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It's the last day of September. The sun warms the otherwise chilly air. Trees are less full due to the stormy winds earlier this week. It's autumn, and all the words used to describe this season can be used here. But I want to write about what is real, for me, right now. Right now I sit at a desk behind stacks of books worrying about applications, tests, and essays I haven't completed yet. I am easily jostled out of complacency by sound. Lately it seems that I have developed an alarming sensitivity to sound. Am I evolving sonar abilities? In this office I hear: the sound of the copy machine (squeak whir squeak whir), the space heater warming my feet (shhhhhhhhhhhhhh), throat clearing (aheeemgrrrhaaackhmmm), a coworker typing (click click CLACK click), the tape dispenser dispensing (craaaaaaaaacklecreeaaaak), the security lock alerting (beep!). I want to surround myself with less noise or at least a change of sound scenery. The sound of ocean waves is calming. The wallpaper on my computer at work is an image of a beach and someone is holding up an index card that reads "You are here." Sound would suggest otherwise, unfortunately.

Rediscovered words

(written in 2003)

Someone laughing. Their voice, a revelation, rises to my ears. I listen through the window. It sounds like they are crying, but they are walking outside. The intonation of their emotion is carried up to me and it must be laughter I hear. Laughter can sound so much like crying, and crying is just the same. We have the ability, unlike the mysteries we are taught... Everything in division, the balkanized head of nature too disconnected to see the sameness throughout the body of the whole. Someday, it will all return, as if played in reverse. The laughter will turn to cheers, the cheers to sobs, and finally the sobs to whispers carried as sighs through the air. the sound of a bird singing outside of your window.

*

i think i love inanimate objects. sometimes i think they speak. sometimes i think they are honest and lovely. inanimate objects. sometimes i love their color. sometimes i admire their quiet. and then they sing. sometimes i pick up a recorder. and it speaks when my voice is silent. sometimes i don't want them to move. sometimes i carry them around. sometimes i see them sitting in a store and i take them home. i think i love inanimate objects. they make me calm, i'm not alone. their glimmer their curve. their life is my own. i think i love things that can't leave me unless i choose to let them go.

*

I couldn't write. I couldn't think. Birds with legs chattering. Ruffling their tongues and preening their lackluster wit against their dull pallet. No color here. No voice ringing clear with vibrancy. Just abc's thrown together in a junk heap pile. I couldn't move. And then, words like violin strings bowed with finesse forming internally. Words singing. The sound strumming a warm note remains sustained, enduring. Released now, pluming like smoke in cold air. All the words dissipate there. No room. No walls. No remnants of plucked feathers. My world is fully alive and shadows of figures remain tethered to the background.

*
Old photographs

*photo taken 2004, "Secrets"

Little things

A few months ago I came home to find a note taped to my door. It was a simple "thank you" note from my neighbor. Now when I come home, approaching the white mailbox and red steps that lead to my green door, I think "maybe there will be another note taped up for me to find or unstamped letter in my mailbox" (indicating that it was hand delivered). This hasn't happened of course.

But...

Yesterday, the wind left a bouquet of branches at my door.

*photo taken Oct 2008/cereste, france Alpes-de-Haute-Provence

Potential

Why do I feel that every time someone looks at me, speaks to me, gets to know me... they only see potential. Having potential seems like it wouldn't be an entirely undesirable image to project, however I think it might be nice to be seen (and possibly appreciated) just as I am. Isn't that my best? I would rather be the diamond than the diamond in the rough. Though I know I am in a constant state of flux. Growing, regressing, learning, losing, remembering and forgetting. I often find myself to be the recipient of unsolicited words of encouragement. Maybe this is an image I project? Do I have some woeful quality about me, some desperatly needy look in my eyes that begs affirmation? It isn't that I'm ungrateful for praise and encouragement. I find it flattering and motivating, aligned with intentions. Everyone's worst fear is the "life half lived." I think potential is dangerous... like hope.

Fade

Shaking leaves and paper cups. The pen trembles in my hand as I attempt yesterday's crossword 1. Across: When things slowly go away. Answer: fade. My resolve spills on the page. A splash of ink and tea stains. This is who I am for now. A little careworn but okay. Sensitive some say. I curl and paw, never coil and strike. These days my cheeks blush when I get excited. I stutter and laugh inappropriately. I listen to songs on repeat, starting over before they have the chance to fade. I hear myself say, I was a casualty. A lonely bench in the middle of town. A temporary place anchored permanently.

*flowers in a field - Oct. 2008/somewhere between the palace of versailles and petit trianon - france

Vanishing point

It was only a matter of time before disappointment set in. The careful and deliberate binding of acquiescence and let downs. The slow disease of fear and hope settling unevenly like sediment on the ocean floor, smoothed by time's slow force the infinite ebb and flow. I saw the boat sink and said nothing. I heard the plane land and felt nothing. I watched the clay split into tiny pieces, watched it break over and over again and still, did nothing. Take down the letters, photographs, dried leaves pressed in my heaviest books. Remembering who, what, where, when, why and how. Remembering now, there is a vanishing point. Your body lies. Parallel, your arm touches my arm and we are fooled by perspective and the geometry of time. I live in a flight path and every day I hear the distant purr of planes turn into a nearing roar and suddenly, rage loud before fading into quiet once more.

*photo taken in 2001/channel islands NP (santa cruz island), CA

the sixth hour

Early morning mist, late evening fog. Precipitation in various forms, beading and billowing stirring up the scent of damp pine and dead leaves. I love the smell of trees; juniper, pine, cedar, redwoods. Slow mornings, unlocking my door and stepping out onto the red steps, feels like California... but here I am in the upper Midwest, home for now. Now and then. It feels good to wake up in my bed, to wake up on my sofa, to wake up on the ceiling. I feel that way sometimes. Lately I've struggled out of sleep and dreams. It takes me awhile to readjust to wakefulness, like eyes adjusting to darkness after staring at the sun. It's an odd feeling but generally passes once I pull off the covers, shuffle to the kitchen, feed my cat and crack two eggs in the little orange frying pan I keep on the stove. I enjoy mornings and late evenings. Afternoons are for the birds. I should live somewhere that carries on the tradition of siestas. Sleeping on the periphery of the sun is a love of mine... Sleeping in the afternoon, rain or shine seems necessary for the success and goodness of the human race. Let's all slow down and be quiet... hora sexta. okay?

*photo taken in 2001/Big Sur, CA

I was walking...

I was walking, thinking about something that made me smile. Just as the grin blossomed on my lips a mosquito flew into my eye, bringing me back to the present moment. Something's always bringing me back. that's ok.

*photo taken summer 2008/devils lake, WI

thinking about portland

always.






It kind of gets inside you,
the silences I mean
They kind of wrap around you,
and loosen everything
-linda perhacs, chimacum rain

late night bicycle rides...

late night bicycle rides cruising by the lake to the click click click clack of my bicycle chain. my gears need to be fixed. but love is love even with rusted chains and the occasional disconnect. the push the pull the odd gear shift, i fly over soft blacktop and bump along the cracked asphalt as starlings ascend and dive over the lake. porch lights, lantern lights, candle lights, christmas lights so many lights welcoming me home. so many homes with open windows. i adore looking in... i see stacks of books so tall and unwieldy they are works of art, sculptures. kid art hanging over fireplaces, tables set, all signs of loving families or at least signs of life as i imagine it to be, as i want it to be. you know the dream. traveling at top speeds, in a blur, some dreams are real.
ukiyo-e.* a man sits reading on his porch. a woman walks her dog. a candle burns and warms the air. i take a deep breath and peddle faster, oh man... i am so in love with this time.

*In Asai Ryōi's 17th-century novel, Ukiyo monogatari (Tales of the Floating World), "ukiyo-e" is defined as: 'Living only for the moment, turning our full attention to the pleasures of the moon, the snow, the cherry blossoms and the maple leaves; singing songs, drinking wine, refusing to be disheartened, like a gourd floating along with the river current; this is what we call the floating world.'

Slow slow

Tabula Rasa over and over like crimson and clover. I'm trying to build my new life here. Everyone say's "this is your time." This is my time, but wasn't it always... mine? There are so many things I am pleased with and a few things I'm not. Overall I'm just living... Isn't that the point? Lately I feel like the anchor has been cut. Sometimes I am the anchor and sometimes I am the boat. Sinking. Drifting. Rising. Falling. It's exhausting. I want to find the shore. Dry land... at least until it rains. The truth is... I'm tired of thinking about me and my time. I think I will stop trying to build things and just let them grow. Moss on rocks, you can't expect it to appear overnight. It takes years, and if you try to fake it the moss will die. True story. I read it in a book. The rain is good tonight, making everything slow, slow.

And the rest of our lives will the moments accrue
When the shape of their goneness will flare up anew
Then we do what we have to do(-re-loo-re-loo)
Which is all that you can do on this side of the blue
-joanna newsom, this side of the blue

oklahoma

this was an anthro course. we set up and lived in teepees for two weeks. it wasn't what i thought it would be but it was exactly what it should have been. we were all given gifts by the instructor, something of his that he thought spoke to who we are. i was given his old army knife. it wasn't just any knife, it was a "mahe" (big knife in oto) with a leather holster.

walking and listening to elliott smith

One of my favorite fall memories is from fall of 2002. I was nearing the end of my undergrad years at OU in Norman, Oklahoma. A few months earlier, in spring, I had taken my first trip overseas, my first flight alone. As spring ended my friend Emily and I drove through the night from Oklahoma to Estes Park, CO for a week of camping, hiking and backpacking. By the time fall rolled around I was doing alright. I had a steady job working at the library on campus. I was single and had a small group of friends. My cat b. was only a little over a year old. Fall was good that year in Oklahoma. The appropriate chill filled the air and chimneys started to smoke. I have always loved Oklahoma sunsets and I fell even deeper in love with the bruised skies and late golden sun. I lived off campus in a slum apartment complex called Dutch Hollow. I lived right by the road and used to worry (or hope?) that a car would come crashing through my bedroom wall. It never did. That fall I drove to campus and found a new place to park my car (you know how parking goes around college campuses... if you take a car you either have to pay for parking or find a side street no one knows about). I found a side street in a quiet neighborhood, not too far from the library, but still a good walk. I loved walking through this neighborhood to and from class and work. It reminds me a lot of my neighborhood now, in the upper midwest. But then, in Oklahoma - having grown up on a farm in the country - walking through a neighborhood filled with leaf covered lawns and door to door Craftsmen bungalows was an absolute dream come true. Pumpkins on porches, swaying goblins and witches hanging from eaves, flickering candles and strings of lights decorated my path. The sidewalk was stamped WPA every few feet. These were other people's homes, but looking in the windows and passing by the gates, they were all mine... just for me. I fell into a melancholy glow (or emo glow... either one) and listened to a lot of Elliott Smith that Fall. little memories.

you got a look in your eye
when you're saying goodbye
like you wanna say hi
-baby britain/e.s.

the outest cat

I'm about ten pages away from finishing this Chet Baker autobiography (As Though I had Wings). It's 128 pages of Chet talking about women, music and drugs, in no particular order, except that towards the end of the book it pretty much dwindles down to drugs. Overall this may be the best insight into the male psyche I've had in a while. He makes me laugh (his music makes me cry)... sad about the drugs.

Romeo

wherefore art thou?

ny fashion week

fun & simple, c'est si bon


nanette lepore (love the prints, stripes, and tones)


generra (a quiet note, monochrome)

ny fashion week

j'adore marc by marc jacobs

ny fashion week

It's NY fashion week Spring RTW 2010. I haven't looked at all of the shows, but here are some of my favorites. I'm ready to wear them now, thanks.

two versions of the perfect white dress by Twinkle

Lovely jacket with just enough frill and pouf -
Oscar de la Renta - Resort

Newsie with hot shoes - Oscar de la renta - Resort

I love LOVE love this look...classic stripes and good proportions - Karen Walker

Plaid shirt, boyfriend blazer, skinny jeans, long trailing scarf,
hot shoes ie WANT now - Charlotte Ronson

Demure and darling coquette - Erin Featherston

Gone: a small collection of photographs

*Please click the photo for the set.

On being a mountain

There is this one guided meditation that I really enjoy. As you sit in the standard cross legged meditation position a gentle voice requests that you close your eyes and picture a mountain. The speaker basically leads you through a series of images and scenarios in which you, the listener, become the mountain. Strong, rooted and unmoving, experiencing the weather of life while remaining impassive and unchanging. The mountain I envision, (my mountain) has a gently sloping snow covered peak - more like a plateau. My mountain is broad and stone dense but appears soft in the precipitous pink/purple fog. At the base of my mountain there are damp woods green and sprawling. Vines, old growth moss and ferns crawling up footpaths for the occasional wanderer. My mountain is calm.

My mountain is nothing like the mountain my friend and I climbed in 2001. Longs Peak in Colorado. As we neared the top, I got really sick and broke down physically and a little mentally too (there's something about being in that much pain and being that high up, freezing and facing lightning and snow, not knowing what awaits you at the top, that makes one feel venerable and terrified). But looking back, knowing that we made it as far as we did and we made it through a night, having had to remain awake - positioned contortionist style against the frame of my tent to keep it from blowing over as small stones pelted the sides... Knowing I can handle or did handle the up close reality nature doles out no matter if you are a mountain or comprised of fragile blood and bones... I'm not saying it makes me feel strong, but it does make me feel capable and calm.

*photos of longs peak in rocky mountain natl. park, colorado May 2001

Tiger tiger burning bright

Rachel's Bike

Earth girls are easy

I biked to the lakefront park in my neighborhood donning bike shorts, a black and white striped bathing suit top, cropped grey jersey jacket, black flip flops and over sized large black sunglasses. My bleach blonde hair pulled back in my usual summer pony tail. I worked on a crossword in a back issue of NY Magazine for an hour or so. Closed my eyes for two seconds then decided to pack up and go. While packing up an older clean cut (in his 50's at least) gentleman crossed the street. "You look like you're having too much fun" he said approaching me. "Oh yes, I am" I replied, shoving books and pens into my bag. "Do you canoe?" he asked, looking out at the lake. Wondering where he was headed with his question I replied cautiously "Do I canoe? Well yes... I have canoed before, so I suppose I do." He told me he just bought a little canoe from someone across the street and asked if I would be interested in joining him out on the lake. I declined and said I was going to go home and paint. His name is Bob and if I ever want to canoe I am told I can knock on his door just across the street from the park. The door belonging to the two story landscaped brick house with the hose in front. Something tells me I won't be knocking on Bob's door anytime soon. As I have just landed here on earth from outer space, the fact that men (not just boys but men) approach me is new and strange. Despite my lack of practiced interaction with this strange new and confusing species I can always refer to what I have learned in movies (thank goodness for carrier waves piggy-backing on high frequencies through space.) Bob, as he is called was asking me to join him on the canoe. As he was doing so, I couldn't help but think of that scene in A Place in the Sun when George Eastman (Montgomery Clift) takes Alice (Shelley Winters) out on the canoe and she "accidentally" and conveniently falls overboard and drowns. I'm not saying that's what would have happened had I accepted his offer. But you never know. It's possible I could have just walked away with a new home and last name (though the well worn padded wallet of the human male often fails to ignite any spark in me - Rather, I tend to light up like a forest fire by the well ridden padded seat of a motorcycle. Think Natalie Wood and James Dean.) So if Ryan Gosling or one of his clones happens to ask me out on a canoe I seriously doubt I would turn him down in hopes of reenacting that scene from The Notebook. You know the one... Swans, water lilies and thunderstorms. And how! Life on earth could be fun as long as it's a little like the movies.

writing notes

soundbites
june, 1940's - a young girl in college has a bicycle wreck on a gravel road resulting in temporary memory loss. a bystander rushes her to the hospital. when she comes to she doesn't know who she is. just that it is wednesday. but the word wednesday means nothing to her, it's just there in her head. she had an exam on wednesday. the word could mean anything to her though. that is to say, it had no meaning. she may as well have been saying that the day was "peach pie." and it would have meant the same. gibberish. the man who rushed her to the hospital goes back for her bike. there he finds her girl friend standing over the bike asking what happened to m. now the bicycle girl is identified and her sister is informed. her sister tries to get a ride to the hospital from the next door neighbor, one of the wealthiest families in town, but the wife is upstairs getting ready to play bridge. she needs her driver and says no. the driver ignores this order and helps the girl - takes her to the hospital to see her injured sister. he's not worried about being fired because he knows where the bodies in that family are buried.

letter

I want to write you a letter

cursive
letters roll in terse succession
off the point of my finely tipped pen

penmanship
slanted to exacting
fifty-three and thirty-two degree angles

grinding
down the ball bearing
straight lines and curved shapes
connect
me to you
in an oily pitch

rushing
out
of the black barrel

with a firm grip

my mark
is
made

time is gone...

"there is no modern romance"

Modern Romance - Yeah Yeah Yeahs