fool for you

Wow. Those winds are so strong today that while driving along the harbor, waves crashed over my windshield. I saw the waves on Lyall bay and had to drive down to the beach for a closer look. When I parked, my car was rocking from the gusts. I got out and ran to the beach, positioning myself between a couple buildings, but not soon enough to avoid having high speed sand pelted into my ears and teeth and eyes and hair.

I watched a kite surfer fly up onto a wave and then do what possibly was an accidental 360 somersault which left him crashed momentarily in the agitated sea. Exciting. But cold. It feels like something near freezing with all the wind, so I didn't stay long to watch and ran back for my car, exhilarated. Wellington is like my abusive husband, cruel and merciless, but shining like no other on good days. So I stay. Today, he is in the mood for spanking. And we all know how that can be ;)

Last night I dreamt of ChaSka. She swam underwater like a fish, diving about effortlessly. I also discovered that upon returning home, there had been an upswing in poultry fertility and I had a hundred or so young chickens and ducks of various ages. There were also puppies. I was quite happy with the abundance and spent some time working out how to sort through the keepers and those who would be sold for profit.

If only this meant that something I left unattended was about to bring me serious rewards and the most pressing thing to be done was sorting through the abundance.

What would the cosmic clowns do with their gifts if they weren't so torn between the need to be approved of and their need to defy the need for approval?

entangled

Last night I dreamt of my sweet Persephone. I was with her and her current caretaker was lamenting to me that she was spayed because they would have liked a pup of hers. I explained my very rational reasons, all about protecting her. But, there was regret about it as well.

I hugged her neck and it was glorious.

Today the city is sunny. And I am too still for my liking. I am in waiting. I am beyond ready for doing some pouncing. My serious and my patience muscles are over used at the moment.

While this present experience has been real enlightening and loads of laughs, I'm almost certain I'm due for a change. NEXT!

mom and dad live on an old reservation

along a river named after a fire making stone

but all it is now is poison.

reserved portions for waiting

as in purgatory

for the time when hell becomes heaven

or heaven becomes hell

or when none of us know the difference.

i fed upon the bones of my mother's mother's mother

and was forced to feed from father's father's father.

although,

who can tell on this day who sinned greatest?

feather in my braid and bare footed i planted myself

among the trees

conjuring up an imaginary history i thought was

written on my mother's cheeks.

and for a moment

bareback on a white mare with a white wolf alongside

on my 40 acre reservation

was a sufficient freedom.

if heaven was the leaves and hell was the wind

when the autumn came they became

inevitably

one and the other

so the pleasure of touching heaven

brought about it's burial and it's rot.

if life and death are definite

then the river is dead

the indian nations are dead

as long as there's a 'tick tick' followed by that BUMP

It's the unexpected that delights. Or maybe the hidden. The surreptitious, unforeseen truth of the self rubbed against circumstance and reality.

A girl knows she wouldn't miss the arrogant Dually drivers with gun racks in the back. Because you can't miss them. Obvious is the whole intent. It's just the same with the religious right and the ubiquitous insular mind set.

The land of the too much and the home of the scared.

You know what it is that I do miss? I miss African American culture. It has weaved itself so profoundly that I wasn't even able to distinguish that it is indistinguishable. It is the bedrock of my country. It is the womb from which we were all nourished but cannot remember. We talk about and think about the founding white fathers and the battles of this and that. And then as an addendum, slavery and it's end, and civil rights and Rosa Parks and George Washington Carver. But, I could never see up close so accurately what is obvious from a far vantage point.

The wealthy white men who created the power structure and the less wealthy whites who were settlers did not make America what is so uniquely America. It was the people who were brought against their will to this new continent who grew the crops and harvested the crops and dug the canals and built the tracks and not only survived intolerable cruelty, but then gave their new land a gift even greater than it's physical structure and economic wealth. They gave it music and movement and poetry and language. They made it. They fashioned my country into something that can be missed. The country they created is the one I am proud of, the one that swells my heart when I think of it.

When BBC broadcasted a program on American history and politics, ending with the inauguration of Obama, I was crying.

Yes, that's my country. When they interviewed the daughter of a civil rights activist and she sang "This Little Light of Mine" with the kind of common and exquisite quality heard on sunday mornings all over the nation, I felt enraptured. That's my country.

It is easy to feel at home here. Take away left side driving and mushy voweled accents and things feel comfortably similar. But, there is a gap that fuzzy flightless birds and jaw-dropping scenery cannot fill.

And, I'm glad for it.

So, if I ask you to accompany me to a church in Saginaw on a Sunday morning, you'll know I'm paying homage. To the soul of our home.

Winter in Wellington.....it's rainy today, and warm. There are blooming things, and the garden remains green. I planted rainbow chard a few days ago and it's doing well.

I have coffee and malt-o-meal, thanks to a care package from Michigan. I have new clothes thanks to a fabulous resale shop, and a bed thanks to TradeMe.

With all this abundance, it's easy to feel optimistic.

That's the view from paradise.

My new job starts next week, and added to the one I already have, I hope to be able to pay the bills and feed myself.

Mostly now, the thing that is circling my thoughts is Seffie. I think of her in the backseat as I drive. I remember her silly poses and her talking to me. I can hardly bear the thought of hugging her neck while being so far away from the possibility. I want her here with me as clearly as anything can be clear. I don't feel trapped with dread and sorrow any longer when I think of her....I have sorted things enough to be able to see clearly in her direction. It's all about the seeing. And then there is the doing.

I've worked out traveling with my dogs all over the country, moving them to college with me, and to apartments in the city. I have been homeless with them and dealt with litters of pups in strangers' houses.

The inescapable truth for all my years so far, is that I need them around. So, this is the next project.

Big kisses darlings