colors passing through us.

Purple as tulips in May, mauve

into lush velvet, purple

as the stain blackberries leave

on the lips, on the hands,

the purple of ripe grapes

sunlit and warm as flesh.

Every day I will give you a color,

like a new flower in a bud vase

on your desk. Every day

I will paint you, as women

color each other with henna

on hands and on feet.

Red as henna, as cinnamon,

as coals after the fire is banked,

the cardinal in the feeder,

the roses tumbling on the arbor

their weight bending the wood

the red of the syrup I make from petals.

Orange as the perfumed fruit

hanging their globes on the glossy tree,

orange as pumpkins in the field,

orange as butterflyweed and the monarchs

who come to eat it, orange as my

cat running lithe through the high grass.

Yellow as a goat’s wise and wicked eyes,

yellow as a hill of daffodils,

yellow as dandelions by the highway,

yellow as butter and egg yolks,

yellow as a school bus stopping you,

yellow as a slicker in a downpour.

Here is my bouquet, here is a sing

song of all the things you make

me think of, here is oblique

praise for the height and depth

of you and the width too.

Here is my box of new crayons at your feet.

Green as mint jelly, green

as a frog on a lily pad twanging,

the green of cos lettuce upright

about to bolt into opulent towers,

green as Grand Chartreuse in a clear

glass, green as wine bottles.

Blue as cornflowers, delphiniums,

bachelors’ buttons. Blue as Roquefort,

blue as Saga. Blue as still water.

Blue as the eyes of a Siamese cat.

Blue as shadows on new snow, as a spring

azure sipping from a puddle on the blacktop.

Cobalt as the midnight sky

when day has gone without a trace

and we lie in each other’s arms

eyes shut and fingers open

and all the colors of the world

pass through our bodies like strings of fire.

-Marge Piercy

pink and blue.

A day at the shopping mall looking for baby shower decorations reminds me that I do, in fact, hate shopping malls. Just in case I had forgotten somehow.

empty glasses of water.

I just spent the last five hours at a party for my best friend, Sam. Sitting there in the sunlight, I acknowledge we are growing older. But we are still so much the same. Too much the same. We're dating different people and our hair is combed differently, but we're all moving in circles. I don't know what it is about this place, but I feel two things in realizing the static lives of its inhabitants. One, I feel upset that I am stuck in the middle and that nothing has changed much for me either. And then, two, I feel incredibly hopeful and happy that I am able to see outside of this world and enter into a new one in about two short months.

That is all I have to offer for now.

i love my belly, and i think yours is beautiful too.

Inside the last issue of Glamour (page 194 to be exact), they nonchalantly included this image:

There isn't too much I want to say about this image that hasn't been said here, but I really think this shows that American media is headed in a more positive direction in terms of the representation of the female body to female readers (this is merely one small step, of course, but it's something). Basically, it's a way of saying "Fuck you for telling me I'm not perfect. Go blow yourself." And I really admire that bluntness.

thank you for convincing me.

The days and activities of this weekend in Los Angeles/San Diego have blended into a mess of colors. Blue occupies most of the scenes. The sky turning from blue to gray along the hiking trail. The ocean and the waves as I tried to surf for the very first time or as I got yet another sunburn. The lights flickering over the audience at the Flaming Lips show.

Even through the darkness, I could see the blue in the comforter, the pink in the pillows, the dark of your arms against the lightness of my own.

And then our faces go from smiles to serious and we let go again and I'm okay this time and along the edge of the sidewalk, all I am is thankful that you are alive.

As I think of my time away, the pavement rushes past me in long stretches of infinite gray, yellow lines blurring into each other, into the ground, into the dirt. I try to recall each individual day, but I only see colors. When I sleep tonight and the world goes all black for a few hours, I'm sure you'll come back to me more vividly and, if I'm lucky, I'll feel your arms instead of merely associating them with caramel and chocolate wafers. Yes, that would be nice. Though I like the simple delicacy of the latter as well.

my dream was of you.

Beyond the ridge to the left, you asked me what I want
Between the trees and cicadas singing around the pond
"I spent an hour with you, should I want anything else?"

One grinning wink like the neon on a liquor store
We were sixteen, maybe less, maybe a little more
I walked home smiling, I finally had a story to tell

And though an autumn time lullaby
Sang our newborn love to sleep
My brother told me he saw you there
In the woods one Christmas Eve, waiting

I met my wife at a party, when I drank too much
My son is married and tells me we don't talk enough
Call it predictable, yesterday my dream was of you

Beyond the ridge to the west, the sun had left the sky
Between the trees and the pond, you put your hand in mine
Said, "Time has bridled us both, but I remember you too"

And though an autumn time lullaby
Sang our newborn love to sleep
I dreamt I traveled and found you there
In the woods one Christmas Eve, waiting

-Iron & Wine, "Sixteen, Maybe Less"

giving away my small possessions.

In Berkeley, people like to leave things on the street for their neighbors to pick up. They put out a jacket or a blanket or an old cookbook and they prop a neat "FREE" sign on top of it. When I walk to work in the morning, I see these kinds of mini monuments in front of at least one house per block. By the time I walk back at 5:30, all of the objects are gone. Sometimes a sign remains, but usually it is in a recycling bin near the driveway. There is something beautiful in this reciprocity between strangers. It amazes me every day to see all of the things that are left out on the street. To me, it is a gesture of openness and a testament to how much emotional and physical garbage you can rid yourself of if you only share your love, your memories, and all the rest of your broken and not-so-broken crap with others. In that way, things are circular. They may not make sense in your lifetime, but certainly someone else can make sense of them.

I bought a ticket to New Zealand last night. I bought a ticket out of here. It is time for me to clean up some of my messes and make clean, sharp breaks with my past. Pieces of it come back to haunt me in dreams on Saturday mornings and in old photographs left in their dusty frames on my desk. These things have remained 4 years too many. I have thought of putting my personal objects on the street too (or at least some sort of a metaphorical street). I think sometimes that's all you can really do to rid yourself of all the baggage you carry. I'm ready to be weightless, floating in still water, or maybe even carried through the ocean with dolphins swimming alongside me. If I believed prayer had ever made a difference in my life, I'd say a prayer for my future home.

on an island in the middle of the sea.

In an effort to prepare for my one-way departure to New Zealand, I checked out three pieces of travel literature from the library today. As I read them, the excitement pumps through my veins and my hands start to shake a little against the pages. I am leaving everything for nothing, and nothing is the thing from which you build something again, until that something finally becomes an everything. Then you leave all of that behind and start from scratch - an empty piece of paper, a blinking cursor, a post-it note to-do list of nothing to do at all.

These narratives are both liberating and frightening to me, and I try to breathe through them the same way you breathe through the pain of ripping off a sticky bandage on your arm. My home has become redundant to me. I feel like I'm living the best years of my life over in rewind and everything is out of order and with each passing second I only get more and more naive, more scared, more little (this is especially angering to me since I have worked years to get to my diminutive height of 5'3"). So I'm siding with the books on this one, and I hope they inform me and give me strength and maybe even offer me new ways of writing my own narrative as Marie and I set off to discover the fiordland.