30 november

Driving with the clouds thriving the day breaks wide open and scrambles the sun as the rainbows unstrung from the prism so easily forgiven and latch into clasps: we clap for the hope and we rope up those dopes to hogtie surprise and then set it all free! Whee go the chickadees and whoosh go the cockadoodles doing as the please as the breeze rushes mush in the corniest of senses, our forgiveness and recompenses on both sides of our neighbor’s fences: let us ask and let us give; let us wander and let us shiver in the warmth of a sunny disposition given out from our mirrors, clearer for the saying so, thanking for the thinking blow by scene: even as we mean our answers to be certain, we work in the sense we can’t take out ourselves, our nobler elves and humbler purposes show up to the circuses sitting on the sideline and looking for the clues: the truths that we can use, for when the writing’s done, and when the trip is over, the leaves on all the clovers will have easily turned four but the pages that are left will be right smack down by the door

29 november

Out of the window, it’s dark, so dark, and I’m whirring my brain, and my brain’s whirring me. Neurons: pew! pew! Time? who cares. It’s dark, we’re driving, and all ideas are perfectly sound, bouncing off the sounding board, explosions in the sky, comets in the stars, guitars and anthologies, other sounds smoking in the distance as the paths of greatest resistance open up, drop their draw bridges, place their cloaks in hocus pocus focus merrily down the stream – the boats and their paddles, the babies and their rattles – we are all the answers coming true! Let’s choose wisely because anything is reasonable, negative thoughts are treasonable and there is no why but when –

28 november

In case this isn’t immediately evident to you: Alison and I used to watch a lot of The X-Files on Sunday nights – part of a ritual that involved vague tennis-playing, frozen Pepsis from Sheetz, and X-Files— on these weeks, and we’d switch back and forth from her place to mine. It may be noted that I didn’t start watching this show immediately when it came out – too creepy, and I was too young to do more than peek at it on the downstairs TV as I was walking upstairs to bed. But at a certain point, I decided that the risk of nightmare and freakout would be acceptable in balance with the pleasures of following the developing mythology, discussing this with my friend, and of course, keeping up with David Duchovny. 

On the nights when we watched at my house – especially the single-episode-type shows – it wasn’t too bad to walk my friend upstairs, wave goodbye to her at the front door, and then quickly turn off the porch light and come inside, locking the door securely. On the nights when we watched at Alison’s house – that sweet old farmhouse, creaky and accommodating to every ache of the earth and twist of the wind – it was an act of faith to walk from the back door across the gravel driveway to my car. Sometimes the porch light flickered, and the sky close-dropped, retreated high-black. Into the car. I always re-locked my door after I got in. As if creatures that could travel across space would be stopped by a door lock. You never know. Backing out of the driveway, out of the protective circle of porch light and into the dark of Cedar Lane. No cedars on the lane, but the quiet of cedars lining the space is suggestive enough. The hills and curves indicate it was nobody’s first choice as a road. It’s a third-choice road connecting the homes of quiet people, all of whom know each other, and the only street lights are on the end, where outsiders are coming in. Pulling down the road, the question is whether to floor it and risk surprising anyone or anything up over the next hill, or to ease carefully, and to take forever to get anywhere. There are deer, definitely. There could be people. There could be… anything that appeared on the episode. And else. Going up the steepest hill was the biggest breath-hold. What would be at the top? It was impossible to know. It was like driving into the sky. And on the other side, flat – exposed, in the middle of cornfield, in the right season. Come and get me!

Did we ever talk about this, Alison and I? I’m not sure. Did she think about this, driving home from my house on those alternate weeks? Gosh, I hope I don’t get abducted by aliens on my way home while I’m crossing all this vast empty space! Nobody would even know what happened to me! No, I’d say no. We’re very different people. We loved that show, but we believe different things. In her worldview, I don’t think she’d say god would have such a thing happening. In my worldview, I’m not so sure about anything, especially true when I was in high school, and it was dark, meaning lots of things seemed possible.

27 november

No Dancing Saturday

The clock on my dresser, like so many items in my household, is a Goodwill special. Really, the ratio of thrift store to Ikea would make an interesting study. For someone. Interested in such studies.

Anyway.

The outer frame of the clock is white plastic, about a six- by six-inch square. The face is orange – not burnt, and not macaroni. Somewhere around ‘retro kitchen’, or ‘exactly the front panel of the dresser drawers’. It’s uncanny. White numbers. White knobs on the top and sides corresponding with four flippy-faced panel. Two of these panels, appearing down the right side of the face, are simple enough – date and day. Today, for example, although it actually says TUE 19, it should say SAT 23. The thing is, see, you have to change it manually, hence the knobs. Shouldn’t it be automatic? I’d think so. But I’m from now. I’m wondering if I’m just guessing it’s broken because of the difference in when it’s from and when I’m from. After all, it has knobs… and I have hands. In my day, I was the remote! (No, I’ve never said that. But I did just read a blog post by one of my colleagues in which she indicates that she loves saying this to her nephew. Note: No plans to say this to my niece.)

The other two flippy panels, across the forehead of the clock face, currently read NO DANCING. And, actually, though there are knobs on the top of the clock that might appear to adjust these panels – something like horns or antennae – it doesn’t seem likely that I’ll ever be able to see the other panels. They appear to be stuck in this position – a permanent message to me.

So, what’s the message?

You’ll note that I’m still in bed, uncertain about moving, while I’m considering this. Don’t rush into anything!

NO DANCING

So, I don’t dance, true. Already mentioned. I’m awkward, and I don’t love showing that off to people. Well. In some ways, but not in dancing.

Therefore, the clock is telling me, yep, another day when you’re not dancing… just keeping track over here, you know? All these days, and you’re not dancing…

Or the clock is mean. No dancing! Don’t be an idiot – you don’t know what you’re doing, and people will see you. Don’t take risks!

Why would anyone purchase a clock with such an uncertain and potentially rude message?

Well, I love it. It’s vintage. And it matches my dresser. Perfectly.

So? What’s on your dresser?

26 november

Do you remember being in love and how beautiful all the right colors were? Even the movies were on at the right time and the clothes fit even when they didn’t. You were someone who made sense and so was I. These are the dreams we make up when we’re awake and we agree to them. We hold our hands and we shake them. We cook our dinners and we ache our bodies. We are the cups of coffee and we are the scrambled eggs. Do you remember all the diners and all the shops where we didn’t buy? These are the rocks we climbed up and looked over. These are the mountains that we built and then pretended to move. Instead we moved ourselves and then laughed and laughed at the illusion. Oh, illusion! Oh, inverted world and other allusions! Oh, truth and confusion! Farmer’s markets and other festivals of shapes and sounds! Riding the trains in different cities! I sing the songs we thought we knew. Remember how we made our words into food and we ate them twice a month for snacks in packages in the mail? These times, those rhymes, halcyon days in the park with the turtles hiding as vegetables! Let us dance as childish pictures flit by in vintage filters, younger than we ever were. Remember the burritos and the guitars, the stars and the times we thought there were bears? There were always deer, always deer. And I was always real. And you were always real. And on and on and on.

25 november

What’s there to be the best of because I want and also too will beyond try when there’s a can’t also note what we will have this attitude for breakfast but by tea the morning one I mean there will be another kind of scone a scorn born of victory/ let the win begin/ we eat defeat for no reason there is no truth to set free to mock turtlenecks / let us reject those pompous claims lay aims to our means splay seams to our elderberry hamsters, split/ let us pit our olives, our arms/ let us cause for alarms, fires/ all the fire crackers, works