hard sweet hard

Sunday, November 02, 2008

journey in the night

when all saints day
became Día de los Muertos
we sat together again
in the place where memory lives on

-

Labels: connecting, death, dispersal, love, memory, night, transformation

Saturday, November 01, 2008

retreat into forest

After tiring of the feuding monks of Kosambi, the Buddha left to spend a year in the forest with no monks or lay people in attendance, The elephant known as Palilayaka cleared a path to a hidden cave and brought him fresh fruits every day. A monkey also attended the Buddha, bringing him his most valued posession, a honeycomb.

When Buddha departed to return to Kosambi, Palilayaka attempted to follow him into the forest. The Buddha warned him, "From here on is the territory of men and a great danger to animals such as you." Palilayaka stood and roared with grief. As soon as the Buddha was out of sight, his heart broke and he died right where he stood.

-

Labels: death, dispersal, love, woods

Friday, October 31, 2008

i went out for you today

I went out for you today, to the beach. not the beach where I held the wet stranger in the silence before the helicopter. no, not that one. I went to the one where I practiced cartwheels in the sand, one after another, as the dog barked and someone collected heart-shaped rocks.

I walk eyes shut today and listen.

I am listening for you today.

booming waves, low and wild, paired with crisp crunch of footfall.
the ocean rips, spray rises, foam erupting
fizzing as it races up the tideline.
in the shallows: clap, slap, slop.
ascending, descending, disappearing.

today another dog runs across my track,
skidding eight paces in the sand.
I go back and measure later.

I count curious pinholes in patterns still remaining,
more visible after the sun sinks, when shadows set.

I try to make a perfect impression.

the day you were listening for me:

it is not my time, I said to you
just the thought of it calmed me
as I watched the car spiral into the air
graceful yet struggling, like a fish fighting on the line

today is not my day I said to you,
as twisted metal slid in front of me
and I drove through it, heart pounding.

it was a brutal 90 degrees up there at the cemetery that afternoon
sweat beading down my spine as I ordered the two headstones
and walked the grid alone. Halloween. how goth, I joked later.

you were there, almost a stranger
but not quite

-

Labels: birth, connecting, death, locus of control, mail, memory, ocean, proximity, reclaiming, sea, spontaneous, translation

Monday, October 27, 2008

the journey of a letter (two)

27 October 2008

Dear Peter,

I know that you are very very tired now. Maybe too tired to read, so you & Sally are together and she is reading this aloud to you. You know how much I love you two, my dear friends, and I wish I could be there right now to spend time with you – to be present, with compassion and love, to keep you company & to be together. You are always in my heart Peter. That may sound corny but it is true! Maybe because I live so far away I always carry this lifetime of experiences, moments, memories with me – so for us it is folk mass (long ago), catching up in the driveway, sitting at the kitchen table, walking our dogs, the hole in the hedge between our houses --- the little moments, the Big moments. I kept the wrapper from the Stollen cake you brought me last Christmas – here – wrapping your letter- because it makes me smile – you make me smile Peter! Thank you for being my friend – I cherish our friendship always.

I found something recently while walking the dog at Half Moon Bay – the beach we walked when you came to visit – yes in August I was walking and when I came up from the beach I stopped with the dog to take my shoe off & dump the sand out. When I leaned on the fence post to stabilize myself, I saw this stone cross inside the fence post – someone left it there.

I don’t always know why I find things but I CAN recognize their significance – things stick out to me and sometimes they really do STICK OUT, as in this case! I thought you might like to have it now you know the story and how it reminds me of you, of us, of our walk there – our day together. The stone – I forget what kind it is – it as a nice feel to it and a little weight, feels good in the hand, if you hold it.

I have enclosed some photos from my Florida walk in April – when I jumped out of a plane & walked 24 miles by myself in the dark on the Canaveral

National Seashore. It was grueling, exhausting, difficult, and at the same time, enlightening. When I was really really tired and maybe a bit concerned about being washed away to sea or stopping and not getting up all by myself, I

found a letter on the small strip of beach, at my feet while walking, it was tied to a balloon and the wind carried it hundreds of miles then it washed up on the shore at my feet, and I found it in the dark! It made me so happy to know there was communication from a stranger, that this synchronicity happened. I was so tired I could not break the plastic string to open the letter while I was walking in the night but I tied the balloon to my backpack and it knocked around keeping my company. Also, the moon was near full and cast my shadow ahead of me in the sand as I walked. I could now see the shadow of the balloon cast in front of me as well – it really cheered me up and I didn’t feel so alone on my exhausting journey.

I hope this letter cheers you up like the one I found on the beach – and like the balloon I may not be in your direct line of sight but you know I’m with you wherever your journey takes you.

I love you very much Peter – I know you know that!

I will be home Friday ----

Love
Always,
Anne

Labels: death, fabulous, letter, love, mail, memory, moon, night, ocean, sea, walk

Thursday, October 23, 2008

the journey of a letter (one)

2 letters remain unopened.... I have found they deserve travel, a long journey where they can be read and reread for pure delight. I soon head to Oaxaca by bus, 20 hours of bus-ride, for the Day of the Dead. I shall sit in some little cemetery, in some little pueblo, festooned with orange garlands, and sip a white mezcal--like those beneath the gravestones before me had-- and read the handwritten pages ...

gracias,
J.
-

Labels: death, letter, mail, memory

Monday, October 20, 2008

trick or treat

my friend is very ill, i buy a ticket to go back home.

my eyes weary as i drive, i realize this will be our last time together.

is it harder to say goodbye for the last time
when you know it is the last time,
when the person is still there,
and you do the leaving.

i don't want to write these words

my little niece will be a fairy, we will go trick or treating.

-

Labels: death, love, memory, throw me something mister

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

in the numbers

22 FREAKY i just looked this up ::

Michael Hutchence: born 22 January 1960
Jim Jarmusch: born 22 January 1953

Joe Strummer died on 22 December 2002
Michael Hutchence died 22 November 1997

hmmmm
yes i will be writing to Mr Jarmusch
most certain walking something big on 22 January in NEW ORLEANS

xx
a

Jim Jarmusch, Joe Strummer, and Micheal Hutchence all knew one another.

Visiting INXS singer Michael Hutchence in a Memphis hotel, Strummer found the singer surrounded by mini-skirted young women, and asked him what it was like to be a sex symbol. "You're Joe Strummer," Hutchence said, "You should know." "I was never a sex symbol," Strummer told him, "I was just a spokesman for a generation."

:: view a recounting from Jim Jarmusch as told in The Future is Unwritten.

Labels: 22, birth, death, hutchence, jarmusch, mail, memory, strummer