« March 2004 | Main | May 2004 »
April 28, 2004
How I know it's time for a long vacation, #1
Subtitled: It's final's week next week and I'm working overtime!?
I know it's time for a long vacation when I start having my sandwich fantasies again. These fantasies consist of me in a bed. The most wondrous bed I can imagine; a giant bed with fluffy clean sheets and blankets that never wrinkle and never get dirty. There are dozens of pillows in every shape and size, in every firmness, that will fit every nook and divot my body might have, from my head to my little toe.
In my wonderful bed I lay in between two wonderful gorgeous, sexy, amazing, intelligent, sensitive, romantic, compassionate, talented, healthy men that have impeccable hygiene and that appreciate a woman of experience, wisdom, substance, decreased muscle tone, and exhaustion such as myself. They are the bread and I am the filling. (NOTE: Identities of men change at my whim.)
However, in this bed there is no foreplay. There is no mad, passionate sex. There is no swinging from the ceiling. There are no randy pillow fights. There is no ménage. There is no trois. There is no moaning. There is no groaning. There is only soft...gentle...snoring. For in this bed I am sleeping, yes sleeping deeply - as if cursed (or was that blessed?). In fact, I have been sleeping for many, many hours.
Are the men sleeping deeply? Do they stir? Do they toss fitfully, somehow disturbed by my stillness? Do they waken and gaze upon my form in loving wonder? Do they wish I would awaken so they could take turns ravishing me? Do they anxiously await my rising to query my thoughts on the Three Pillars of Zen? Do they want to poke me in the ribs so I will leap lightly out of my wonderful bed and make them breakfast?? Are they out of clean underwear? Perhaps. I will never know because, in my sandwich fantasies they are not allowed to wake me, AND I do not have to wake up either. In fact, it is their job to guard me against all wakers, whomever or whatever they may be. For these men worship me sleeping in my wonderous bed of pillows and clean sheets. They honor and praise the height and depth and stillness of it all. They feel blessed just to be able to lie next to me as I snuffle and snuggle down in between them. They are content to be my buffers against all who would disturb me. For I am their Goddess of Sleep. My renewal is their joy.
Uh huh. Yeah. Whatever.
Right now I could just close my eyes and feel myself snuggled down in a perfect burrow of cotton, down, pillows and warm, clean flesh. I just want to go to sleep. I am so very, very tired. Sigh.
Posted by swift at 12:37 AM
April 24, 2004
The Damn Noise!!
It just keeps going, and going. All morning. For Lewis' sake. The war is constantly on my mind and I'm tired of hearing what everyone has to say about it. Papa George W. The Left. The Right. The Middle. The News. The Pundits. The Celebrities. The people at work. The Man-on-the-street. Will everyone just SHUT UP!? PLEASE?? I just want to think what I think. I just want to feel what I feel. I want my experience without the pressure. I just want it to stop.
AND...AND...AND..I just want the reign of blood and oil and terror and tribes and religion diamonds and evil to stop, Where-everitis, whatever the reason. It just needs to stop. I don't care why it/they started. What difference does it make? WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE? WHATWHATWHATWHAT?????? My heart wants to explode out of my chest. I want to walk across the mountains and the ocean and the desert and twist the metal in my hands and scream into their ridiculous faces, All of them. You stupid vainglorious testicleheaded idiots. "WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?????" You are corn meal and blood. You are nothing but a cycle of endless pain and stink. On and on and on and on. You and your sweet innocent children after you. Sweet and innocent children until you take them and contort their brains down into their filthy intestines and their stinking guts up into their pristine heads until they think nothing but bloody foul shit. All of you. I don't care what your nationality, color, religion or creed is. You have taken your babies and fouled them. Shame upon you. Shame. I want to pull the grieving mothers and widows, the screaming children and babies into a big bombed out basement somewhere, pull a big blanket over our heads, and just say, "shaah shaah, it's all going to be ok now." But it never will, will it? Will it?
And what do we do my little patriotic Americanos? Hell, I don't even know. I can't even begin to comment on us because I don't understand us. I've never felt a part of us. Never been much of a Puritan though I have an ancestor on the Mayflower. (very scary.) I don't understand conservatives or Republicans. I don't understand lefties or Democrats. I don't even understand the middle anymore. I never have understood white people, even though I be one. I know I'll be very interested to find out the truth of why my friends are/have been sacrificing their children and spouses and siblings, because I'll be damned if the government is really doing it for "patriotism". I know my friends and their families are doing it for that reason. The government is not. The rich and powerful men and woman in the suits who drive around with tinted windows know nothing of bleeding and dieing.
The powerful in government don't remember that they are only blood and cornmeal. They don't remember that one day they will open their eyes and not be able to move. They will have a tube in every orifice of their body, and then some. They won't be able to move because every limb will be tied down. All the power. All the money. All tinted windows. All the armies. All the democracies. All that won't matter anymore. Then it comes back down to bloody foul shit. Endless pain and stink. And when they die, maybe their family cares and maybe they don't, but I'll be there at their bedside and I'll care because I have never forgotten that we're all blood and cornmeal. (OK, that was a very strange aside. hmmmm)
I found a book I thought I wanted to see, "Just Another War." It had war pictures in Iraq by a photographer named Kenneth Jarecke. He's always out there taking the pics that "the man" doesn't want us to see. (Who is "the man" anyway??) So, of course, I wanted to see them. Upon further research I found his pictures of Iraq are accompanied by poems and musings (?) (and doodles??) by some woman (Exene Cervenka) who is supposed to be somebody in the punk rock/esoteric/artsy/deepthought world. Yeah well whatever. Aaaaargh. Noise, noise, noise, noise, more damn noise. Here is something so personal to me that I can barely breath to think about it. War is something I've thought about constantly since I was a young child. The first poem I ever wrote was about war. I was 9. Most of the pictures I see are filtered by the government to be patriotic in some form or another. I wanted to see Jarecke's pictures. I wanted to absorb them. I wanted to feel them without anyone else’s noise. Without anyone else's punk ass doodle's. Who in the hell are these people that have to scream and slather themselves all over everyone else's space. Why can't I get these pictures sans doodles? Huh?????? I guess I need to spend more time on disgusting.com or something and sort through the crap. Lovely.
Posted by swift at 12:01 PM | Comments (2)
Beyond The Middle
Uhh. Hello? Just like to announce that I'm somewhere out here in the middle of my life, just treading water. I'm not going any further up the mountain. I'm not climbing any further up the ladder. Don't want to get any stronger. Don't want to get any smarter. Don't want to get any richer. Don't want to be any more powerful. Don't want fewer wrinkles. Don't want to bulk up. Don't want to tighten up. Don't want to get lifted. Don't want to get tucked. Don't want a new SUV with GPS, DVD and a HEMI. Don't want anything else shiny or sparkly that goes bling bling, or schwing baby.
You know what I really don't want any more of? I don't want to hear the constant noise of this society anymore. Constant, endless, morning to night to morning to night noise. Too much noise. Too much news. Too much information. Too much stuff. Too many choices. Too much crap. Too much foo. Too much plain old fubar. Too much much. I would like to have some quiet without having to withdraw deep into my own brain. Why can't I have quiet outside my brain??
Posted by swift at 5:29 AM
April 17, 2004
SWIFT! Going Postal?
This was me...teenage cynic or teenager about to go postal, you pick. Ouch!
Cynical Poem #1
You'll have to show me the right steps.
I've never danced with a hero before.
Cynical Poem #2
I've been drifting too long
On the sea of opinion
Can't seem to find a thought
of my own.
(Seem to have had a problem with the media back then too.)
Cynical Poem #3
I'll love you forever
But dammit,
Don't track mud
On the carpet.
Cynical Poem #4
You' ve gained their love
Making the grade,
But when alone
You find that you've made nothing,
And it eats you
Until you're a smiling hollow.
Cynical Poem #5
I revel in your ugliness
Carefully cataloging each indescretion
Hoping that somehow
Your evil will become
My salvation.
Cynical Poem #6
You've taken the last brick
And thrown it on the rubble
That was once my sanity.
Cynical Poem #7
Your smile slaps my face
Like bright sunshine
On a hangover morning.
Posted by swift at 3:49 PM | Comments (1)
April 16, 2004
Vision - 1983?
Vision
Light
When seen
Is a fragile thing
Yet we take it
And twist it and tear it
Unil it fits our vision.
Better to leave it free
And expand our sight.
Posted by swift at 3:32 PM
April 15, 2004
Four Seasons - 1983'ish
Autumn-
There is something choice and beautiful about death. Not because the leaves give their last shout in scarlet and gold. Not because it demands faith and courage, but beause it wrenches from us our most guarded composure. It forces us to be human again - to cry, to feel, to scrape the bottom of our soul's emotion. Death is the opposite of much that we hold sacred, much that we have erected to worship.
Winter-
I've passed through this canyon hundreds of time but this time I've stopped because the landscpe that I've know so well has dressed itself in snow and become another person. The face of the mountain is new and it calls to me and questions me. Why do I live under the belief that I must always wear the same face? It is not necessary to change the base, for the mountain underneath is still the same, but the surface should be changing, reflecting, and learning.
Spring-
As I rode, the hazy green mixed with old buildings and I felt joy. Not because there were masses of beauty out there but because I suddenly realized that I was alive and my soul wanted to open up and soak up the essence of the life that I saw. There was an old man with a crummy old cowboy hat and his shirt half tucked being followed by a mongrel dog. I wanted to reach out as we sped by and touch his arm and look into his eyes and say, "See me - I'm alive too."
Summer -
Well, the time frisbees and outdoor mania has returned and I'm not sure how excited I am. I miss the winter, the starkness of the season. I feel no need to burst out of the house like a butterfly from its cocoon. I am content to sit on the porch late into the evening and talk with friends about nothing much and feel the warmth of the concrete steps sink into my body.
Posted by swift at 3:26 PM
April 14, 2004
Hmmmm. Thank goodness for Stevie Nicks.
Well. Seems that much of my poetry would have made really, really bad horrible terrible not very good sappy rock love ballads. Oh my goodness. How embarrassing. WOW! Wonder what the stuff I shredded and burned was like. I think I was in love with Dan Fogelberg or something. I hope he didn't have to take out a restraining order or anything. Poor man.
Posted by swift at 4:05 PM
Once I was...
Once I was a sweet young woman. I was pure and good and hopeful. I was tender and compassionate and gifted. I had so much faith in life. I remember my chest feeling so infinite inside. That's the only way I can describe it. I felt that if I could have started pulling out the hope, compassion and love that I had down there in that infinite well I could have salved the world. I thought I was just one big old tube of Neosporin, baby. It's nice to see a little of my ligt in hindsight.
That light must have been shining straight up because, at the same time I felt surrounded by so much cold and dark. However, this is not the time for musing about my past confused wanderings. I've found things I wrote from 20-30 years ago. A sweet find. I shredded and burned so much of it in disgust. So, in my little Cedar Chest I will try to record a few things from the far past. I'm not saying it's any good. I'm just saying it brings back tender little memories and brings a few tears. You know, bad teenage poetry and naive musings. That kind of stuff. Ahh, youth.
Posted by swift at 2:40 PM
April 9, 2004
Just Plain Numb
My mother went home today. She had been staying with us since the middle of January. She had neck surgery in January. Laid in bed, ate, and watched TV for six weeks. Got up to go home and threw a clot that should have killed her. Instead it lodged itself in her heart. She had open-heart surgery (heart/lung bypass) and spent another month getting over that.
I can't even begin to sort out the feelings, the frustrations, or the revelations that the last three months have dumped on me. Since I refuse to ever go to a therapist again it will probably take me years to understand what I felt and realized -- if ever.
The most glaring realization is how emotionally detached/insulated I am. I don't even know if that's the right description. When I was younger I felt like a tiny person inside a large robot. I felt detached from my own body; inside but not integrated. Over the years I've become more integrated but I am still very insulated. I feel things. I get angry (especially). I have tender moments. I get offended. I even have a little joy occasionally, but there is still this overriding feeling of insulation.
The detachment and insulation have their good points. I'm able to work in the ICU without losing my mind. They keep me protected, girded, prepared for the inevitable slap on the back of the head.
When I took my mother to the ER and things cascaded into the open-heart surgery, I tightened up more than I ever remember. I became completely numb and compassionless. I became the little girl who was under assault and had to disassociate. Most people who know me think I am the nicest, most loving and compassionate person on the planet. How do I jive that with the person at my mother's side? The person who would have been able to flip the switch on her respirator and felt the better for it. I do not (DO NOT!!!)
understand myself...and...I want to. How can I love her and also wish that she would just wander out into the desert to die?
Five or six years ago a friend of mine had me take the MMPI. I don't remember all the specific results, but he was suprised at my high score in the psychopathic part. That has always stuck with me and made me wonder even more about myself. It would be easy to use that superficial review to convince myself that I'm a big water balloon of insanity just waiting to burst. Now I'm thinking that that score may also mean that I think for myself and am willing to step outside the mores and challenge authority. Yeah. I like that a lot better than being on the verge of walking into McDonald's naked and shooting people. Much better.
Posted by swift at 6:16 AM
April 6, 2004
Too Much Soul
My peace boy has a soul too huge for his eight year old body. What do I say to my child who is upset both because he is being bullied and because the bully is in trouble for bullying him? Peace boy just wants, well, peace. He wants everyone to play nicely. He wants all the third graders to treat each other with respect. He wants the boys to stop chasing the girls and the girls to stop chasing the boys. He wants everyone to get along. "Why is that so hard Mom?" How do I answer that? "Because that's just the way things are." That is just so completely and totally lame.
He and I were sitting on the couch tonight watching the news. The story was somthing or other about a foiled terrorist plot in London that had to do with spreading toxic industrial chemicals amongst the innocent (?) public. I shook my head and said, "What is wrong with people?" He shook his head and said, "I know what you mean." Sadly, I think he already does.
Almost constanly throughout my life I've wondered why I am the way I am. Why I had such an old soul at such a young age. Why there has always been so much struggle in me, so much ache, so much stumbling, so much confusion, so much darkness, so much work to get to this degree of normalcy and strength. I have asked myself many times in the last few years, "What in the hell is the freaking point?????"
Is peace boy the point? Because if he is, then that would be so perfectly beautiful. If somehow I could just hang on to this normal, get a little stronger, a littler more sane. If somehow I could aid him in his struggle, soothe his ache, help him when he stumbles, provide some focus in his confusion, light a candle in the darkness. If I can do those things for him then maybe he'll have the energy and peace of mind to take his oversized soul and let it loose. Maybe peace boy will be able to figure out how to help the boys quit chasing the girls. Maybe peace boy will figure out how to get what he wants. He just wants everyone to get along.
Posted by swift at 2:00 AM
April 3, 2004
Fruit and Cheese
Good to be here with Tiny Pineapple. Closer to Le Monde de Kate du Fromage and Dantrums and my new (yet unmet) friend Sir Grettir of the Pineapples. Here I can be me. Strange and stupid, large and wonderous, small and fuzzy brained, brilliant and cruel, and so on and so on. Thanks to Kate for steering me here. Thanks to Grettir for making space. Thanks to Dan for hating plastic storage containers.
Posted by swift at 4:38 AM