The First Visit. With PCP. (Part 1)

Her hair looked like this, sort of. But, oh, so much better. My first visit to this office, and the eyes, as they do, scan the room, its occupants, and then lock in on the hair. “How smart and understanding nature is, always leading us to the most beautiful!” (P. Highsmith)

I’m sitting on the examination table. Anxious. The paper, Crepe I think they call it, so very thin, so very smooth as the hand glides over its surface, crinkles as I shift. For protection, I’m sure, from bacteria of others. I lift my hands from the unprotected edges of the table, and put them in my lap.

I wait.

There’s a double tap on the door, and Hair walks in.

She’s masked. I’m masked. Breath flows up my mask, fogs up my glasses. Is that claustrophobia or vertigo? My head spins. I remove my glasses. Get a grip Man.

Locs? Dreadlocks? Dreads?  Come to think of it, I’ve never been this close to Hair like this.

“Sir? Are you OK?”

“I’m sorry. My mind drifted for a moment.” Please God, tell me that I didn’t try to touch her Hair. Continue reading “The First Visit. With PCP. (Part 1)”

Hi Ho, Hi Ho. Off to Work We Go.

May you hear in your own stories
the moan of wind around the corners
of half-forgotten houses
and the silence in rooms you remember…

May you study your craft as you would study
a new friend or a long time, much loved lover.
And all the while, lost though you may be in the forest,
drop your own words on the path like pebbles
and write your way home.

– Pat Schneider, from “Blessing for a Writer” in “How the Light Gets In: Writing as a Spiritual Practice” 


Source: Thank you Whiskey River. Photo: Anka Zhuravleva.  Inspired: “This is what poetry is: not a kind of public posturing but a private language of music and imagery that is strange and compelling enough that it can speak privately to thousands of people at the same time.” ~ Ilya Kaminsky, from “Still Dancing: An Interview With Ilya Kaminsky” by Garth Greenwell, March/April 2019 (Feb 13, 2019)

Lightly Child, Lightly

There’s a lightness in things.

Only we people move forever burdened,

pressing ourselves onto everything, obsessed by weight.

How strange and devouring our ways must seem

to those for whom life is enough.

— Rainer Maria Rilke, “Part Two XIV,” from Sonnets to Orpheus


Notes:

  • Photo: Elif Sanem Karakoç
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”

The wind lifted me…like wings.


Notes:

  • Photo: A woman’s red tress blow in the air on a windy day in San Sebastian, in the Basque Country of northern Spain.  (wsj.com: Juan Herrero/EPA-EFE, Feb 1, 2019)
  • Post inspired by Ray Bradbury from “The Lake” in Dark Carnival: “I ran. Sand spun under me and the wind lifted me. You know how it is, running, arms out so you feel veils from your fingers, caused by wind. Like wings.” (via Beth @ Alive on All Channels)

 

Saturday Morning

I will cut adrift—

I will sit on pavements & drink coffee—

I will dream;

I will take my mind out of its iron cage & let it swim—this fine October.

— Virginia Woolf, from a diary entry c. Wednesday, October 15, 1927


Photo via 8tracks.com