Category: literary

Posted on

Ten–and 21–for today.


Working my way through the day 15 and 10 minutes at a time, I set the timer. It’s one of those days when sleep filled me, made me hopeful upon awakening, even after a pee trip and return to sleep, rare in itself (the going back to sleep part). An excited brain with a deadline is like a toad on crack. Reigning it in hard today.
 
I also drank a bit last night–a Stone on draft at happy hour. P and I went to dinner before the concert. His Christmas 2015 present finally arrived in a college stadium 80 miles from home–Twenty One Pilots, his favorite band these days. Or one of them. Having tapped into his on again off again creative piano playing and composing mojo lately, he was particularly ready to enjoy the show. And he did, dancing the night away.
 
I, on the other hand (not as familiar with the band), was glad to have had the beer and mushroom flatbread before the show, washed down with a cool glass of water out on that breezy terrace to the immaculate, tinged-with-class-and-hipness restaurant. A compromised restaurant between haute cuisine and bistro fare, I was satiated. The cool beer and water helped when the stadium filled with hopping, singing, dancing, screaming and hugging mostly-younger-than-I fans turned stifling.
 
Two young women standing/swaying in front of me in the row ahead turned to me like they would to an older adult, like their mom’s or grandma’s friend, and mouthed the question with slightly furrowed brows, “Do you have water?” My slow shaking head side to side, the response, they sadly looked away. I was holding up well for two reasons: beer and water chaser before the show, and sitting down while the crowd stood. It’s called conservation, like the camel-hood I procured decades ago.
 
That’s right security dude checking us for contraband at the stadium entrance, who asked me sarcastically, which song was my favorite of this 20-something band, I’m old–and savvy. And, while you were busy busting my chops, I was smiling and smuggling by.
 

Image: Twenty one Pilots/mtv

Posted on

At the Corner: Ten for Today

I don’t know why I bite. I practice keeping my distance, detaching from all the crap around me, only to self-sabotage in weaker moments. Quixotic behavior, fighting windmills, I collapse, fall into the delusion that cyberspace is real, people on Facebook are real. They are not. They are as solitary as I am, poking at keys to create effect. There are no people in cyberspace, just ones and zeros. I know this, and yet…
 
Going out to dinner with my housemates, dad and partner, that is real. Though the restaurant was too noisy to facilitate conversation, we know what we want to say–and the food is always good there at our corner joint called, “The Corner.” Upon seating, the waiter, who knows us by name, delivered a cellophane wrapped wine glass we left there a month before. They knew it was ours, and the bartender brought it to our table upon seeing us. Even though we have never sat at the bar, the guy recognized us for our frequent patronage.
 
That’s real life–in the flesh.
 
To feel the pulse of America and predict the outcome of this upcoming election, I need to get out of cyberspace, off my computer, and walk among real breathing human beings, who can look me in the eye and tell me who they are and what they want. Only posers–personas–hide on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and all the other social media sites created for production, the creation of false spaces, rooms, and people who perform pieces of their lives, oh so convincingly.

 

Image: around the corner

Posted on

At the Wine Bar


We decided our favorite coffee is wine on this sweaty hot summer late afternoon. The temps rose to about 88 degrees even here at the beach. So we met at a wine bar by the water instead of our usual siesta hour coffee place. I enjoyed a Patson Hall Chardonnay, chilled, and she a Central Valley Pinot Noir, whose name I forgot. Cheers, clink, and she was off. First the job, politics, and then her current “person of interest.”

Her:  I like a guy who talks me up dirty. Just gets me going, like when D***** says, “Gonna pump sum jiz in you” right before he cums. I want to scream, “Go, go, go for it, fucker!!” And her voice does get loud.

I wince, probably visibly. I mused how I’m more of a Nike kind of girl. Don’t announce. Just do it.

Her: I must have some sort of oral fixation that I get off on sex talk like that, his mouth clenched in urgency, coughing out, “Here it cums, baby.” Makes the finale all the more spectacular. I should have been an actress, not a business major. It all seems so meta sexual, you know, like acting out sex inside the sex act. You know what I mean?

I nod. Honestly I did. Like sex in front of a mirror. The self-consciousness of the act as act. The wine buzz would not let me fall into the full possibilities of sex, mirrors, and performance. I shook it off, silently.

Her: I mean when T** and I were seeing each other, he was the quiet church mouse type. He performed all right, but I never could gauge the decibels of his pleasure like I can with D*****.  I can coordinate my own orgasm much easier with the verbal cues. 

The church mouse visual stuck in my mind, I just then remembered the guy who shushed me during sex. We had been dating for a few months; it wasn’t the first time we were going at it. But he all of the sudden unquestionably shushed me, like I was making too much noise. The only thing missing was the hand covering my mouth.

We were at a hotel. He had kids, a divorce, too soon, all of that. And what? He didn’t want to disturb other hotel guests? I wasn’t screaming, that’s for sure. He was a serviceable lover but not scream-worthy. I was stunned, totally thrown off. I didn’t even question why or how or what. But afterward, I became hyper aware of the sounds I would have made had I not stifled them before they came out. I couldn’t cum.

It wasn’t long after that we broke up. I’m not sure if it was because of that. We just didn’t have enough gelling to get over the breach. 

The server came by just then. “Yes, I’ll have another. Same.”

 
Image: the Purple Passport

Posted on

A Mauve and Amber Place–Ten Minutes

July 21, 2016

 

The fan blares suffocating sound and empties the room’s edges. A constant hum drowns out noise that wedges its way into my ears by its decibel variability, vying for my attention–a shrill bark here, a chair across floor scrape there muffled by a closed door and small child shrieks outside. Sunk in the river of a whirring fan, these bumpy sounds don’t bother me, no more than a buoy on a staid sea sways for the rippling wavelets. Not much.

 

Wouldn’t the world taste better, more palatable, if I could carry the whirring fan with me wherever I went? If not the fan itself, its hum inside my head? And then add some cool shades that mediate bright and low light into that roseate dusk sky, so that every one walked, ran, drove or sat showered in a mauve and amber mood. I’d like that.

 

No, I have no conclusion, no point to make here–just ongoing sense, words, a keyboard and ten minutes.    

 

Image: 1967 Cooley’s Gardens (wikimedia)

Posted on

The Silent Hills


Vespers:

Soft vespers

Semi circle

Wide open vowels

Floating deeply

vibratory chords

Sonorous chant

Breeze airless

Cushioned, sat

We hum

We sing

Intoning spun

Round, room

Robed in us

Monks, men

Wraps, knees

Lips, Oms

Sari-song.

 

Scripture:

A library full of late light

Colors of the fading day

Skins of the world, brown,

Ocher, chestnut, taupe,

White bearded sons and

Bright yellow daughters, sun

And moon all gathered

For scriptures’ secrets told

We sit atop a hill, distant

From them, but near–us

Eyes closed to the world

We listen, slide into others

Gentle greetings and wander

Strange tongues we know–

Without words, definition.

I make myself small to let

Others commune, pass by

In a library of love and light.

Posted on

I got the last order of halibut tacos: ten for today

July 19, 2016
 
I’m having trouble. I stayed up too late and ruined my sleep. Those sleep-deprived days hit hardest, most difficult to bear. The world seems scary, like one giant acid trip gone wrong that I cannot come down from, no matter how much I talk myself through it. My feet feel as if I am walking in the bounce house.
 
Morning came too quickly, the doors opening and closing to my bedroom. Communal showers suck. I worked late into the night fixing my article for the new French client, only to awaken to stern reprimand from someone half my age, probably. I did not follow directions, too worried about meeting deadline and not the specifics. Certainly my fault but can we just treat each other kindly? Even editors?
 
Hard pressed to inhabit the Zen of it all, I fought all morning with myself. “This is the life of a writer. This is life. Don’t be afraid of rejection, judgment and criticism.” I had to keep myself from diving over the cliff of “I fucked up.” Forgiveness.
 
My nerves still sore, I taught class, guilty that I wasn’t fresh, alert and sharp, but that turned out to be a lie I told myself. The class discussion meandered through colonialism, prejudice, Black Lives Matter, censorship, profanity, the sub-prime mortgage debacle, the abc’s of finance, medicine, medico-legal ethics, euthanasia, and stories, lots of anecdotes, for a breezy four and a half hours. At least it seemed that way. Summer school. Beautiful students.
 
Rounding out nicely with a particularly grapefruit citrus-tinged IPA and halibut tacos ordered at my local hangout–family members all working (except for dad glued to the t.v.)–this day wanes okay, citing my own research on French proverbs (my maybe rejected assignment)–apres la pluie, le beau temps (Every cloud has a silver lining). I’m about to chomp down on my halibut tacos silver lining. Cheers and Bon appetit! 

Posted on

Ten Today: Buddha and the French

July 18, 2016
I doubt I have ten minutes uninterrupted, but I’ll give it a shot. I’m at my other other other job tonight. This one teaches me to love. I practice my little Buddha steps here, learning to appreciate every mundane, automatic movement with mindfulness, paying attention. In fact, if I don’t pay attention, let my mind wander as it is wont to do when nothing in particular stimulates it, I make money or cleaning mistakes, ones that make me feel like an incapable incompetent. After all, I’ve been at the job for years now (Obviously my self-judgment needs some work).
 
So this one teaches me patience and presence. The other one, writing, teaches me a different kind of little Buddha practice–patience and detaching from struggle. That one challenges me too much. I wrote all day on a subject that didn’t particularly interest me–under deadline. Tonight, after the store closes at 10, and I get home just before 11, I will return to the work. It isn’t quite right and it’s due no later than Monday. That’s today. I figure before midnight is still Monday.
 
A new client testing my skills to evaluate hiring me, I do indeed want to impress. Right now, my draft is not impressive. To my credit, I have faked my way into the door–partially. The job description called for fluency in French. Though I have been around French speakers for the last 35 years, coming and going, and I took a couple years in college, even wrote and orally presented a fairly competent 20 minute lesson on Montaigne in grad school, I’m not sure fluent and French should both be used in the same sentence to describe me.
 
However, with the help of my somewhat strong reading skills, a tip here and there from the Frenchman in the house and Google, I patched together a rather inexpert but passable draft of an article discussing the meaning and origin of 5 French sayings or proverbs or adages or aphorisms. I used all those words and more to keep it less mind-numbing.
 
What I will come home to is a stuffy draft that I needed to leave anyhow, though the impulse to go home and finish it is way stronger than my need to practice Buddhist patience and presence here at yogurt zombie Monday. I need to make it personable, friendly and fun. Oy, that should pull on every iota of craft I can muster.
 
Well, only one customer intruded on my ten. Good sign. Maybe the piece will magically gel tonight before my eyes turn to lidded gravel.

 

Image: Architectureofbuddhism.com

Posted on

Ten Minutes: An Affirmation

I am neither my title, 

surname, 

job 

or 

thick toes. 

I am a traveler 

into the sheaves of human margins, 

turning the book inside out 

and rewriting the musical notes 

to sing the paper strings. 

I am a digger 

in ancient French tongues,

salt and euphony, 

and a forgiver of rhymes, 

slight 

and fever. 

My daily question mark half circles 

to dot the when of things, 

bring them face to my own blind eyes, 

up close like cilia sensors: 

steam, 

pallor 

and frankincense. 

Our skin aflame 

scented musk and cream,

I mean, 

as if all of us 

walked to the holy house, 

succumbed to the chewy silence, 

perched on velvet crushed cushions 

with our mouths circled 

and vibrating 

in the register 

of C(osmos).

   
Image: cosmos via Flickr 

Posted on

July 16th Ten Minutes: Battle of the Bulge or Gravity’s Toll

I yoga’d hard today, long and deep. And I don’t feel as beaten as I thought I would. I had been meaning to up my exercise regime a little, something more cardio than hatha yoga, to which I am semi-devoted daily, meaning only half way committed to hatha. The other half is vinyasa, quicker paced movement.
 
Recently, my body has gone off to do its own thing, grow where and how it wants despite my steady diet of exercise and mostly conscientious, nearly vegan eating (kind of slightly pescatarian-whatever). My practice hasn’t changed, just the distribution of my body fat. So, I toyed with the idea of a weight loss/exercise program offered at a local gym. A friend follows the program and has lost considerable poundage as well as toned up nicely. His results and the losing battle with gravity inspired me to investigate.
 
The program relies on classic Jack La Lanne principles of cardio and circuit training with isometrics, you know, old fashioned jumping jacks and sit-ups. Reminds me of the cross-fit fifteen minute videos I tried but never stuck with, not because they’re hard but because they’re boring. While yoga packages the same exercises–push-ups, sit-ups, jumping jacks (sort of)–or parts of them re-combined, the breath-timed, mind-balanced aspects to the “exercise” draws me. Besides, yoga came way before Jack La Lane, cross-fit or any other 20th or 21st century fitness program.
 
As a former runner, I had to adjust to the non-cardio temperament of yoga when I first began practicing in earnest 7 years ago. However, now I understand many kinds of yoga, some of which pump the heart as cranked up as any running I’ve done. I guess that’s why I haven’t really pursued any videos or gyms. I have what I need–except for the diet. And willpower to push myself.
 
I know I need to change my eating habits. I’m getting that swollen middle despite all my yoga-ing. I’m told diet should change every 7 years anyhow. Mine’s over due. But diets too confine me. I hate regimes that remind me I’m weak or suffering. I prefer sensible eating, mindful eating, meaning a keen awareness of every morsel that touches my lips. It starts there, anyhow. Then, it’s up to energetic resistance to kick in–to not swallow that morsel, to refuse the I-know-this-isn’t-good-for-me bite.
 
Right, I’ll start on Monday.

 
Jack La Lanne via modernhealthmonk.com

Posted on

Ten Minute Write for July 13th: the divinity of detail


July 13, 2016
Writing to, from and down the bones sounds simple enough–the detail, the divine detail–but the word fount must be vast and strong. Specificity takes knowing the names of things, everything. I can hardly remember my own. Names.

I lack an honest pen. I am just learning to live with things as they are, not according to my vision and story, but as they are. I’ve embellished on life, added color, flexed the edges of pathways and tables to make them fit a certain slant in my sight. It sounds like fabricating–lying–but I think it’s appropriate to call it crafting. Yes, there is a line, a circle too. But crafting is legitimate, carving stories from wood and steel. I do it. We all do. Ultimately we are the stories we write ourselves into from everything we deem real, lived and experienced.

There is a rolled up tube, wide and tall as my thigh, slightly taller, that stays tubed by a rubber band, awaiting a frame as it sits vertically atop my desk, white, serene, divided in half by that serpentine rubber band. Inside, I have seen the cow skull atop the man, sitting in the foreground with powerful arms and lean body, brown man in the heat, in the background a rustic desert cafe one sees in dusty towns off long, leaning highways into the horizon. He wears a skull as ritual, in his town, an African town, somewhere outside Johannesburg. 

The line sketch print, presented to me as a birthday present, one I asked for after spying this piece at a friend’s house art gallery opening, pleased me softly and widely. Perhaps the cow bones spoke the truth in human animality, like the Native American mask that hangs above the fire place: antlers, fox skins and painted man. They came to be as someone’s vision. My husband bought both pieces for me, witnessing the missives sent without reading them. Perception. Vision. 

That is my story, my detail of notice and narration, memory and matters. 

Blog at WordPress.com.