justwrite 30 november

It takes Rob a long time to get home. That is, he takes the long way home on purpose. The way that he takes is so long that no one would ever describe it as the way home, in fact.
He’s driving away from Maya’s house, from Maya. He’s thinking without thinking, listening to the radio in that beautiful way where you feel the music without even having to recognize the song, the artist, the anything specific. It’s loud, and it’s good.
Summer’s gold in the air, green in the trees. Rich colors and smells haze gently through the view: parks with miles of ongoing walk-taking, snug little brick houses getting ready for dinner, wide roads roping through the neighborhoods of bike-riders and stroller-striders. He sees people he knows. He sees houses that have changed since he was little, and he knows what’s changed. Farther out, there are used-to-be fields, switched now into strip malls and grocery stores. Here are farms, there are orchards. He knows what grows, where to buy it. “I have traveled extensively in Concord,” said Henry David Thoreau. This is true for Rob, though he does not live in Concord.
He keeps driving, heading nowhere. He ends up at the library. It’s a good place to go anytime, of course, but especially if you’re looking for answers. Is he looking for answers? Not really, but it wouldn’t hurt to find some.
I think the same is true for all of us. I’m just saying.
When he picks up his wallet from the passenger seat, he sees the harmonica. More accurately, he sees the light blue plastic bag in which the harmonica is wrapped. Picking up the bag, he flips it upside down to let the harmonica slide out into his hand, studying it closely for the first time. It’s a comfortable weight, smooth, and nearly irresistible. Somewhere between the red and silver shine there lurks some sort of magnetic power. Surely it can’t be too hard to play such an instrument, right? He glances around the parking lot, sees no one. Worth a try.
It’s a little harder than it looks, as it turns out.
A little red in the face, he picks up his wallet, pops the harmonica into his back pocket, and heads into the library.

It turns out that there are exactly no books in the library about how to play the harmonica. However, in Jonestown, there’s one, and if he’d like, the librarian will order it for him. She’s got a terrific smile, flashing bright with braces and the whitest, straightest teeth he’s ever seen.
He would like.

justwrite 29 november

You’ll be happy to know that Microsoft Word won’t let you—or me, in this case—pluralize those fine chocolate sandwich cookies incorrectly.
Another side note. Oreoes have arrived in Ukraine. It’s a big deal. They arrived just in time for Halloween, just at the same time that we were getting paid later than normal. Around this country, many of our nation’s finest were simultaneously discovering a familiarly packaged treat from home and recognizing that they had already spent their monthly living allowances—on what? It was a distressing time.
Actually, I gave a box of Oreos to one of my Ukrainian friends recently, too. Vika, star of the suddenly appearing and saying Preveet! scene, took them home to her family to share this new discovery together.
“Why’s it so black?” her dad asked.
“It’s got cocoa in it,” Vika explained.
“Our cookies in Ukraine that have cocoa in them aren’t so black,” he countered.
“Just try it.”
I didn’t question her about the method that each family member used to consume his or her Oreo. Suffice it to say, they tried them.
Her dad loved them. Everyone else liked them, too.
Now, when they see the commercial for Oreos—the one in which a child explains to his dad the right way to eat an Oreo—the whole family gets excited.
USA! USA!
It must be noted, though, that this is not the same exact box that you might be eating out of right now in the US. The multiple languages on the side of this box are the real giveaway, but any red-white-and-blue-blooded American will tell you that there are two things wrong with describing this delicacy as “chocolate-flavoured sandwich biscuits.” Come on.

justwrite 28 november

but when you hang up you are wondering where am I plundering that kind of luck from that kind of bubblegum so often gets stuck in my hair where did that fall from which sky did I call glum clouds out of and shock all the proud shrouds off of the dancers we are looking for magic and sometimes it finds us easily blinds us and we are eating the rinds off of a different kind of day we play to our own strengths thanks to a thousand seeds we’ve planted we listen enchanted by the sounds of crowns throwing down challenges gauntlets not duels to fool others by but the kind of fight that will open the high colors from the rainbow and throw steel rods out the door no more such strict tricks no more such storage space wasted replaced by batting and cotton down the hatches lasting more than we can catch timewise we are waiting for surprises and when they come we are plum thrilled checking the bill and paying it twice just to be nice in that restaurant today no way could those people pull themselves together no matter what weather they are likely to be those birds those words heard from their beaks those squeaks of awkward protestation against the carrying-on of civilization well what is there to do and what can we all brew up to stew such a soup to throw such a rope a buoy a whatever hooey sort of rescue to say hey it’s okay just come along this way and you can shake it all off you can cough out that look and wipe it right away let the story play out with a different adventure chosen frozen in time with or without rhyme because there is crime and there is something less there is the kind of stress that makes waves the kind we save ourselves from with raw kindness the wiping off of blindness and the terror of a night but we will fight beside you we will write the real truth and when you read it you will see your face again a mirror a strand of sand twisting down the hourglass crashing into the shore and waiting for more waves to save you the brave few who swim are not taken in by such promises but the delicious bit is that you can swallow all you need to and then stand back up again no matter the rest it is a test and you are passing it is not a test but you are crashing when you burn it is with the light of a thousand moons and the stars swoon at their own reflections tasting joy and relief

justwrite 27 november

and what I think of saying is hey I’m still around and I guess you are too but not here and not clearly within reach but that’s fine and there are no peaches on these trees nothing breezy left to blow nothing I wanted to say but oh well and that’s too bad it’s kind of sad to see that you’re still alive but what kind of thing would that be to say would I rather pay off someone to erase those pages from my memory is there any eternal sunshine possible for such a spotty mind I can’t rewind and there’s no need to remind myself there’s a different shelf to search from a hum-drum collection of rejections to look over but there are clovers too although these are truly hidden under the snow now and oh how carefully I walk home alone in the dark there are puddles that are slush in much the same way they had other intentions earlier there are blurrier views now and the truth southways would be warmer but honestly there are no dormer windows on this blueprint just have to keep on just have to sing songs of a new design too fine to magnify tomorrow I will wake up earlier I will have vitamin c to be less scurvier but I will not walk up those steps that’s a trap that’s a crap shoot and I’m in no such cahoots that I need to break a leg in conspiratorial solidarity compare the free and the costly I know what I would choose and it’s no use to pretend to defend such habits if she had any rabbits she would kill and eat them and if I had your number I would easily defeat them all in stopping calls or forwarding all thataway and you say it’s still the same one I knew the same clues you’re laying out are the ones I remember well between now and never I am trying to forget them I am chewing on the same gum and looking out the window remembering and turning away turning off scoffing at hope of that sort and purporting to believe in a different sort of style oh of course I say that’s how I thought I’d play it and the tray it fills with ice cubes and the words are ones we can’t use just yet but I can play that game without keeping score I can buy what I need without going to the store just a few more sips and a lunar eclipse ought to even things up I will lift my cup and toast to the moon soon enough it will be full again soon enough the night will be bright enough with snow to light the paths as we go our own ways

justwrite 26 november

I was late for the bus again somehow today I’m not sure how this happens but stepping out of the shower on time I remember an email and a form that must go out before five and then it’s after all after the fall of the wrong hand on the right number and I am standing with wet hair waiting for a bus from nowhere to arrive just on time and deliver me across town and through a darkened campus to where the rumpus ought to be a mid-day movie may be guilty but so am I and so I call and ask forgiveness I offer the bigness of a generous makeup whenever something comes up and then I take a walk and it’s not too far too long the other side of the street and I meet the request coming up like a test I promised to take and there’s no mistake about what I can say and we’ll play out the details later but there’s a no-fail call-out without doubt so yes I say yes and when I’m walking back home on the way to get ready to be late for the next bus whenever that will be I see a white plastic bag in a tree and already it’s poetry and I do my best as I walk I say// tonight caught in the nightsky tree a white plastic bag presses itself into the dark waits for its poet// and then I think or maybe photographer? because that would be a picture I would want to take that’s a break I’d like to have handed to me nothing tough about it and then the words rearrange themselves adding sound and more descriptive verbs rustling is suddenly what’s happening and now there is wind involved and I imagine how to keep it simple but already I am captured by capturing this captivating scene this white on black relief suddenly forced in my face as a challenge get this right! and I bite and keep chewing all the way home where I open the door to find moonlight spilled all over the living room floor and I sigh there is no end in sight

justwrite 24 november

today in yoga this is a true story I was the first person in the room with the teacher and at the very end when we were finishing our eyes-closed laying down corpse pose and then the eyes-closed kneeling finishing pose where taras always finishes by saying vcim dobre ranok good morning to everyone today he just said dobre ranok and when I opened my eyes I was surprised to discover that I was the only one and there was no everyone left and I laughed but really I was a little thrown off of course I heard people leaving of course I knew some were on their way to work or whatever but I I who had done the least and stretched the least and shown the least flexibility I stuck it out I muddled through the easy part the laying down on my back and thinking about how hard it is to think about nothing and then he said to me is it not hard to you? which is the rough translation of Ukrainian with an emphasis on the very common tendency here to assume the negative well in this case the negative is true and I said yes yes it’s very hard to me and I like to do it but it’s very hard and then he said do you have a blah blah? and I said do I have a what? and then in English he said diary? and I said of course before I knew why and then he said okay bring it in and I will write exercises in it and also you always should come and I said okay I just travel a lot and he said where do you travel oh to kyiv and chernihiv and to lviv and he said by car? and I said no I cannot drive here volunteers cannot drive in America I can drive but here no no I go by bus and he said don’t you know an acquaintance with a car? and I said no no but it’s not bad and he said well you can do these exercises when you travel and I said yes yes thank you and when I was leaving I said harnoho vam dnya which means you polite have a nice day! but I sort of flubbed when I said dnya and it sounded more like dinya so I wonder if he thought I was saying you have a nice melon! because of course this is what dinya means and I was shaking my head about this out into the cold cold light and suddenly I saw that the bus I wanted was right at the stop so I ran to get on and the driver started to take off just as I got one foot on the step and I barely got the second foot up before he shut the door the rear door I know he didn’t see me but I slipped into a seat and felt distressed both about narrowly avoiding a dragalong bus ride as well as feeling sort of like I was called out for sort of sucking at yoga and I know it wasn’t like that and it wasn’t in front of anyone else and really it was probably the best thing I could ask for because really I would like to be better and more flexible but so embarrassing to know that he looks at me and thinks oh dear she really is just not getting in really is just not able to do this stuff really can not lift her leg up straight enough to form a perfect Y with her other arm out really oh dear but then suddenly I realized that I wasn’t sure if he said the word exercises or vypravy which is the same thing in Ukrainian and I definitely knew what he meant but suddenly at that moment sitting on the bus I was aware that to me vypravy means the same thing as exercises to the point where upon later reflection I cannot tell which word was used to convey this meaning and finally I felt a little victorious from my safe seat in the successfully boarded bus this is a true story and I will tell it to you sometime in a better way but for now here is all of the information and you can elaborate as you need to for now just to keep it interesting for yourself

justwrite 23 november

Time passes, as it often does.
There’s enough time for the woman in the red plaid wool beret to explain to the hygenist exactly how she’d like her teeth to be cleaned. There’s time for Nadiya to nod, agreeing, as she always does, with Mrs. Pansyuk’s harmless know-it-all-ism. There’s time for me to nod at them from the sidewalk, only a few feet away, with a perfect walking-by view.
There’s time enough to see another pair of dental clinic employees chatting in a nearby frame: one stirring a small cup of brownish foam and the other drinking from a small cup of coffee with cream.
There’s plenty of time for dentistry, as it turns out.
There’s plenty of need for dentistry here, it seems, if it’s fair to judge need based on supply. The number of clinics and offices offering dental work surprises me. At first, I had the wrong idea about many of these places, mainly because the word used was stomatolog. So, naturally, I assumed that this meant “stomach-ologist” or, stomach doctor. This made sense to me—Ukrainians love to eat and drink heartily, so a stomach doctor would probably come in handy on occasion. But no, this means dentistry. So much for cognates.
So.