poet's words

"all progress must come from deep within and cannot be pressed or hurried by anything. everyting is gestation and then bringing forth. to let each impression and each germ of a feeling come to completion wholly in itself, in the dark, in the inexpressible, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one's own intelligence, and await with deep humility and patience the birth hour of a new clarity: that alone is living the artist's life." -Rainer Maria Rilke

a day in the life

in my current profession, i am only given a moment's glance at a person. there is no investment of significant time or energy; there is meerly the mutual exchange of presence. i rap with one or smile at another, sometimes there is a passing of money and they are out the door, their purchases swinging from their hips.

now, my profession isn't a dangerous nor even an exotic one. it's a minimum wage, part-time one. however, on this particular day, a peculiar young man walked in, possessing a very peculiar way about him. he was dressed very professionally, that isn't to be confused with sharply, but he had set up the canvas of himself unlike anyone else in hilo. he was, what you might call an FOB, meaning he was Fresh Off the Boat. but upon which boat had he descended? that was the question i was trying to figure out when i first waved my hand to him in a friendly greeting. he was young and wore beige men's dress pants, his shoes were unremarkable and conservative. he wore what appeared to be a navy blue polo or perhaps a collared shirt under a navy blue sweater. over this he had a beige colored jacket, something like a fancy sports jacket from the 80s. perhaps that's what made him seem so odd, his wearing clothes from a time period he had not even been born in. sure, vintage, has been the style as of late, but this wasn't "cool" or "hip" vintage, this was just strange. he should have been an older man, but i could tell by his soft face still cushioned with baby fat, that he was barely 20. his back pack looked like the shell of a hermit. i half expected him to crawl inside and wait until i had dimmed the lights or stepped into another room before re-emerging.

naturally i found him interesting. it wasn't until he removed his backpack and laid it on the floor, that i began to worry about just how peculiar he might be. he began rummaging in one of the pockets and gave me a quick smile. he was going to shoot me no doubt. i was troubled thinking of how i was going to duck behind the counter. i also didn't want to make any sudden erratic movements just in case i stood a chance of making it out alive. he kept searching and i kept thinking of how exactly i was going to duck and call 911 at the same time. i watched every breath he took and saw him ease something small and black out of his backpack. it was angular and dark. in the wash of the windows and with the light behind him i couldn't quite catch it's true shape. he leveled it at me.

did i see my life flash before my eyes? no. i had some sense that my imagination might just be getting the better of me. but i was fearful nonetheless. i stared hard at him, trying to read his intent. his eyes were not malicious, rather they were youthful and light like a little boy. still i wasn't convinced that he wasn't going to shoot me. he stood not more than ten feet from me. i watched his eyes the entire time. the intent is in the eyes before it reaches any other part of the body. he smiled again. he seemed to like having my undivided attention.

suddenly i heard a click and i blinked. i was still standing. however, had he been holding a gun and had it been loaded and had he truly fired, i would have been dead. this wasn't a story i was writing anymore. it wasn't something i could edit so that the character ducks in time. i was as helpless as all my characters. that would have been my end and no amount of tapping on the key board could have brought me back. everything could have changed, ultimately, absolutely, forever.

this thought still scares me. staring at this young man, i couldn't quite tell if i was real or not real. had i imagined this whole thing? for all my irrational fears, imaginary fears, i knew this was real. and though he didn't actually shoot me, he could have. there was no way i would have been able to stop him.

what, then, was in his hands? after the click and after i released myself from the blink (brink), i spied what he held. it was rectangle that had snapped open revealing a lens. did he take a picture? if so, then he had, in a literal way of speaking, shot me. this was a novel feeling. i was the one being observed and recorded. i was the one whose image had been captured and fixed. how the tables had turned. and it felt close to death.

i walked up to him, hesitantly, but putting on a air of rooughness, like a tough cowboy character that didn't die with the first shot. i didn't want him to see my fear. the closer i got to him, the more nervous he became.

"what do you have there?" i asked and looked closely at what he was holding. binoculars. collapsible binoculars. i laughed. i see, i thought, i see.

"they're just like the ones you have" and he pointed to an identical pair in one of our display cases. he was right. just like the ones we have. but somehow they seem so much safer when they aren't pointed directly at you.

"well, that's the truth isn't it?"

he looked around a little more and i kept a watchful eye on him, asking him questions all the while. how close he had gotten to me. how many details he took in with that motion, that act, those binoculars. he had too much of me and i wanted some back. i plumbed his history. learned of his studies and his career plans. i asked him where he was from and he replied Hilo. i told him he didn't quite fit the bill for someone from Hilo.

"yes, i've always been the strange one in the family"

i smiled at this. "yes, i feel that way about myself sometimes"

his young boy smile revealed itself again. i had no fear of him now. he parted with a little of me and i held a little of him. a fair trade i thought and felt my aching chest where my heart had quit beating for a moment or two.

the stranger

she came to me as if in a dream and the wakefulness of this interaction remains suspect. three days later and i'm finally beginning to distill the memory. the shop hadn't seen a living soul in hours and i passed my time looking harder and harder into space trying to organize the dust particles into some coherent story line. she wheeled in slowly and turned her electric wheel chair towards me. she sat, not unlike a queen at her thrown, presenting herself at a distance for both personal, we were strangers and practical, she could advance no further through the cluttered shop, reasons.

i asked if i could assist with anything, the same tired line i used on anyone who chanced striding into the shop. even the moths felt the insincerity of it and fluttered away in disgust. i was intrigued however by this woman because i could tell immediately from the way in which she charged into the store that she wasn't here to browse. and i was correct. she needed to recharge her wheel chair battery. had it been a cell phone or an MP3 player that she wanted to charge i would have denied her straight away, but a wheelchair? i couldn't deny her. to do so would be akin to going up to someone with a peg leg and round house kicking the support from underneath them. karmic suicide.

i happily obliged her request and made busy finding her an outlet. she fumbled with the cords and chastised herself for not putting them together fast enough, "come on Abby!" i've known such frustrations before, you're hands just can't seem to move precisely or quickly. we finally got the chair plugged in and exchanged names. she told me her name was Willamenia. her pronunciation was exchanged and grandiose. she proclaimed her name as if it were scared and profound (perhaps it is), letting all her breath rush through her pursed lips in one hurried and yet exaggerated moment. the 'W' released long and forcefully while the rest of the name tried desperately to catch up. i told her that i had never heard of such a name which was no comment necessarily on it's uniqueness, rather merely a exclamation of truth. she looked at me as if i were soft in the head. how could i have lived these many years and never heard the name Willamenia? she explained that it came from the south, in Georgia and migrated north, a name like a plant, growing, growing and spreading, spreading.

the geography of "Willamenia" led me to her home in Philadelphia. i commented that i had been to Pittsburgh in the hopes of catching up with her ever gliding prose. she sputtered like a tom cat, Pittsburgh was not a place to brag about. i teased and said that people from Pittsburgh say the same thing about people from Philly and she smiled for the first time. she wondered what had taken me from Hawaii to Pennsylvania? "besides the beautiful city of Pittsburgh?" i joked and then told her about my life as an environmental conservationist/trail builder. her eyes lit up. how very exciting my story seemed to her. i told her of all the places i had been and the trails where i had worked. i could tell that she was unfamiliar with the trails but something about her regal persona would not let her betray her worldliness. i let her keep her facade, i had no interest in teaching or in admissions, i was just enjoying a conversation, a REAL conversation.

i tried to convince her to come to the creative writing group that i was hoping to get off the ground. i asked, "do you like writing?" to which she responded in her very clear and proper english, "but of course. i rather enjoy writing". i was thrilled at her response and my often over indulgent dream self began to imagine the two of us manning (or should i say womanning) a very successful writing group, helping each other toward our artistic goals. i asked "would you be interested in joining a creative writing group?" the guard that she had previously removed immediately bolted back in place, her deep dark brown eyes pressing up against my chest, her jaw tight, the cannons loaded and bayonets sharpened. "no, not at all". by her response you'd think i asked her something quite crude or ridiculous. i tried to downplay the threat saying the group was for anyone interested in writing, there would be no pressure to share, there would be no pressure to even write, just be creative, let yourself go. perhaps it was that last part that made her anxious. i could feel her presence step away from me though her body never moved. i stopped trying to explain and accepted that she just was not comfortable enough with me to make such a commitment.

i thought it odd, and i told her this, that people were so defensive when i asked if they wanted to join a writing group. perhaps because i already consider myself a writer, for me it seems no more harmful than asking someone where they were from. it wasn't like i was trying to sell them anything. i asked Abby why it was so hard to get people to want to join a writing group and she said something very true, "just because i write does not mean i'm a writer". and i thought about this. i used to believe this. i thought that if i were to call myself a writer then i damn well better have a copy of something i published in my back pocket for all those people i suspected would cry wolf on my self proclaimed title. only in recent years have i been able to call myself a writer and be comfortable with this label. i told Abby all this and she listened and agreed to some of the points. she smiled at what i can only imagine to be my youthful naivete and passion for writing. still, she refused to join.

we talked with one another for a long time. the topic sailed from writing to ice cream to family to schooling to life's purpose. i found out that she is one of three children. she went to school and majored in psychology. i asked if she was analyzing me and she replied, "some other day maybe, but not today. i don't feel like it today". her answers were so true and refreshing and yet always a little off center which made them interesting. she referred to psycho-analyzing as something she could turn on or off, do or not do, simply. it was that cut and dry like deciding to go out or not to go out, to dress in purple or in red. i would think such analytical behavior would be ubiquitous and unconscious to a certain degree. but perhaps i was thinking of myself once again.

she also was interested in the zodiac and we had our signs out right away and smiled and reeled in the fact that we were both cusps, her a virgo/libra and me an aries/taurus and she used her gemini moon as an excuse for her ever present indecisiveness.

how strange Abby seemed at yet, how comfortably known. it was as if we had met before, or were somehow apart of one another. she felt like a character i've written and the dialogue moved effortlessly and twisted and turned just as i would have crafted it in a story. we were of a very similar mind that would connect in tiny of points of light. the answers fit the pauses perfectly; we were dancing and had been with one another for years, decades, centuries. this was a dance of the symbolic, the metaphorical, the deeply meaningful. perhaps we caught sight of one another as dreams. perhaps we were not entirely real to one another or not entirely real ourselves. perhaps it was the similarity in our movements through this world, both our grasps on the present tenuous and artistically so. our conversation was art, you see, an unpredictable but expected line here, the quick and bold response, a splash there. our aesthetic senses were the ideal match for one another as we crafted this masterpiece so unexpectedly. this was another language altogether.

our conversation ended when i had to close the shop. a storm had been brewing all day and was on the verge of breaking. i could hear the thunder. Abby moved back into her chair and asked the same question about ice cream. we had spoken quite a bit and for a woman her age, i could not expect her to remember everything (or at least, i wasn't going to be rude and say i had already answered that question). she caught herself though and said she was sick that she was losing her mind. i had seen hints of it when we were talking. certain things she would say were a bit erratic or harsh, but i found it beautiful anyway. i could see she had a sharp mind. perhaps this is what drew me to her. she was still functioning very highly in certain aspects, but others, such as her social awkwardness indicated that something wasn't quite right. "i have MS and there's no cure for that". i felt sorry for her but she wouldn't let my sorrowful face linger too long so she said, "but i don't want to talk about that". i asked if she would stop by again. she asked when i worked next. i told her. she smiled and said she'd be back. she looked down at the plastic bag she had been holding in her lap. "i'll bet my ice cream is melted by now". i looked at her in shock. we had been talking for well over an hour! "you should have told me you had ice cream, i wouldn't have kept you!" "i'll drink it and it will still taste good" she made the motion of drinking the ice cream. i laughed. "what kind is it?" "Cherry Garcia" "good one" i said. "so i'll see you again?" i asked. "probably" she said with a smile. "you know, you really made my day. i am so happy to have met you" i could tell i touched her heart because her eyes softened and the defenses were gone "me too" she replied.

she wheeled out the door hoping to beat the storm. by the time i got the shop closed it was down pouring and thundering. i walked out onto the street and looked up to the skies. the rain fell all over my face and the thunder shook my soul. there was something very significant about meeting Abby. before she had come into the shop, i stood at the desk ready to die of boredom. i remember asking the universe to please give me some kind of sign, some help with this writing project. then Abby appeared before me as if in a dream and thundered boomed above me and rain covered me. what did it mean? what does all this mean?

musings and a view

a patch of light from the setting sun was hitting a koa tree. i looked down a moment and when i returned it was gone. perhaps i'll tell you about a fleeting moment in a fleeting life. but who has time for such meditations? we're all going to lose that patch of light at some point, no sense pushing your little head around, brooding about it. do you ask yourself everyday if you're happy? i suppose if you're asking then you probably aren't-just double checking while i was doubting the rightness of this day-you're not fooling anyone. and my eyes lift further up where the sky is blue and the clouds are lit up from behind and flare out like a muddy pear. another day coming to a close. how many i've catalogued and how many more i have to go?

writing, it seems, is my life and oddly, i feel i'm blindfolded in this life, swinging wildly with metaphors and rambling prose, hoping that one day i will strike the target, get it right and candy will rain from above.

i get lost in skies like these. i haven't watched the clouds in a while. the sky is perfect. this is a painters sky.

understanding the low pulse

i stretch myself in the morning, but it doesn't help, i'm still crumpled and wrinkled from my sleep. my bones seem to stick together these days as if i'm becoming, one, completely and independently solid entity. what happened to fluidity? i try not to worry too much about the slump my crescent backed self is so drearily dipping into. periods of speed and periods of slowness are to be expected. and so i try to embrace it, only i'm too tired for even that.

i examine myself in the mirror. pull my pajamas from my clingy skin and let the air chill me. i put on a bra, an act that tells me in a very direct way, that the day is officially starting and i'm officially going to greet this life. bracing the breasts is an easy way to feel instantly more apart of an organized and neat day. the bra neatly tucks the breasts in place and fluidity is replaced by metal wire support. yes, this is better.

i look at my face. i wish for a moment that i had stubble to shave. nothing seems to strip you of your sloven state like a good shave. a freshly shaved man appears as if he's got it together, has a firm grip on reality and is in total, happy control of his life. it's written on his face. of course, i should be happy that i don't have a beard, seeing that i am a woman. but the physical act of the symbolic representation is what i'm after. lately i've been feeling just a bit unkempt and this bra is only helping a little.

perhaps it's a life choice. indeed it must be. my mornings are the same. get up, make coffee and write. after the coffee is done, continue writing, breaks for tea and bathroom use only. sometimes i don't brush my teeth until the afternoon. and here's the thing, with the exception of my dental hygiene, i like my habits and my routines. at least, until this morning. it's as if i split myself among different worlds. there's my waking life, the life that supports my other lives. it goes out and it works, it socializes when it can and it takes notes, makes observations and gains experiences. then there's my dream self, sleeping away and running rampant with illogical scenes and uncontrolled emotions. it's a beautifully free self...sometimes. finally there's the writer self that takes the observations of the waking self and the freedom and imagination of the dream self and spins them into these pieces of art that give me happiness.

the danger in all this is, of course, that sometimes the dream self and the writer self overwhelm the waking self. suddenly i feel sluggish, like i have stubble covering my face from where i've neglected my appearances to the outside world. my introspection is perhaps pulling me too far from the outside world and while this can be a good thing, too much can be negative.

and so, what do i do? well, since this feeling has only come about within the last two days, i'll give myself time to come out of it. i know that my other selves have been neglected before and that things end up coming back into place eventually. and so, i will enjoy this day off from work and this quiet and paddle through the magical waters of my dreams.

re-reading the freewrite

well these are your bones anyway. yours to scrutinize, yours to hold, yours to know over and over again. that's why you write, to remember yourself, although you didn't know that at the time. no, at the time you wrote because it was the only thing that made you feel a little better than aweful, it was the only way to release all the secrets you couldn't keep down. but now that you're past all that, now that you're new or perhaps, just a better version of the old you, because you've changed these pages take on a whole different meaning. these are your bones, hard pieces that seem to glow in the dark, they are that white. these are your bones, tablets like the beads of an abacus, calculating your years. is it trying to look upon them, these pages of freewrite? do these bones haunt you? good. then what you wrote did it's job and what you wrote is meaningful.

on mary oliver's wild geese

there are naked women in the trees. of course, this is just what i see when i look out the window and think of your wild geese. i've been watching them every evening as the sun sets and when i say "there are naked women in the trees" i feel i've come close to your meaning. that is, i've been transported, taken inside and i fell in love with a poem. yes, a poem. and when something shakes me back here, to this life, all i'm left with is this lingering line, "there are naked women in the trees", the only photo i was able to snap during my indescribable journey. and there it is. is it enough to make a poem? is it enough to move others as your poem has moved me? perhaps, no. there must be more. i must dig, i must excavate, i must bring it to the surface.

(what if i told you that i wanted to tattoo your poem on my body? would that be my right or yours? your poem, your right. my body, my right. the artist in me balks, throwing it's delicate little fists about in my brain, "how could you? how could you put an other's words on your body?!" but they are such beautiful words and they are perfection. i see no other way around it. the lines are fine paintings that i want forever, i want to carry with me everywhere. yet, i know the artist is right. wait. even if it means that you're old and wrinkled and the idea of a tattoo is no longer a viable "hotness" addition. at least the words won't stretch and blur then. you've done all your growing and shrinking by that point. wait until your words are perfect, wait until you've reached the place were you want to carry around your own work on your skin, wait for your poem on your body. nail it on your coffin. however this still does not explain the naked women...)

the naked women in the trees are reciting your poem. they are fleshy but unreal. i think they belong to Rembrandt. one twists her long, rich, brown curls in the foreground. the glassy waves of her hair translate to the tree, a eucalyptus, as dark as her locks, yet elegantly pale as her freshly churned skin. her face is sad but this makes her beautiful. and she says, "tell me about despair, yours, and i will tell you mine". but what's the use? this whole scene is a pantomime, a grand spectacle that fains true depth, but is, in reality, a series of cut-outs and obsessions. when i close my eyes, this is what i see. nothing but an overactive imagination and a mis-firing of reality. i love it still. this image. i let my head push up against the tree and inhale her scent. she will listen because she is kind, because she is good, because in your poem you've awaken her within me. we don't exchange words, but i lean against that tree a long time, long enough for this cursor to stop beating and long enough for me to let it all go, every, last, sharp, bruising, breath taking despair. and i let the "soft animal of [my] body, love what it loves".

they are like acrobats, the way they sway so easy in the trees, like wisps of grace, their bodies cradled by golden ribbons. it is difficult to distinguish them from the limbs of the trees they move so much as one. all these beautiful women in trees, the "world [offering] itself to [my] imagination", that is poetry, that is moving.

tea

something about the day was heavy and sluggish. my yoke is rubbing me raw. i even sleep with it on now, sores under my hide, hiding. it's no use. i woke wrong. i was in the throws of some other world, bounding through my subconscious and then, plucked before i was ripe and eaten by this new world. yes, it's friday and yes, i expected this, the work, the 6:30 am alarm, but expectation does not always match the result. i had landed on the wrong foot. so, what? deal with it.

so i went to work. things were slow. tensions were high. you didn't need to be a psychic to read the signs. i don't like unstable environments. so, what? deal with it. i returned the promise i had made to a school teacher. it wasn't working for me, i'm sorry. don't bother with in store credit, i don't want anything here. and forget the refund. don't need it anyhow.

back home, the stone bled. a strange place to be lapping up what was owed. and by now, i'm really quite exhausted. then a letter and a bag of tea. kava stress relief. how did you know? how very synchronous! i stare amazed, the ravages of the day's troubles breaking out into chilly air like steam. i steep the tea, sit and sip away the struggle. the tag reads "always be pure, simple and honest". i smile and exhale.

somewhere between the drum circle and the waltz

i am living so close to writing now that it is as essential and instinctual as breathing. what spurs me to continue writing day in and day out? i haven't published anything and the thought of publishing seems so far away and exotic, like a great destination whose plane ticket i'll never be able to afford. my life is no great adventure, not a cinematic one at least, i work part time for minimium wage at a dive shop and at a book store (which really doesn't have too many books...in fact, a book worm like myself can't help but feel a bit naked in there). so why? why wake every morning to scrawl out to-do lists and thoughts half drowned from when you turned over the oceans of your dream life for your waking life? because i must. something drives me, a red bull maybe, pushing further and further to the corners of my perceptions. i want to reach the abyss. i want to see everything that cannot be imagined. then, perhaps, i'd die happy.

but perhaps it's premature to think about death seeing that this is the month of january and unlike any other month, january sparkles and shines with more newness and the gravity of a second chance than any other time of year and thus death, should be the furtherest topic discussed at such a time. excuse me for being so inconsiderate.

the sun has flipped, so the west owns it now. it beats into my eyes. how clear is the setting sun? i pull a thin piece of frabic over its stare. i'm getting a headache, too much light in the mind at one time sends the walls stretching for new territories, but it won't get any bigger than this, physically at least, the skull at least.

these entries are like dancing. i keep telling myself to get focused, to be disciplined. learn a step, do a turn, keep it tight, the perfect timing from beginning to end. then curtsy. ah! the instructed dance, the precise movements, the complete choreography or something linear and refined and elegant. the waltz. the story is the waltz. beautiful, measured, exact. but i am a free dancing, hip swaying, arms raised, feet jumping rebel. to spin out in a free write. to know the rhythm of the song, but to do which ever movement your body wants, feels, is bliss. there is no narrative besides wild, wild, wild, unbridled flow of words. the free write is the drum circle.

as any artist knows, the two must work together. the waltz is too static and predictable and drum circle, too eratic and combustible. there must be a balance. the flare and fire of the unbridled free flow and the perfected composition of the narrative structure.

funny thing about me is that i can write forever on how to write, but when am i going to get to it? this is the essay. much needed in it's own right. the essay makes sense of the feelings. too much feeling and not enough sense is unbalanced. and so, even this freewrite/essay is valuable. it has general course but nothing specific enough to let it step outside the realm of journaling and musing. but it's all writing. and that's something?