I'll go

I am feeling a little bit overwhelmed by life right now.

I just ate corn chips IN MY BED and somehow wasted 45 minutes. The power went out in the middle of the night again so my alarm got reset. Now I have to go take the fastest shower in the universe.

I sort of just want to do a deep clean and purge EVERYTHING - or at least everything unnecessary - from my life and apartment, but I don't know when or even if that could happen. I am carrying too much, I can feel it, and it is wearing me out, and I don't know if I should purge the physical first, or if that is just a symptom.

Maybe Wednesday.

I need to eat some molasses and other iron-rich food so hopefully I can donate blood this time. I was rejected last time I tried, (the first time I was rejected in YEARS). Sigh. Universal donor. They'll just keep calling me... okay, I'll go I'll go I'll go I'll go. I'll go.

I need to be purified.

Prayer for Saturday, Late March, Near the Brighton-Brookline Border

I can't decide if I think this is dumb or love it. Maybe a little of both.

Bless the pavement, brick, and concrete.
Bless amber bottles redeemed at five cents apiece.
Bless the mail carrier.

Bless the brass penguin,
the painted gnome.
Bless the home they guard.
Bless its tiny yard, its lawn – still dead.
Yes, bless.

Bless this blinding birch, echo of the snow.
Bless the sun that makes it gleam.
Bless all the trees with their naked branches,
roots burrowing through swollen dark soil,
buds soon to adorn their tips.

Bless dead leaves from last fall.
Bless the fall. Bless it all. Bless it all.

Bless this sweat that's sharp and salty on my lips.
Bless lips
Bless tongue.

Bless kissing and tasting.
Bless my own blood
blood that bubbles and races through narrow veins
clear like wine, thick like mud.

Bless these lungs
this rhythm, these breaths, these steps
these calves and ankles and quadriceps.
Bless these sneakers.
Bless tying laces.

Bless this hill I climb.
Bless this child I carry inside.
Bless the wild.
Bless time.

Bless the winds – still cool
but mild.

Bless the rain that will come tomorrow.
Bless memories of snow and dreams of the oceans.
Bless joy and sorrow.

Bless all the Jews, families,
walking home from their devotions.

Bless other joggers. Bless yuppies. Bless left turn only.

Bless dogs with jingling tags.
Bless $1 canvas bags.
Bless Washington Square.
Bless custom bridal alterations.
Bless the C-Line
and the B-Line too but maybe not as much
or maybe more because it probably needs all the blessings it can get.

Bless Jesse's Girl.
Bless a woman like that.

Bless parks with swings.
Bless croquet.
Bless today. Bless today. Bless today.

Bless cool water that hisses down my throat.
Bless these burning palms.

Bless no pants.
Bless going pee.

Bless me. Bless me. Bless me.

Just for You

I am going to the WTS (Women's Transportation Seminar) luncheon today. I plucked my eyebrows and am wearing nylons, just for you, WTS.

Public

I know that I made some mistakes, BIG TIME. He mumbles, pleads - a garbled soliloquy. His are eyes that stare with a kind of vacant earnestness into the past or at realities unknown to the rest of us passengers.

I know I made some mistakes, but the thing is I LOVE you. His voice breaks, and we pretend not to notice as he gazes across the aisle at the vacant seats. Though these words are not meant for us, we cannot help but hear them. It is late and the car is mostly empty. A couple of headscarved girls board - laugh and speak to one another in foreign sentences, yet unaware of the man's open sorrow. His skin is rough, stubbly, leathery. Please. Take me back, he whispers as we pull away from the platform with a jerk.

The voice raises with dramatic arcs, only occasionally audible over the rumbling of the train car.

If you love me at all
I want you to know that I love you more.

I'll love you until I die.


You're one of a kind.

Please.
Take me back.



And I just wish we could all disappear.

Selective Memory

Like almost every evening before and after that, my dad had unlaced his shoes, stretched out on his back on the sofa, and begun to watch the news "with his eyes closed," flannel shirt unbuttoned and exposing a white thermal undershirt. If one were to listen carefully, after awhile, one would begin to hear a faint growl from somewhere under that thick mustache each time his lungs emptied.

Now, when I was very young, my parents called me the porcupine, first of all because of the slender quills growing from my back which would detach and embed themselves in unsuspecting animals, but also because I was a child who did not like being touched (who am I kidding? I am now an adult who only sometimes likes it). Apparently I would bristle and occasionally even sneer when people, even family members, attempted to express unwanted physical affection. Perhaps it goes back to being insanely tickelish...?

Anyway, returning to the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour (whose opening strains are forever engraved onto my soul; in fact I do believe if you were to draw a phonograph needle across my few memories of those early years, between the collection of poorly-understood Little Mermaid songs and Bruce Springsteen, you'd hear the entire intro theme to that show with its triumphant brass and rousing tempo, ushering in a deeper look at the most important news stories of the day). . . although on this day, as was NOT mentioned on the news hour but as occasionally happens to younguns, I had been knocked off my feet by a stomach bug which left me feeling pretty crummy and strangely cuddly. I saw him lying there, wanted some comfort in my state of misery, and crawled up on top of him, a little beetle of probably only three or four, to snuggle against his warm chest. My father, only dimly aware of his surroundings, put a hand on that tiny back, and returned to watching the news, pleased, nevertheless, that I was showing such physical affection.

And that is how, several years later, my dad recalled the story. How sweet, right?

"Hon," my mom interrupted, in disbelief, "what about the rest of the story? Do you not remember the part when she began throwing up and you used your shirt to catch the vomit so it wouldn't get all over the sofa?"

Apparently he did not.

I spewed chunks of warm, half-processed toddler food all over him. It was soaking through his undershirt and dribbling down his torso, but my father was so delighted at this rare moment of intimacy with his young daughter that through the years his memory only preserved the part where we cuddled.

Sort of gross but sort of really tender.

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This post is part of the Blue-Beta Blog Coordination, a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Confuzzled of I Keep Wondering, Gromit of The Dancing Newt, Redoubt of Redoubt Redux, Third Mango of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Yarjka of Sour Mayonnaise, and Xanthippe of Let’s Save Our Hallmark Moment. This week's theme: 'childhood'.

Never Gets Old

Giraffes in the air. Every time I return to it, it is just as good as that first time.