The Morning Commute Portfolio

I am up and out right when the thin rain turns to soft snow in the air. A transition witnessed by those lucky enough to be commuting while the sparrows are farting.

The still mostly-quiet streets reflected double in unfrozen puddles. Its like the inside of a snowglobe after awhile. Things always seem more festive and homey this time of year when the white stuff fluffs down out of the big blue nowhere. Should have worn the Santa cap today.

Under the bright lights of the bus innards, it looks to be even darker outside. My stomach flops about from late night pizza recall and one ibuprofen at 4am to stem a would-be hangover. Abstaining from coffee. Eager for tea.

Not a whiteout but close. The silent wipers going the whole way and Larry keeping the cab toasty. Everything in the suburbs is sugar dusted an inch save the roads. Its early on a whipped cream day.

Yesterday was sun and chill and my luck spotted a dollar on the ground which I used in the record store. There are plenty of things to feel lucky about from now on, and having you is the best one of them.

Love you this morning and every one hence.

In An April So Cruel-

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I'm in this train car, and it's full of rock stars.

PJ Harvey is in the seat by the emergency exit to the next car, pleased to be left alone to recross her legs and read her book, while Chris Cornell is swinging on the vertical railing closest to the doors, observing the neighborhood.

Wesley Willis is walking thru, trying to sell everybody a fake flower or three, while Lenny Kravitz and Kim Gordon seem to be engaged in an intense discussion mid-car over what may or may not be the best length of guitar neck, or guitar body, or string gage for that matter.

Jon Spencer gets on, then gets right off at the next stop. And on and on it goes. A ride of legends for ages.

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The same punk rock girl I saw last week is riding the train. I am jealous of her look. Torn black tights and black low-top sneaks. Her hair is the color of day old dinosaur puke, and her ripped cutoff shorts are a grey-black that most fair-skinned and Scandinavian girls look great in.

I bet her name is Maura. Or Colleen. A feisty but feminine name that is like beauty. Staying nothing and everything at once. We are in the same car now. But I probably won't pay attention to where she gets off. I'll leave that to somebody else.

Did the hangover knock something loose? It usually does...

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Currently unmoored in the reeling, catastrophic zoetrope of the world of love. How massive and beautiful and so unreal in power, scope, potential. To heal, to redeem, to master. I hang in its warm spectrum like a captive on a ship seeing land for the first time in years.

That anyone dare to summon the dark finality of the fall of man in the presence of a glow so righteous and significant is a perversity nigh unforgivable.

And then, the delicate afternoon puts the hair of the dog into my palm, and I am grown up inside time's wild promise.

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I sat by and thought the thoughts while communing with today, which was tomorrow, which will soon be yesterday.

It's sounds and mid-day madness, not utterly steeped in frivolous actions, but mostly I sat and read and drank and thought. And the thinking was the act that brought me the greatest reward, even if it was just a loamy buzzing behind the eyes, or an unanswered meditation on a phrase surfacing again and leading me to a place of gratitude-laden reflection. No demand for a cross-examination or a too-industrious pass.

Questions form, then drop away in favor of memories. Memories are godsent, magnificent healers. I don't thank them enough.

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It's the idea of taking my first trip to the city of Paris making me nervous in that way that causes your stomach to flip. Like you're about to do drugs. A drug. One that will fuck you up for a little while. Probably a good long while in a good way, and you've saved the afternoon for it, but you're still nervous.

But it’s just a place. For existing. Like any other. And sure, for doing too, but not necessarily doing, and not doing the hardest thing in the world, certainly. Which is something I don't necessarily want to do.

In other words: is traveling to Europe one step closer to motherhood? Yes. No. Maybe.

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Sleepwalking Versaille

...in this moment I am swollen like a tear... 

I rip the poster from the doorway.The show has come and gone. It went well. I managed to unlock a part of myself to do it. It is the best it could be, and I have passed one test and now, hopefully oddly, there will be others.

There is a man whom I see on the street in stark contrast to the beautiful people. He is not homeless or drunk, but in fact comfortably dressed in clean clothes. He drinks a cup of coffee when he isn't using a broom or sitting for a moment. He is very crippled. He is most likely someone's uncle. He has few teeth, but a big smile.

I didn't know what to make of him at first, and now I know he is safe, and someone is looking out for him.

 I am restless with the feeling that the day has already run away with everything and everyone important. The hazy light and cool air seems to put everyone into a motion capture. The fresh blue morning aliasing me and my collected intentions out to the coffee shop to write. I'd been threading to camp here some day and people watch until something better pulls me away. 

That day is today.

I'm reading a book so short and good that I will probably finish it in one pass.

Here there is a cappuccino and croissant and soft music and three female baristas who laugh and twitter on and I think about flirting, and my husband from the late night previous. His brown eyes sparkling with exhaustion in the bedside lamplight.

The bus arrives out the window to the right. I deposits and retrieves and workers make their connections. There is a rush, then a lull, then a rush again. Waves.

Some of them have no way of knowing how love will transform their lives.

Perhaps this random summer day will afford them some idea.I feel soft today. Adequately spent. Carbon-burnt as a sparkler. I'd almost wish the hours to rush and come to the place for alcohol and music again. I want to pass the time in the shade and still make a new friend.

The last tatters of croissant sit on my plate like badly arranged art. I don't wait very long to put down the pen when I can't think of something else to say.

And then I have a memory. The nature of their odd occurrence is a delightful mystery. I relish the recollections of the girl with the Peter-pan tattoo across her back. And a girl at the show last night who, in the edge less shadows looked like an old friend. That familiar ramp, also new every time. A fresh topography of a one-piece collection leading to the next. A scent, a color, an emotion. The rising flavor sweetening or spurring the day, however briefly.

Striking polyphanous bells that triangulate an emotional position. A season of grateful existence.I begin by taking the shortcut thru the park to get home. I write while walking. I begin by looking for things discarded by others which might be useful to me. I begin by trying to be open and gentle. The sun both invites and threatens this. In my life, the old and almost irreplaceable thing is preferred to the new and untainted. I could walk hours, or just sit in the garden and think of nothing where the birds bicker and jostle the tall greenery, and the sun is about to rise completely over the rear gate and suck up all the dew thru its straws of rays that will keep burning and searching.
I begin by taking the long way around.