April 2013
1 post
2 tags
four days/old journal
I got some inspiration a few days ago: a friend sent her brother’s travel blog from India. They’re going for a year. Some friends from Portland visited recently and wanted to see my pictures from Mexico; they also traveled for a good part of a year and one of them ended up in India. Funny how that works.
Anyway, I opened up my old journal and this is what I found:
[[MORE]]
24/9
I had a very...
March 2013
2 posts
forest/i am still alive
I apologize for being so absent. I’ve been buried under schoolwork and haven’t written much lately… Here’s an oldie:[[MORE]]
She and I drove about twenty minutes outside of town. We stopped to check that we were headed in the right direction—a coffee shop with wooden figurines of strong men and birds inside and out—and once we back on track we drove through a river in her...
religious experience/gardening
for Christina, reminding me of the beauty of gardening, and Brian, asking when I would post again.
8/30/11
I had a sort of religious experience whilst weeding today. I had yanked away the grass taller than myself and made my way to the base of a citrus tree. I sat there, crouched over, knees fully bent, pulling out tiny weeds struggling to grow big and tall like their neighbors. I pulled away...
February 2013
3 posts
4 tags
[playing around with] poetry
I read a book of poetry (Works & Days by Dean Rader) yesterday and I wrote this while reading it. Poets are going to cry sacrilege for their pure form but I’m just, as I said, playing around with it. I have to say that reading poetry is really like being in a foreign land and I hope, as my professor (a poet) said on the first day of class, we’ll have some mass poetry education and...
4 tags
father, son and holy ghost (or, magdalene...
Here’s a departure from the norm: a little fiction about a woman at the Magdalene Laundries. I was going to hide this away as a undoubtedly sub-par creative writing experiment but my workshop group really enjoyed it and I thought my internet fan club might like it too. [[MORE]]
Father, Son and Holy Ghost
The morning sky betrayed me like His love for me betrayed me, like their concern for me...
3 tags
lady friends
I sat at a coffee shop today, minding my book—though, hiding the pink jacket with PASSING LOVE scrawled on the cover—and letting my coffee cool a bit when I was caught by a conversation on Art. Capital A Art. These young women, the kind of women who are just naturally pretty—smooth and collected hair, perfect skin, a little color on their cheeks, and eyes ever so engaged with their topic of...
January 2013
4 posts
5 tags
cosmo and other cats
I read somewhere once that a cat’s purr heals broken bones or broken hearts or broken people lying in hospital beds.
Cosmo came in from the cold just now to purr beside me and make me feel that happy sound. I always think of that article—if it’s real or not, at this point, I couldn’t tell you—when I hear the sound of the marble ball that the old man slowly rolls in his maraca. …the thing that...
7 tags
las ballenas grises
Pops and I went to Mexico in February 2011 to see las ballenas grises (the gray whales). We’re going again in a few days and I am so excited.
In late 2010 the plan was to go on motorcycles. I got my license for his birthday in November but we ended up buckling under (mostly) unspoken anxiety from mama bear, and others, and taking the red truck—that only broke down once last time. Despite my...
2 tags
"a group of all Americans"
“A group of all Americans,” said the New Yorker with a smirk as the minivan hit the highway.
There was a vast land right outside of the window but it was smothered by small talk and impressions of San Francisco’s Sunset District.
“I went at sunset. Pretty dorky.”
She gave a subtle laugh. A please-stop-talking-to-me laugh. A yes-very-lame laugh. A shut-up-and-look-outside laugh. Like brushing away...
8 tags
sebastopol
When I arrived in Sebastopol last Thursday, my friend—I think I can call her “friend” now; I’m still having trouble calling her by her first name instead of her academic title, though—told her husband that I was a talented writer. I had never met him before and it seemed jarring to hear after instructions about dog walks and the newspaper bin. She said that I had gone on so many adventures and...
a new year
“In Trout’s novel, The Pan-Galactic Memory Bank, the hero is on a space ship two hundred miles long and sixty-two miles in diameter. He gets a realistic novel out of the branch library in his neighborhood. He reads about sixty pages of it, and then he takes it back. The librarian asks him why he doesn’t like it, and he says to her, ‘I already know about human...
December 2012
6 posts
3 tags
50th post, 25th birthday
…Where are you now? Who are you now? How are you now?
<3 Kylie, February 28, 2012
I turned the page of my journal a few days ago and found this message from my past self. I had completely forgotten it and yet I was so happy to (re)discover it. Why did she decide to write to me? Did she know that, despite her confusion at the time, it would be good to remind me that she knew I’d make the right...
4 tags
5 tags
a lot of starting and not a lot of finishing
Leonardo DiVinci said that “art is never finished, only abandoned.” I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately: how we work, work and work on, really, whatever it is we need to work on and eventually there is nothing else we can do. An extra paint stroke might ruin it; an extra stanza might be too much; another chapter might derail the story from its course; another hour reading and you just might...
I’m working on a post called “A lot of starting” about how I start projects but don’t follow through. I’ve been working on it for two weeks. It’s not done yet.
(manic) monday
…remind me to tell you the stories about Chicago, Kansas City, Love, Nectar, Nina Simone, Dia de los Muertos and the bus depot in Zakynthos. I’ve been working on about a thousand different posts and Thursday is looking like a good day to post a few. I’ve been getting really beautiful feedback lately (thank you!) and I don’t want people to think I’m getting flaky....
November 2012
8 posts
pop up hotels
Call me crazy but this is what I want to do for a living. I got fired shortly after submitting this. I don’t think it’s that terrible. I wish I had a picture but I’ve never stayed at one… maybe in the next year or so…? Enjoy.
How does one enjoy crisp air, pristine vistas and unspoilt land without the bug bites, sore back and lack of plumbing that go hand in hand with...
to (awesome) parents
I have about a dozen things to do but I have to stop and write because I feel like, for the first time in months, I have an urgent story to share. Sure, I could blame the stack of work that I can’t see when I put on my lil’ writer cap on and open a new, blank Word document. I could say that it’s because I’m home and I’m using the computer that I had for many years; the one that I tapped, tapped,...
every day is a day of thanks
Last year on Thanksgiving I had fish and chips for lunch AND dinner. I worked a full day and wore three layers of company clothes. It was nearly freezing outside. I drank a few beers in the bedroom of the family home that I was staying in and I emailed my parents. It’s pretty wild to think about how much changes each year. What I am thankful for—each day, each year—doesn’t...
1 tag
dreams
My alarm shook me awake this morning. I was in the middle of one of those dreams that doesn’t feel painful but feels real and terribly, terribly uncomfortable. I hate being awoken in the middle of a dream because it shakes the dream right out of my brain. Too quickly do I think bad words and the poetry of dreamland is bumped right out of my being. This morning was one of those mornings. I hit...
I’m going on an adventure! I’m going on an adventure on tomorrow! Hooray!
I bought new, big socks and just decided to take my biggest and best scarf. I’m going to the Midwest for five days and I’m bringing my smallest backpack, just so I remember who I am.
Grad school is killin’ me but I have to remember that my degree is to enrich my professional life and travel is where my heart really is....
sex, politics, religion
Preface: This space is far from a political forum and I questioned even posting this entry but it is topical, it is extremely important and I just wanted to write. I, like billions of other humans around the world, am so nervous to see how this all turns out.
I’ve never thought of myself as an especially political individual. I listen to NPR and I read the BBC online. I go to a politically...
3 tags
an altar
I made you an altar today. It’s the first altar I’ve ever made so I hope it’s okay. I spent twenty minutes picking out the flowers and ended up getting boring, white carnations. I lit all of my church candles (you know, the tall ones that sometimes have pictures of Jesus or Lady Guadalupe on them? I only really like the plain white ones) and some tea candles and moved that black and white printed...
2 tags
plan for november (sadly, no beards involved)
It’s the first of another month. Why is it that the metaphorical flipping of the calendar causes me such distress? I haven’t written here in far too long and—so I hear—my audience is getting a little frustrated. Even more than the fear of losing them (you) is the fear of starting another project and not seeing it to full fruition. I created this space for myself to reflect and, as my favorite...
October 2012
1 post
7 tags
whenever and wherever
I apologize for making the last few posts more personal than travel.
My classmates and I discussed the importance of not only giving an anecdote but also providing a reflection about that experience. I feel like I’ve been leaning one way or the other and I will let you, audience, decide which has been deficient. While you ponder that, here is my best attempt at both.
More than a year ago I left...
September 2012
4 posts
5 tags
hurt feelings
Don’t ever get too caught up in hurt feelings.
There are so many awful things that you can think about yourself and when someone else says something hurtful, take it in stride. Take it as a moment of weakness for both of you. Shame and shame and same: we will talk and we will grow together.[[MORE]]
Don’t let hurt feelings keep you from where you are. Often times people say hurtful things because...
4 tags
to you
I was at the clothing store and thought I’d see if this out-of-my-budget blazer would roll up at the sleeves and I thought of him. We always used to roll up each others’ sleeves. I was in the grocery store looking for a coffee contraption (plastic? cone shaped? single serve slow drip coffee? yeah, one of those) and I saw some Higher Grounds. He was thinking of getting their beans for the café and...
quick thoughts
What makes a house a home? What makes a room more than a box where you store your stuff? Why can’t I call his mom? Why was my BEST experience of the month listening to a daughter and mother cracking up in Target today at some book they found on the shelf and were reading to each other? (Probably because it reminded me and my mama.) Why does it hurt to take down paintings and...
Untitled
Preface: It is the first of the month and I sat out in the sun earlier to reflect on this summer. I’m moving in a week and the chapter is closing on one of the most (shall we say?) character building summers of my life. I’m going to a party tonight in San Francisco and the host is the man who introduced me to who you will read more about in a moment. I could not help but think about when I first...
August 2012
7 posts
two (big) words
It’s Monday! I’m basically officially a graduate student. It seems only fitting that I toss out the laborious entry investigating movement through doorways and, instead, give you two vocabulary words that I—for some unknown reason—scribbled in my notebook in January.
Peripatetic: (adj) traveling from place to place, especially working or based in various places for...
5 tags
preparing for an earthquake
In the wee hours of January 17, 1994 Northridge, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, was hit by an earthquake with a 6.7 magnitude. Sitting atop a fault line is reason for precaution but, as Northridge and the surrounding area quickly learned, we were not prepared.
My most vivid memory—besides the sparkling litter that was once my mother’s wine glass collection—was the massive amount of water...
9 tags
Granada, Spain
Granada is the only once-Muslim city in Spain that was not destroyed when, in the 15th century, the Christians fought to reclaim control of Spain. For this reason, it has a huge Moroccan feel. The Alhambra, which is a collection of palaces made by different Moorish rulers, is still standing because the last Muslim ruler turned it over to the Christians in order to ensure the safety of his...
3 tags
story giver
I’ve got some stories to share. They start with a moment or stretch over years. Each story is very near and dear to my heart. I spend the time turning them over in my mind and then putting them into the best words that I can find. With each personal story that turns into an almost-public-story, I feel like I break off a bit of myself that I won’t ever be able to stick back in later—later when I...
being childish
I feel like there’s been an understated theme going on for me over the last few months: kids are way more intuitive and awesome than adults.
Jazzy J was trying to psyche me up for a wedding. I am newly (and eternally) single and she was convinced I’d find a new man—under the spell of formal wear, long-term love and an open bar (my words, not hers)—to fall head over heels for me.
I spent the...
One of my students is seven. He and I get along just fine. Today he swore during our first session together that I could not make him smile; by the end of the day I had him in stitches because I was “up top, down low, TOO SLOW” (as well as other remarkably wonderful comedic performances). He told me at one point, between giggle-fests, that I was not awesome. I frowned but he quickly...
reading and writing
I remember when my dad would read a book to help me sleep. The one that I remember best was a strange, spooky story about a dark house with a strange ball that would fall down the staircase… I’m sure it was about a lot more than that but I always had very vivid pictures for that scene.
He would fall asleep before I did but I would doze in and out of sleep slowly to his snores and touch his head...
July 2012
7 posts
5 tags
a butterfly in arcata
Forests make me numb. So old and so untouched and so much better than me. [[MORE]] I am nothing in this world and yet, in my world, I am everything. I am all that matters, or how I grow and respond and react is all that matters. How wonderful is this life? How lucky am I? How fortunate to walk in forests and sit in sunlight and comtemplate who I am and why I am and who I want to...
friday
I think that Fridays, as difficult as they often seem, are a good reminder: you did what you did, you are who you are, you are going to be rewarded for surviving the week with fervor, energy and enthusiasm. (or, at least, that’s how I go through my weeks).
I work at a Jewish community center. My corporation is not affiliated with the Jewish religion but it was a good spot to rent a few...
3 tags
starfish
Sometimes you’ve got to be a shark and sometimes you’ve got to be a starfish.
Sometimes you’ve got to swim fast, chomp hard and be fierce as hell because if you’re not you’re not going to prove your strength to those who might doubt you—or to you, because there are days when you definitely doubt yourself. Sometimes you’ve got to be strong and ready to unleash the furry—creative, passionate,...
6 tags
logic, creativity and other things
Oh, fortune cookie, you are like a coy smile on a bus. I do not know if you are playing a cruel game (do I have something on my face? who are you? do I know you?) or if you’re being honest (do you promise? are you being literal or figurative?).
I have had a lot of questions this week.
I’ve had success and I’ve had incredible loss. I’ve had a “what do I do now?” and “what do I do...
big trees, tiny journey
She wanted to make the redwoods five feet tall And her mile was as long as the classroom.
The things in this world are just not right for the two of us. The antelope looks a lot like an anteater And those lakes in the Amazon are only as big as this table. We can’t get enough stars, though. That’s for sure. We laugh and sing, sometimes. She likes my necklace and my jokes. Why is it always...
muscle relaxants on the 4th
ma blood gets reel cowd’n the forth. all’m thawts uh time pass—we cud shoot er guns n be reel men n kiss er women reel hard n chug er wisky reel gud. at thur in the wilernes er laffin, hollerin n hootin tuh’d wind. thangs jus aint the saim no moar. no they ain’t. them days wer gun shootin’, wisky chugin days n now i ain’t got nuthin to be cherin fur. them ain’t em same days. thes days ma...
accidents
I was nearly involved in an accident on Friday morning.
I was driving south on highway 1, about a quarter of a mile from the Bay Avenue exit when the cars in front of me swerved and screeched to a stop, throwing puffs of tire smoke up into the air and shooting out angry brake lights towards me. They never talk about how quickly you can brake when they try to sell a car: sixty-five to five in two...
June 2012
7 posts
home things
Today I can breathe. I am sitting at a new desk in a new house and listening to new voices in the kitchen but as I stare at this computer and what is peaking out over its edges, I feel like I am Home.
I have a picture that I took with me from Amsterdam. I’d like to say it was printed in the late 80’s or early 90’s because the color is not quite right and because the corners are starting to tear...
skyline
by Alexander Throckemorton:
In my youth my wings were strong and tireless, but I did not know the mountains. In age I knew the mountains but my weary wings could not follow my vision— genius is wisdom and youth.
CTB and I are conducting an experiment. I am the faulty gene, though: I am the ginger, the lefty, the optimist, etc, so pardon my prose/poetry (or lack thereof) and look to...
3 tags
the zebra
For Collin
[[MORE]]
My toenails hit brown straw, grey clay and the wild wind with such aggression. My toenails are scraping (tttttchhhhhh) and tearing (cheeeeeeeech) and bleeding (stchh stchhh) but I keep going because when you’ve got somewhere to go, you’ve got to keep going.
Thump thump thump.
I often crinkle up my face because I am different than the herd. My stripes do not blend with the...
6 tags
the blue
Today I decided that the ocean is the hardest thing to describe.
I’m almost done with my training at the learning center and, I’ve got to say, I’m crossing my fingers to work with autistic students. I want to participate in a program that activates a sensory cupboard that is easier for some of us to access than others. …and speaking of cupboard—what gives, English? why are...
6 tags
le chien andalou
(I love my job. I love where I am and where I am going. I wrote this in January and I’m sorry it’s old but I haven’t been writing much lately)
Le Chien Andalou
Their bodies beat like drums; the walls begin to shake.[[MORE]] The young one flirts with Rythym while the old one rests on his mistress, brushing her hair with passion. The flurry of color slows to a woman possessed:...
1 tag
sleeping and waking
My baby girl finds packets of seeds that her mother stored in a special cupboard. She wonders what it means to germinate. My son is a lefty like his mama— he always thought something—the glove— felt wrong until he found that old one shoved in the back of the closet. I’ve been everything: I’ve been mowed over, spread into the sea, washed through with tears. I’ve been...
c'mon, you should be an expert packer by now
I submitted my first story to a fancy literary magazine on Wednesday. If I don’t get selected I will blame it on my extremely chummy cover letter (I was trying to charm them, not make them vomit, which I would probably do if I had to read hundreds of cover letters sent to a fancy literary magazine). I felt like I had to finish this piece and just throw it out into the world so that I could...
