Distance


The space between me and the end of this 500-mile pilgrimage. The calm between skin diving into waves rippling my uterus down and a new human breathing air. The last time I took his face in my hands. The second before I forgot who I was and now. 

It’s nothing and nowhere between two points, just a firing of lightning and elements fornicating in my brain. But it seems so real.

Realer than the hangnail that tore white from pink skin, got infected, and screamed at touch. Realer than her black rimmed stare that sneered my 8-year-old heart into the corner. Realer than the cardamom main line from chai to nose on November mornings. Realer than the “F” I will receive if I write instead of read. 

It’s just time and space, memory getting confused with all the parallel universes. But it seems so true.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The World We Know Is Possible

Image
People know things are changing on the Home Planet, Earth. Even if they like to temper the shifts in climate with comments like, "We could use more sunshine here", the facts speak for themselves. And just because many of us in the Northern Hemisphere can still get food easily enough, doesn't mean that there aren't starting to be inconveniences, like the voluntary power shut offs in some Bay Area communities due to extremely dry conditions. PGE, the power company acknowledged that they were unprepared for the increase in fire danger last summer when a huge area of California burned down due to faulty power infrastructure. Now, Science, which has occupied a similar level of credibility as the Almighty for the last 175 years, is falling in value. "Post-Fact Era" is now a phrase on many tongues and Instagram sites, whether you identify as Red or Blue or Purple. When we no longer want to hear what an authority figure has to say, the power of the masses can
Read more

Taking A Life

Image
I was raised vegetarian as part of my early upbringing in the cult. That is an entire blog post in and of itself but suffice it to say, I was more aware of turkeys as something I could draw by tracing my hand than I was of it as a relative and source of nourishment. True, my aunties would sneak me pieces of turkey under the table at Thanksgiving when we celebrated with my father's family who was decidedly carnivorous and not in the cult. Also true was the delicious feeling of transgression and taste delight that co-mingled in my mind and mouth as I savored the juicy morsels. But it was an unimaginable leap between this low key rebellion and actually connecting with a living, breathing being that gave its life so I could feel a little naughty and then scrape any evidence into the trash. Skip ahead 30 years and I'm deeply interested in knowing where my food comes from, how it is raised and treated, and how it is killed. Food justice is not only about access to healthy food,
Read more

Being a Writer and Parent

Image
I’ve been away from the endless skies of blank pages for some time. In my twenties I had something to prove—that I could be creative AND live on around 1K per month in a charming neighborhood…even if it was Spokane, Washington and not New York City or Los Angeles. I could write an entire novel while working at a chocolate shop and doing theatre on any stage that would cast me, paid or unpaid…FOR. THE. LOVE. In my early 30’s I wrote another two books because I wanted to create something beautiful and witchy and soulful…and because I had time since I was not raising children, nor married, just singularly ME. And then I walked across Spain on an ancient pilgrimage. I was channeling my inner Shirley McClain and had dared the universe to “Show me the next chapter of my life” since I had only planned out what to do with my life until the age of 30…at which point I guessed I would die, but that is a story for another time. On this walk across the Iberian peninsula, I fell in love with a
Read more