Whisper when appropriate, it's good for small ears

I think I need a break from the city. I enjoy it, but I just need a bit of a break. Camping has always been a great remedy for these periodic feelings of confinement, detachment, and general repulsion of modern society. Needless to say, nature has been on my mind lately along with a handful of other things. I will process/write about those other things soon, but here are some words in a silly attempt to make nature feel a little less distant. 


You have a map of the forest on your palms

the cut-outs and short-cuts mapped out with every scar

you know where the waters rise and the land sinks 

all branded into your skin

you have a map of the forest on your palms 

it all fits perfectly between your fingers

great spans and hallowed canyons  

pressed into every crack knuckled crevice  

figure eight valleys circle sun-worn fingers

with hundreds of years of oral histories

spoken into your skin cells

you have a map of the forest on your palms

the place you lived and tilled, toiled and sowed 

old hymnal stories, great lessons told 

where there is a sermon everywhere you look

never spoken but always heard

she speaks with eyes quiet and lips cold

same stories of bygone days

preceding the roads that
separated her from her children

and I am but a curious visitor.

                                              

'Be still and know where you are
only you forget when you 
are afraid of being lost'
whispered in both ears
as the greatest thief of all
found its rest beyond the horizon
leaving my hands filled with 
dark shadows of drunken dusk aftertaste

"I used to like StarCrunch until Jes told me it looked like ground beef."

I am courage. I am strength.
I tied the words daintily to my wrists.
They hung limp for many days.
Weightless words and fragile wrists
For many nights.
But slowly and just as sure as the ground they began to live.
They encircled my wrists and grew up my arms.
Covering my shoulders and overtook my soul.
I became that which I spoke.  
What I saw myself to be.
 
And I saw courage and I saw strength.

Bind my wandering heart to Thee

Our father in heaven
hallowed be thy name
thy kingdom come
thy will be done
on earth_beautiful broken habitat
as it is in heaven_the place you are beckoning humanity
give us this day_inhale, exhale
our daily bread
and forgive us our trespasses_innumerable they may be
as we forgive those who trespass against us
lead us not into temptation_yet so easily I wander...

Sisterhood Mantra

                                                    Sisters -
a deeply
sacred word
for within those
seven letters lie all
secrets  
dreams 
stories 
and fears. 

Friendship may be a tree, 

but sisterhood is all roots. 

We are planted so deeply
into one another, 

intertwining vines and roots

A myriad of splinters
forming parts of who I am.

With a friendship that the
heavens had to guarantee,

we sit at our distant dining room table

waiting for the others to come and see.

Mom, I lived a lifetime on the Nile

    I once heard someone say, "It is the space between the notes that make the music." It isn't so much about the notes being played, but the space between the notes. I've been thinking about this lately and today it seems that life is the same way--less about the highs and the lows and more about the spaces between them. The spaces that come before the ups and always follow the downs; the quiet spaces between that create music. I'm trying to embrace those between spaces.

Reflective Vest and Hand Wands

Yelp, if you haven't heard, I moved to Minneapolis, Minnesooota. I hopscotched four states north for awhile to intern with the non-profit here. As you can imagine, I'm getting paid more with experience and little monetary means. So in order to pay rent and clothe my body for my first winter, I needed to get a part-time job. After a couple of weeks of job hunting, I got hired on at the airport. Not what you think, more like this. I will be working outside on the ramp marshaling in airplanes, loading cargo, and driving tugs to push the planes back on the runway. Yellow reflective vest in the dead of a Minnesotan winter marshaling in planes with orange signaling wands. Aside from the entertainment value this job provides, the reason I applied for it was because of the flight benefits. I can fly anywhere for free as a standby passenger. Some international flights require a small international fee, but I'll be flying first class. I keep thinking of all of these different places that I've been wanting to go like Prague, Morocco, Papua New Guinea....the list is endless. I plan on going to as many places as I can within this next year. One weekend, I plan on walking into the airport getting on the next available flight out of the country, wherever that might be and just go. Take as many pictures as I can for a couple of hours, eat a meal, then flight home. Granted, we are not getting paid much to work outside in the winter, but seriously, best benefits ever.

When I found out I got the job, I planned on approaching it as a sociological study of what it's like being a woman doing what is traditionally-known as 'man's work'. Mainly, because I'm nerdy like that and seemed fun. Observe, experience, and write about it. Also, it would be a way of tricking my mind into thinking that I had a purpose for being outside marshaling planes in negative 15 degree weather. Some kind of reason to etch into my mind to make the winter seem less harsh and the wind's sting more bearable. Why am I loading someone's 60 pound leopard-printed suitcase into the cargo bin of a CRJ-900 in the dead of winter with a reflective wands in my hands? Oh yeah, I remember, because the sociological world needs me to. Mostly psychological, but I have a feeling this will make for some good stories, so I plan to write about it. Although, there is a small hiccup in my study. My training class is not exactly what I expected. There's a pretty even split between men and women. My focus may have to shift a bit, maybe a look into the world of traveling ramp agents or something. I still plan to write about my experience, but it might be through a slightly different lens. Although, my class is an interesting one. We have quite an array of people present with ages ranging from a few 20 somethings to a woman in her mid-60s. A lot of middle aged people, some retirees, a few college kids, a couple of internationals --- and we're all there for one reason: free flights. We want to see the world and have someone else pay for it. Most people there have other jobs and will just be working 10-15 hours a week at the airport for the flight benefits. After a week of classroom learning about belt loader operational procedures, proper hand signaling, and aircraft safety precautions, I'm feeling ready for on-the-job training next week. Oh, boy. Sometimes I just have to laugh at myself. When I applied for the job, I didn't even know what exactly I was applying for. I just saw the flight benefits and I was in. This should be interesting.

Those are not flaws. They make you only more you.

I have a fascination with birthmarks. There is something about them that is absolutely beautiful to me. I'm at a loss to pinpoint what exactly is so intriguing about them. It may be because it's like a plot twist of the body or an unexpected surprise. It may be because they remind me just how much of a patchwork quilt we all are. Or it may be because in a subtle way they challenge airbrushed ideals. Not in a hostile way, but rather in a standing-at-a-distance-smiling-and-waving kind of way. I must admit, my feelings have not always been this way toward my well-known friend, melatonin. As a child, bold brown freckles covered my entire face. They demanded (unwanted) attention and were far bolder than the timid girl that stood behind them. I remember not being overly fond of them, except when I was at my cousin's grandmother's house (my cousin's grandmother on her dad's side. But wouldn't that be funny if I referred to my own grandmother that way? Moving on). She liked me a whole lot and held my freckles in high esteem. She would compliment me on them (as if I had some hand in it) every time I went to her house. Her own girlhood freckles had since faded into aging spots, but somehow that created some kind of continuity between us. For her sake, I was glad I was freckled. There, at her house, I was overly fond of them. Maybe that's why I like birthmarks now, because Yolande thought freckles were special.


I have a two-freckled constellation that sits on the crater of my hip, a brown butterfly that rests on my shoulder and a coffee-stained ankle bone.