Stream of Conscious/1

A rant? not exactly.
Obligatory space filling (it's been...)? nah.
Impulse? yeah

This is within. Suffering and joy. Cold wind rain and sweet warm sunshine. Do you feel them both in your life? Transitions, highs-lows work into my life like the punches while kneading bread dough. Working through life. Clearing throat, rubbing eyes, shaking head, swallowing audibly, pulling up sleeves, inhaling intently, smiling, waking up, getting up from a nap I can't take hold of.

It's cold and dreary-ish. Excitment over new classes zings and darts into a pocket with the lint ... once the work load starts, so begins the tumbling in the drier- shrinking back to reality. Or ... (ex)static-ly energizing, that's an option. Maybe I feel like this, maybe I feel anticiaption for projects, ideas to get off the ground. Maybe I'd like this blog to not be so middle school diary and emotion- but right now, I am feeling the distance of certain very good friends. Love for you. A smile for you.

I used a play a game with this one friend- a word game. He would say a word and I'd immediately say what came to mind. I'd say a word and he'd say what was right on his mind. I thought about this game about 10 minutes ago. Alot of words, ideas, emotions flow through me like water in creaks, streams, that connects to sisters and brothers of other waters--

What do you think after each of these words?
rape-- God-- Iraq-- education-- English-- race--- ethnicity-- photography-- kiss--
poetry-- affair-- food-- inclusion-- exclusion-- lesbian-- suffering-- park-- childhood---
injustice-- zoo-- distance-- apathy-- depression-- hunger-- relationships--

The significance of bringing the word game into this?: the thoughts, darting, flowing, connecting one to the other- the way cold wind rain and sweet warm sunshine, though different, are connected. Being aware of suffering and joy, continuing to rise up, listen and walk, connect to other people, introspect, grow.

Like the streams, creaks- bubbling, freezing, making their way- know that my love, peace and smile makes their way to you. You in Haiti, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Coahoma, Tijuana, Ontario, Johns Island, San Diego, Columbus, Dayton, Florida, El Salvador, Jonestown, China, France, Brussels, Spain, Spokane, Charlottesville... on and on. Places, words, names, connected. Love like water, water, water, flowing, moving, reaching, connecting, falling (like rain before the sunshine).

Poetry/2

Writing to me

To write is to respire, when
I'm on fire
(and/or)
STUCK in the mire

Give me pen, paper or
give me
death
writing, to inhale, exhale breath

adored, ignored
pick me up
get me out
let me be
write- if youre free

(perhaps) privilage
livin in the writing village
hot cold, fed
in safety
a bed
well or unwell read
you can write if you gotta head

a head, a mind
might could be mean and kind
and-- also to get ahead
Red Queen no slugabed
stay put she'd, we'd be dead
dead and quiet
no use to fight it
jus gotta write it

Recomend/2

Cringing while binging
on CNNs news happenings today.

I thought the world was going to end today while walking on a treadmill in the Rec center. Ridiculous reports, incredulous incidents, marvelous madness.

Finished reading Hesse's Siddartha today- reminded me of Coehlo's The Alchemist. Still mulling over what (to take) from the novel. How to make good on what I read, something like that.

Next book: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. Wonderful, true, jovial account of her family's switch to eating (only) organic, local grown and consumed food. Learning and relearning much info on genetic diversity, plants, American farmers, petroleum and fossil fuel consumption. Did you know that each item on your meal plate has travelled on average 1,500 miles? This makes me want to be almost Freegan (those "who employ alternative strategies for living based on limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources") aka not buying much, but raising-making everything that is ingested, worn, used etc. (http://www.freegan.info/).

Reciting gathas, breathing, listening to city sounds (searing sirens, chirping crosswalks, conversing car horns, water rushing through pipes in the apartment above, blasting rock music from the apartment next door, a sneeze, a yawn, a woman on a cell phone). Yes, St Louis, I hear you, I am growing into awareness in this Arched Midwestern milieu.

peace, shalom, salaam, shanti, paz, he ping, dohiyi, pace, hasiti, pax. tangible, real- you know?