though, I think that the changes she made to her hair and her clothes, struck at the core of who she is and what makes her stand out, and erased it a bit. She became less noticeable to my father, to the community, and more blended in with what she sought to separate out from.

This morning, on the subway to work, I sat across from a window that the dark of the tunnel outside had tuned into a mirror. A week ago, when I’d done the same, I saw myself reflected back as foreign, a distant stranger with the straight hair that, to my mind, gives the impression of a simple lifestyle. Today I looked in the window, saw a curly haired girl, and breathed a sigh of relief, for in her eyes and unkempt curls I saw an acceptance of girlhood, an affirmation of my own curious playful soul, and an accompanying ability to accept the intricacies of my life. I am a corkscrew curl of a woman, one who loves to dance, dream and play dress-up. It is my hope however, that I’ll always return back to myself, to my mother’s arms, to my father’s laugh, holding the memory of each next to my curly, complicated heart.

These dreams of the seaside.
This west coast wanderlust.
Maybe they’re just another way to wonder where HE is,
The mythical one and only whom I’m afraid does not exist.

I dream myself a poet,
Twisting words with the waves and the sunset shadows on Santa Monica sidewalks.
But I’m afraid of course,
And wake up worried that he won’t come,
And that my wave worn words are nothing by fluff and foam,
The washed up remains of another artist’s mind

My mom and I went tonight to see Joan Didion’s play, A Year of Magical Thinking. In my mind now, I am dead. A part of me is grey and dried up. Perhaps like leaves do, growing stale steadily, green only at the tip and wilting everywhere else.

And then, the feelings the play provoked are the same that keep me breathing and alive. I just don’t know what to do with them.

Around me, people are putting themselves to good use. My roommate is reading Joyce and Keats with genuine interest. The magnificent Lady J is giving wings to the children of her creativity, and I...don’t know what I am doing. Of course, there are always those people who seemingly do nothing but go to work, or sleep around but I try to pay the passionless little mind.

Anyways, I write…these little ditties all day long, scribble down feelings, sentences, and I don’t know what they mean. I set around and think about writing…or painting. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t…sometimes I start and get so antsy that I leave in a flurry and wander around Manhattan for hours. Or run out to Connecticut, set on the beach, and stare at the water.

I get this crazy urge to go. I want to sail and drive and move through space.
I dream of California and open water.
I dream of a childhood I can’t remember and wake up rushing to write it down before it slips away.
I want to write a great novel but I don't know my own story yet.
I wonder if I have to.

A couple walking down 10^th street late on a Monday night, she in a summer shawl, and he holding her waist. They stroll from restaurant to wine bar this way and I watch them, thinking how comfortable they seem.

Man in black with a beret perched sideways on his bald head. Taking steps towards his tidy apartment on Avenue A. His feet turn outwards at the toes when he walks, and give him a long stridded, lumbering gait.

Dishboy, emerging from the basement of a nearby noodle bar, carrying a bag of trash and pausing to let me pass before heaving his load onto the sidewalk.

Monday night, East 10th Street, walking the dog.

These things that I want you to know.
Who I am, what holds me,
What I hold – I clutch.
Tea rose and good luck charms,
Fear and the past,
And this navy blue hole in my rose petal heart.

In the summertime there is a distinct breeze that floats along when the weather is just so and the sky is a hazy shade of blue. It is a soft, scooping wind, one that’s smooth like the inner crevice of an ocean-licked seashell. This breeze is the kind that cups your skin in the palm of its touch, and feels effortless and loving. It’s difference from other winds is like the distance between an intent and heartfelt kiss and one that is pushy and lustful. This breeze shakes only the tops of the trees, and but flutters through your hair, never shaking it loose or mussing it up – it is a lazy breeze from across the bay, the Summer Wind sung to by Frank and felt in this moment by my pen and my skin as I sit out on the porch and watch green leaves dance lackadaisically.

I’m glad I’ve slowed down enough to see this, feel this, because so often I forget to. My writing repeatedly takes the form of analytical exploration and as such, I am always hashing things out in my mind in order to cogently connect them into strings of sentences. But right now I’m right here and have only the power to write of what I see and who I am in this very instant – girl set out on a blue porch, pink sneakers up on the railing, and ice cubes clacking in her glass.

Everyone seems to be settling down and into a relationship. And I…well I am lying on my bed with my little dog, listening to Robin Thicke (don’t tell anyone) and wondering what I want. Someone smart once remarked that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Wise words that are worthy of some serious note each time we start to feel sorry for ourselves. Everyone has their weak points, insecurities that oftentimes seem to be couched in the areas in which we appear to be the most confident.

From time to time, I myself tend to slip into waxing woeful over my independent status, glumly eyeing the sexy couples at the Madison Square Park dog run whilst feeling like a boob sitting there alone but for an iced coffee and a little dog who won’t move from beneath my bench. But then I think, who knows what’s really going on with those pretty pairs? Very rarely are our assumptions of others anything but reflections of our projected perfections. It’s not hard to think you want something because you somehow learned you are supposed to. Maybe that’s just my way of brushing off romance as pheromone based hormonal surges, but then again, maybe I’m on to something. I guess I’ll keep trying to figure it out and in the meantime, suck it up and walk my way into the dog run brandishing my plastic coffee cup and feeling as secure in my silent self as possible.

Besides, technically I don't sleep alone...I got a little black and white fluff ball streached out beside me each night...and he never ever snores.

I’m watching Woody Allen’s Manhattan from a hunkered down perch on my mother’s sofa, out in Connecticut, miles from New York City. The town I love has exhausted me, first with its bedbugs, then the apartment search. All day long I’ve been funky, mulling over my impending lease signing, the audacity of our realtor, the price of my realtor, and most of all, the magnitude of Manhattan’s monthly rent. Last week, I looked at apartment after apartment, from the Upper East Side to Alphabet city, none of which fit my price limitations in anything but a disappointing way. 2, 600 dollars a month for this!? A dirty matchbox, blocks and blocks from public transportation, 20 flights up and full of roaches? What is more, they might not accept me! I roll my eyes as my agent disapprovingly runs her eyes over my mother’s bank statement…if this is par for the course, what is to become of my Manhattan? If we fast-forward twenty years into the future, will the great cities of the world be owned only by the rich and famous? What will New York be like without its crazy kids, its starving artists, its students, its starlets?

Well, I guess there's always Brooklyn...

My life right now is:

Work in Chelsea
Walking Calvin and willing him to pee
Luna Bars
The sunset by the Westside highway
Tompkin’s Square Park and the regular’s on Avenue C
Coveting this: http://www.ravinstyle.com/shop/productDetail.asp?p=3529
Tired feet shoed in pink Keds
The feeling of sweet satisfaction as I turn the key of my very own apartment

It's a Wonderful World~

Curled up next to me and sleeping soundly is a bit of warmth and rising breath. I’ve dubbed it Calvin in honor of my favorite cartoon character, whose perpetual six-year-old state meshes with his mischief and big heart to create an endearing and familiar kid. At this point, I feel somewhat like Calvin’s unnamed mother, exhausted for having run after my charge all day, picking up after him, spending money on him, trying to concentrate as he pestered me with unbelievable persistence. At times I’ve wondered what I have gotten myself into, questioned my carpe diem standpoint on puppy raising and potty training, doubted my intuition and natural predisposition to do away with all leashes and accompanying accessories.
Indeed, today flew by with the same kind of scattered energy associated with having a child. The combination of this rush and a single slippery sock misplaced found me falling on my ass, hard upon the hardwood staircase, shattering the painted popcorn bowl I was carrying and bringing about a big purple bruise on the left side of my lower back. I know the bruise will fade and with it, these feelings of frenzy, but I also worry that the coming weeks will slow that process. In the next fourteen days I will start a new job, move to new apartment, and travel to Springfield for the Vermont spring classic horse show, Calvin in tow, reclaiming the grooming position I swore never to return to, all so I can be close to Ham and coach the little girl who will show him in my stead.
It all feels hopelessly overwhelming when I venture too far from the present moment. Luckily, I am calmed by the words of my little buddy’s namesake, who wisely stated to his best friend Hobbes, “We're so busy watching out for what's just ahead of us that we don't take time to enjoy where we are.”… Maybe tomorrow I’ll be mopping up after Calvin’s inability to control his bladder, or coaxing him into his carrying case despite his adamant protestations. But all that effort means nothing in this moment, and here, I am at peace.
Throughout the day, I’ve weathered the fluxuation between feelings of utter adoration and absolute frustration, ending up here, on the sofa with a helpless little lump of love and the knowledge that I’ll never be alone again. As I bid a piece of my independence farewell, I welcome in a friendship I am sure will be a core shaker, an inconvenience and a distinct blessing.

Mirror Mirror of my Mind~

For all the fabulous experiences I find in my New York home, it also seems that it is when I am outside of it that I slow down enough to experience another kind of encounter. Where in Manhattan, I often happen upon surprisingly inspiring people or places, in my Connecticut or New Hampshire homes, I knowingly create them.
Neither mode of stimulation is better, but there’s something to the intentional manifestation of inspiration that really stays with a person, perhaps more than the revelatory quality of magical Manhattan’s many mysterious characters and the lessons they regularly offer up. Or maybe it’s just that New York is in such a constant site of meaning and motivation that such becomes old hat and commonplace, impersonal for it’s ever-constant flow and impartial impartment.
Perhaps I’ll never work it out, doesn’t matter really…what does matter are the experiences I find in each place and the cultivation of my capacity to tell their stories. Today has yielded one such story, with many parts and no real point, aside from the peaceful easy feeling it has left in my heart.

This morning began blustery and with bursts of rain, splattering drops upon the windshield of my mom’s hybrid as it whirred along on the way to Weston CT, carrying myself, my mom, and two of the people who’ve known me the longest, characters I call my family. We were on our way to a memorial service, a gathering of friends at the home of one of the decade’s most noted architectural talents. I wandered through his family’s home, a house of many windows, each of which ushered in light, despite the dreary day. In each pane I saw myself reflected and as the afternoon wore away, full of tears, wine spritzer, and mini quiches my mind became another mirror, at times reflecting reality from the perspective of someone looking at me, a vantage from which I saw myself, sitting in my steam pressed suit set, and watching people feeling the inevitable loss that life entails. I watched my mother’s best friends, people I love, stand up and speak about someone whom they had loved. I saw that person’s thirteen-year-old daughter stand there with them, in front of fifty some odd people, all of whom had loved her father. I furrowed my brow, wondering if she knew, wondering how she could know, that her father was gone and her life forever changed. In that moment, I was an absolute observer of unfiltered life, and in that moment, I felt myself more alive than I had in some time. I touched my own fears and felt myself a woman, and I know now, that no matter what, I’ll be all right.

Later today, after the service, after we’d driven home in a fog of four o’clock traffic, I had to get out, had to move. Emotion was clustered in my core, not uncomfortable, but congealed and in need of some shaking up. I drove fast and with the radio loud, window down and cold air on my face. From time to time, I watched my eyes in the rear view window and smiled at the light that danced in their blue reflection.

I went to a movie and was one of two people in the whole theater and found it fun.
I went to the beach long after the sun had set and the Moon sat almost full in the night sky.
The clouds had cleared and several stars stood out so brightly that I wondered if they were planets, or moons, or just sparkling reflections of my own eyes in a much larger mirror. The high school sweethearts cuddled in their cars watched as I sat myself on the abandoned swing set and pumped my legs till I flew towards the Moon, laughing for the perfection of the moment, and my capacity to feel it so fully.
I am exhausted, the day has passed, and with it, a myriad of emotions, all of which I’ve allowed to flow through me, watching them just as I watch myself reflected back by multiple mirrors, each of which changing the way I look at things, and by extension, the very things I am looking at.

When I was a little girl, the Sun seemed to stream into my family’s house from every window, casting wide and asymmetrical squares of light onto the Oriental rug and embracing my little body in warmth and protection. That rug saw a continual parade of action, like my daily dress up parties during which I flip flopped across its surface, decadently dressed to the nines and toting along the family dog on a leash. Or each night’s bountiful dinner, be it between my parents and I, or including the bouquet of boisterous characters I called family.

When those days disappeared, so too did the sunlit squares, replaced instead by rain streaked window panes, slamming screen doors and angry voiced against a background chorus of chirping peepers, singing me to sleep from the woods just outside my bedroom window.

But when I wondered what would protect me, there was always the Moon, the feminine. She who rode alongside me through the darkest of nights when I couldn’t sleep, and through the long car rides home when I leaned my forehead against the cold window of the family car and found her peering over my shoulder, keeping me company as my family tensely traveled through time and the silent spaces of dark winter nights.

Tonight I lay on my back on the same Oriental rug that served as stage for my childhood theatrics. Out the glass doors of my mother’s house I saw the moon. She is there for me now, and in her nurturing, protective gaze, I think I have found the Sun.

Perhaps nothing is ever truly lost so long as you can hold it in eyes of your heart and mind.

Watching raindrops fall down the windowpane and splash upon the sill
They are a tease to the tears I can’t shed
Droplets onto the sizzling hot heart of my pain

I crave crying and cannot muster it
My tears are displaced and turned into resentment of laughter
If I can’t access pain, why can’t others feel it for me?
Take my pain; take it from me, please, as I have always done for you

We are in one room, one conversation, and worlds apart.
And I wonder, who is stronger?