Holding: 09.09.2013

My sister took a 16 hour Greyhound bus and a ferry by herself, in order to hold a koala on the Magnetic Island of Australia. While she was there, she went to a full moon party on the beach and watched fire dancers, and got hit on by a guy who had a girlfriend, but wanted to pay for her to gallivant around for the weekend. I’m holding a computer on my lap with a dusty screen, and the heat is making my thighs red, and I’m imagining what it would be like to have a baby, and if we should plan a trip to India first. All of this both makes me giddy and makes me want to take a nap.

A woman in her seventies with dyed red hair and boobs that fold into her belly, is holding her wire rimmed glasses steady on her face; it’s windy and she’s nervous that they’re going to fall off as she hikes up the overpass. She’s squinting and her square purse is tapping at her left thigh with each step like a metronome. I stop, after passing her on the right, and hold my phone in place to photograph a curly golden party ribbon on the street, and because of this, I miss my train and am late to work.

I’m holding the hand of my first boyfriend while watching Homeward Bound at the Garden Cinema. I can feel the sweat release from his palm and gather into a little puddle of condensation between us. We experiment with interwoven fingers, and then go back to the cross-palm clasp. He gets a hand cramp. I go to the bathroom and come back with some Junior Mints.

I’m holding my mom’s hand while she’s in the hospital. We close our eyes and she tells me to give her energy. We say energy energy energy over and over again. I’m 7 or so, and once I envision what my energy looks like,  I’m trying really hard to imagine it moving through my little being and into hers. She's my idol and I want her to get better. 

I’m holding the small hand of a 1 year-old boy as we walk across the street together. His little fingers are just resting on mine, fluttering about, looking for stability. I can feel him wobbling toward independence and I am extra conscious of the cars whizzing by.

I’m holding onto a black pen and I’m all hunched over drawing on a piece of brown paper. I’m sitting by an almost burnt out tea light and I’m intermittently taking sips of strong ginger tea and honey. It’s 11:30 at night and the windows are open and I’m listening to an album we used to listen to on repeat over a decade ago. He comes home, and is over the moon that I’m drawing, and listening to that album. He loves me when I’m like this, and he tells me so.

I’m holding on to three plates and the one resting on my left thumb is too hot and it’s burning me, but I’m already mid way thru the restaurant, so I keep going. I imagine I’m going to drop it on the lady’s lap, and the jus from the steak will drip onto her white dress and down her leg. I imagine I’ll have to kneel by her veiny calf and wipe it up, and when I do I’ll notice the rag looks pretty with the jus and the wood floor, and I’ll forget what I’m doing, and then laugh. I imagine that if it was a lady that asked for her steak served rare, she wouldn’t be too upset. But this lady asked to have hers well done, so I don’t see much room for error. I tell myself to stop imagining that, because the imagination is powerful, so I imagine that l get it to her safely, and I do.

Holding in pee on car trips, holding out for an awesome job, withholding my own words to listen more carefully to yours.

I’m holding onto a lint roller and she’s bent over in a black cotton dress and tights with a rip in the back thigh, and I’m rolling the pills off of her in the middle of the teeny cluttered office. Around us, one coworker plays chess on his phone, another applies purple eyeliner in a small mirror, and another sips on her Chia seeds in water.

I’m holding tension in my left upper arm from continuously lifting weights improperly. Weights I was taught to use by my personal trainer Felix, to get in good shape for my wedding, which I was motivated and a little embarrassed to do. I never thought I’d be that woman, but I was-sort of. And maybe I hurt myself because Felix didn’t really believe in the machines; he believed in running and his intense cross-training classes. He was so handsome, and from Barcelona, and apologized profusely for having coffee breath at our first session. I should’ve asked for more guidance on how to use that one machine, but I was stubborn and wanted to figure it out myself.

Holding patterns--lots of them.

I’m holding a picture of myself in a florescent pink tube top with my arms on my hips while standing on a black sand beach in Hawaii. I’m remembering all of the crushed  green and rosy guavas smashed all over the sand. I remember how even that perfect contrast of colors and tropical heat couldn’t get us to change our minds about moving to San Francisco. It was while holding glasses of sangria on a foggy night with older Cuban men drumming out renditions of Many Chao songs, that we knew we had to live in the city instead.  

I'm holding space for you to soften. You're so tender under all of that skin and muscle and clenched jaw. Unfold, untangle, unsnarl, unwind.

I am here to hold you.

Evenings: 09.06.2013

I want you to experience this.  I’m writing this to touch you.  I want these words read and I want them to cause an effect.  It’s metaphorical and literal. Sit. Focus.

I want you to experience this. I want you to practice this.

I want you to come out of the reclusiveness of the evening and the hideout of the night. Be born into the break of dawn and expose yourselves.

If you are in need, reach out.

If you are hurting, ask for a shoulder.

If you are struggling, seek out aid.

I’m telling you now, you have the power and ability to achieve your goals and meet your needs.  My gift to you today is this.  You are not alone.  

Do not hide your shame in the cloak of the darkness.  The night time in which we cry and scream and hurt.  We save our financial crises for the evening, we save our emotional turmoil for closed doors, we smile and answer robotically to the “How are you”’s. Lying not exposing the truth. EXPOSE the truth.

I challenge you. When you are asked this question or when you ask it….Listen, tell the truth,  be present. We are all in this together and everyone needs something.  

I will let it start with me. Don't let it end with you. 

Evenings: 09.03.2013

The sun sets behind our house. Golden light filters through, shadows darken. The breeze shifts from warm to cool. It is a comforting part of the routine, the pattern, the rhythm of our days.

Giggles rise from the sandbox and waft into the open kitchen window. A desperate plea for just two more minutes of play. She knows bath time will be soon and that means bed will follow. She knows the routines, the patterns, the rhythm of our days.

The dogs pace, anxious for their walk. Dinner has been served and devoured, light is fading quickly. They know that the running bath water and sound of clean up means their adventure time draws near. They know the routines, the patterns, the rhythm of our days.

The table gets cleared, dishes scraped. Laundry is gathered and tossed into the machine. We know the silence of sleep will come soon and take advantage of this last hour of noise. We know the routines, the patterns, the rhythm of our days.

She falls asleep. The dogs find their places to curl up. The dreaming begins. We sit together, enjoying our time with the quiet. My head on his chest, sharing the stories of our day. 

I love our routines.
I love the patterns.
I love the rhythm of our days.

**Check out more photos that compliment this piece on our sister site: Luminous Traces**

Evenings: 09.02.2013

dedicated in gratitude to the fleeting and indefectible beauty of Maples

Things I noticed:

A young boy, maybe 9 or 10, with brown tousled hair falling into his eyes, making sure his mom was watching his skateboard trick. He did it on the rumble of the bricks and upon completion whipped his locks around immediately, like a rubberband releasing tension, to see if she was looking. She was. His shoulders relaxed for the slightest moment and then it started all over again.

In the same square, a man and woman. Were they homeless? Rough and ragged. Hewn from heaviness. I could only clearly see him from my bench. His hair was tousled, too. The color of  worn life in his locks. Not that it was gray necessarily. It was indeed sunkissed by the elements with veins of gold, but lackluster. It rested madly, just above his shoulders. I noticed I didn't want to make any contact--that some people put off tinder. But then he put earphones on. And I witnessed the most glorious, un-selfconscious, head-bobbin', hands air-drummin' display of joyous rocking out. The heaviness in some alchemical mystery transformed.  

The Whetstone creek kept a steady and comforting drone. I was so drawn I twisted my body so I could look at the disappearing water. There were two small brown birds scantering in the bushes. I found it sad I didn't know my winged neighbors on a first name basis. I noted that and my disturbance. One bird approached with the usual staccato movements. Closer and closer. There was just enough pause in between to see the soft face. Even the beak looked soft.  And gentle, gentle eyes. I could have looked into this innocence for hours, it was so consoling. 

I smelled the young guy at the market. The one with psoriasis and awkward social manners. The one that has the straight, stringy hair, who cut it short recently and didn't quite know how to respond to my compliment. He smelled of body odor. Unpleasant. I wondered if anyone has ever mentioned it to him. Or how they would, considering he seems so guarded and sensitive. And I thought about fragility and the delicacy of communication.

I heard the voice of a child. I never saw her. I heard her say with such conviction, "But I don't just like it, I LOVE it."

The woman from France tasted the Vermont raclette and was transported across the sea back home. The nuances of flavor, texture, aroma, all resurrected a remembrance of things past. Like Proust's 'petite madeleine' cake, she left with a half pound of her involuntary memory. 

If my phone hadn't been stolen at the Burbank airport, if it wasn't time to renew my contract, if I wasn't so ignorant (and perhaps non-caring) about these technological devices, if I wasn't so ready to trust the salesman's opinion partly out of impatience (just give me a phone already so I can leave thank you very much!), I wouldn't have had the type of device that allowed me to check my email on my break. And I wouldn't have had to endure the rest of my shift with a stone on my chest. I wasn't a good clown that day, but I was an amazing actor. Customers left with bouncy steps and packages of mold. 

One evening, with the encouragement of a friend, I forced my frail heart to go hear the swing band. I even danced. Getting lost in the steps, fumbling, laughing, apologizing and smiling the whole way through. It felt good to move. I drank Frangelico. It was a warm and buttery comfort drink, like liquid macaroni and cheese. I watched friends of the clarinet player, a family, sit in front of us. And when the red-haired freckled boy floating towards teenage years got up to sit in his Father's lap, I wondered if this would be the last year of his nonchalance. 

If I remove the stone and breathe into the chambers, I can unearth the place of gratitude and gilded grace. A place beyond desire or attachment. It flits in and out but it is there. When the sun sets there are many colors in between before succumbing to the Night.

"Living awake is the dying and living awake."

The piano tuner came back to finish the job. When he was done, I asked him to play. I was so tired. My chest heavy. I gathered some pillows and a throw blanket and lay upon the wooden floor to listen. He sat facing the piano. Slumped. He unconsciously took his right middle and index finger, cocked his head and scratched vigorously for 3 seconds. What compelled him, I do not know. He sat slumped again. I thought to myself, and then actually told him out loud, that if I were teaching Clown, I would take that gesture and amplify it. It is a beautiful action that speaks to and for him. From his own body and being. I watched him do that very same gesture before playing piano the previous night. Perhaps it re-calibrates something, because what transpired next could only be described as sublime.

He listens to his heart, his soul, and it comes out his fingers as an exertion upon the keys. Soft, heavy, lighter, louder. A caress, a slide, an aerial drop--his fingers dance across. I marvel. I want to do that. To be the medium for that kind of birth. No book or sheet music. Unadulterated. Pure. I want to cry. Eyes closed, I feel the wooden floor beneath me and let the resonance envelope me. Medicine. I notice it is in the pauses, the inhalations, that the notes sink into my skin. They shower me with beauty and remind me of my pain, my desires, my dreams, my failures, my joys. They wash over me and I don't want him to stop. I want the piano tuner to keep scratching his head and playing. A prayer in the moment. A Tibetan sand mandala. And then the sounds are whisked away by silence. 

We don't move and let the stillness descend. After a bit, I break it by asking what he was thinking about while playing. A brief pause. And then he answers, "where to go next."

Ripening: 08.29.13

 It does not matter that the spring buds have opened and come to flower, now hanging limply from their stems. It does not matter that the chill of early fall has crept into my solitary nights, causing me to close the sliding glass door on the world outside before bed; the crickets' song no longer audible behind the thin sheet of glass. Sitting behind the sliding glass I see my reflection and the night outside at the same time, the darkness beckoning.

Although the hydrangeas arranged in a flowery gesture of an ill-timed attempt have long since wilted into the dirt driveway, the memory of them shouting their immature message are steadfast. Heartfelt hope sprouts anew in the knowledge that the wilting is still just part of the cycle and, when the time is right, there will be no question of them catching full bloom once again. It may have to wait another couple of seasons, but the beauty of truth in life's cyclical growth are worth the wait. 

Truth may be relative to some. As a ripened human, it seems compulsory; particularly where the undeniable truths of nature are concerned.  It is the place of openness where, imperfections included, the line between immature, perfect, and rotten all collide.  I can't help but see the beauty that comes with aging and growing to perfection, including each step along the way.  A fine wine must maintain a proper balance of environmental factors in order to ripen to its best version of itself. Were my taste buds, however, let to feel the dance of a young Rothschild or Opus One, would it not still be delicious? 

Like the golden chanterelles poking up beneath last year's dying leaves after a humid summer day's shower, growth and decomposition become synonymous. As the summer turns to Fall, the brown hedgehogs, black trumpets, gray maitake, and matsutake all in turn replace the orange and yellows of the midsummer sun's creation. But these find their most perfect moments well after all but the kale, onions and squash crops are in.

 Like a blue cheese that becomes more ugly as its pungent nuttiness ripens in a widening vein of mold, I may grow past my most physically beautiful only to become the most delectable version of myself in the Autumn of my years. After all, a banana that hasn't yet become tender enough to bruise has a chalky, flavorless way about it. Not until it has earned the age of bruising can it learn to provide its most knowledgable sugar content.

Ripening: 08.26.2013

Let yourself ripen in front of others. Be disgusting. Become unrecognizable, spotty, bumpy, tender. Blush; get all hot and heart racy. We are alive after all and we should let the dead know it. Teeter on the edge of foul, be indulgent in your expression. You will find the sweetness there. Perhaps, you will be digested too quickly, but you will give them a brilliant rush. Honest offerings are the most delicious nectar.

Little tomato, there are bruises welling up under your skin, like mini black bull’s-eyes right near the heart from where you were plucked. Little black bull’s-eyes attract attention of the fruit flies that hover, dipping their mouths around the shiny bits, they are hungering for the sugars that pulsate behind your ever thinning skin. Fruit flies fluttering their little wings around like lonely people ravenous for some kind of intimacy, like curious people eavesdropping on strangers (who are equally searching for intimacy).

Punctured tomato flesh, relaxed shapeless orb, juicy exhale, relief on an old wooden cutting board. Tomato seeds are drying in their jelly, the knife blade is speckled with guts. Smear a piece of cheese on the edge; the acid is balanced. Exposed and allowed its full ripening, the tomato is vulnerable, textured, concentrated.

 I like watching you shift color and weep a little from an unusually warm day. I want to witness transformation. I want the air to get a little sour with your perfume. I want to remember where you came from.  I will be on the look out for mold and try and make sure the plantains or the ginger or the peaches don't crush you, before you get a chance to show off.

If I stored you in the refrigerator, I would deny you your ability to get loose naturally. I would sterilize you and force your ripening to be partitioned off to a mealy making florescent corridor. Tomato, like body parts exposed to air conditioning, forced to produce some internalized relief-less sweat. Detached from nature, you become pale and restrained, limp and odorous, perfumed by half open condiments and poorly wrapped cheeses. You are no longer a declaration of yourself, an extension of the earth; you are drained, lifeless, and forgettable.

--------

Over there, I see piles of balled up receipts, scraps of white paper with indecipherable waitress scratch, hollowed out chapsticks, an oddly shaped safety pin, a purple bra draped over a white wooden chair, with red wine stains on the peeling paint. I see towels half mushed onto a bottom shelf, half pooled into a wrinkly heap on the bathroom floor. I see a multicolored rhinoceros drawing, from a boy named Evan, who was visiting San Francisco from New York City, and wanted me to remember him. I see driftwood and power cords, cards from old friends, and quotes that meant something to me at some point, but maybe not now. In the last moment, that was all okay, and in this moment, I am trying to make sense out of this strange arrangement of past choices, trying to disassemble, reorganize, give away, remember, and let go.

You are looking into the eyes of men you could’ve made a different life with. Imagining how differently you would smell together, how differently you would eat together, move through the world together. You are looking into the eyes of the man you are choosing to live your life with. You’ve grown up together, into different bodies together. You are curing and aging and unraveling into something better, together.

What’s the point of letting dreams hang out in your head until they cease to be dreamy anymore? I mustn't be so frightened of the ripening. Unattended and under nurtured dreams will rot. Many of my dreams have gone back to seed, because I didn’t harvest them in time. Maybe they'll sprout again when I'm ready. This ripening is really just beginning.