Bounce

Well, whatever one can say about this time of limbo, it does allow for circumstances like this morning's- an hour and a half at one of those bouncy places! You know, I am just going to interrupt this right now to say, "Hello, hello, hello, is there anybody out there?" I hate it when people talk this way, but I do know why. I think part of the problem is I want to talk about what is real here, but don't want to let the mess of my unresolved feelings and thoughts spew forth to go out and create mischief little demons. But then I ask myself who the hell would find this or read it anyway? I could go stark raving mad on here and it couldn't make a wripple. I think we are alone here, between me and me. And do you want the raw, dark stuff out there? I have a couple of old journals that fester in the pile there. How many people keep these blogs? I mean, I have probably a hundred journals from my twenties and thirties, and here I am now doing this on a computer, those sit in a closet and this sits here in etherspace, well what the heck is this for? It is the same thing, but less honest because it is public, but, shit. . . the bounce place was tons of fun. I would like to go to one on my fortieth.

Lost Days-The iphone is plied to more pedestrian use

Missing Pieces
The old neighborhood at Alamo Square -still home
Buena Vista-how rich i was, owning those hills and paths every day. . .
A Great Horned owl, caught on photo-then his mate!
Vegan chinese, Happy Birthday in Chinese at the table behind us-so glad to be home
Castro Street Fair-so so so glad to be home, Caterpillar says, "Who. . . are. . . you?"
Thirteen deer in Belmont.
Watching Slings and Arrows.
Soft bed in Belmont after running the hills
Joy at seeing all the babies together in Nashville. We are a parade wherever we go.
I imagine I hear my cell phone ring in an infinite loop, just under the surface.
My camera is my good friend-keeps pace with me-keeps me at home with myself as the world shifts so quickly.
Genna and Rider in ever evolving imaginative play. . . Rider lying down to sleep last night in a petal colored tutu and a sleep diaper.
Beautiful Children
Perfect ease in being with my wonderful sister. So good to have home in others. Somewhere I belong. I always laugh hardest with my family. Tears of laughter.
Finding Big K Sparkling Water at Krogers!
The Halloween department at Target with 18 month old twins, a three and a four year old-hilarity. Genna in an enormous hairy mask-she looks like a mutant troll!
I could seriously collect face soaps and potions. I love the ritual.

This is your brain on the road

Even the crush of traffic as we get closer to San Francisco is comforting. The sun is down but still flaring over the horizon. A Shell sign glows brightly behind a silouetted tree and the sky glows orange around it. After the strobing of light through the trees and the swearving roads of the midafternoon, the smooth hills, fillaments of fences and softening of light comes in a wash of relief. Now all is sillouette, embers of sunset and the carnival of road lights. We glide through the stream of traffic in our little livingroom on wheels.


-- Post From My iPhone

California Border

We just flew over the border. We feel joyful to be back, to point out the manzanitas to Rider. Beautiful California. Now I remember pushing down any sadness I felt in leaving. California is a lot to try to push down. We were embracing the new when we left, fleeing a fright of a neighbor, anxiety of the familiar. So I guess that is what made leaving possible, well, that and economic necessity. Still, there is much to solve before we know where we'll put the Rose Geranium. Very much. We'll be leaving some friends, Rider's birth tree, the glorious Portland Farmer's market, Sapphire's NIA class, Last Thursdays on Alberta, the Fruit Loop, Sauvie Island with it's berries, corn mazes and harvest festivals, a beautiful house and vegetable garden...many things, but these were in some ways, forgive me, Portland, consolations. Meaning this. As much as a person may have to recommend them, as much as they may be to so many, if the chemistry isn't there you can't make yourself fall in love. And you will always know that and feel guilty that you can't appreciate them as is certainly their due. And you are taking up space that belongs to a true Portlander. So maybe we'll mark it down as an opportunistic affair, "Honey, love the one your with." So we'll tip our hat to Portland and wiggle our berry stained fingers as we head south. "Yeah, that Portland, she was a great hal." And California will unfurl in front of us, blowing our minds until there is no room for anywhere else.


-- Post From My iPhone

The Elizabethan Stage, Ashland

So suited for so many situations. A socket for the imagination. Bzzzzzzzt!


-- Post From My iPhone

Ducks!

Ashland ducks. Much more fun than cars!






-- Post From My iPhone

Trucks are really gorgeous nighttime death machines

I swear, you can hear their breaks screaching like the wrathful undead. They have terrified me since the torrential rain hit us that night returning back from New Orleans in college.


-- Post From My iPhone

Fourteen miles to the hotel from 30 seconds away

A wrong turn back from the store puts us 15 minutes away. The hotel was a spit away. Now we're batteling dazzling trucks for the road.


-- Post From My iPhone

A pool!

So we arrive kinda queezy from the road but it is a beautiful time of day, Godlight time, as I've always called it, and our room is right in front of the pool. The sounds, the light and smell of the water...it could have been a five minute walk from the Alhambra and I think I would have begged out to go to the pool! So beautiful, the three of us together in the water under an evening sky. Worth the trip alone. There was even a hot tub! Bahjah waited for us in the room. She is such a good traveler. Now we're taking turns in Market-of-Choice getting our dinners.
P

-- Post From My iPhone

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Arrival

We're in Ashland...sorta. Best Western with Swiss Miss appeal. Cute. Man, I am ready to walk around!


-- Post From My iPhone

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Patch of grass

-- Post From My iPhone

Daddy is a softy.

-- Post From My iPhone

Familiar Terrain

D) Antique drive-in Umpqua Valley. Neon burger asks,"You want fries with that?"
J) Golden cylanders of hay. I think of Rumpledtilskin and the needle prick I got on my index finger last night.
D) Trees tinged with Autumn stretch their shadows in the afternoon sun.
J) Mt. Nebo here, too. Seems more apt than our church next door.
D)The signs say: "Roseburg, Edenbauer, Westernwings, Fast and Free."
J)Rider asks, "Mom? Where do hotels live?" An eddy of black cows in a river of flaxen grass.
D)Passing hay caravan in the slow lane. Golden caravan of dead grass.
J)"Drown, stir, drown. Prevent forest fires." It is better when the dead along the road are unrecognizable, particularly on the return.



-- Post From My iPhone

Writmore

D) Roadside invitation welcomes overnighters.
J) Sheep, heads down, draw blood from the pale ground.
D) Exit to Saginaw 100 feet. Just where are we anyway?
J) A trashfire to be. Weak shrie
of wind and roar of the road.
D) We flow through with the river of asphalt and steel toward misty hill horizon lines.
J)What reclaims it's space in us as we are stretched across the miles?
D) Drain, Elkton,Curtan,Lorraine. I don't
Think we are in Portland anymore.
J)the chenille of farmland and fences, treasures we thought we'd sold to survive roll out before us eternal


I
-- Post From My iPhone

Back and forthwrite

J) We missed the warning signs for the rest stop. It will be ages before there will be another.

D) Drivers pop like shuttlecocks, crossing dotted lines.

J) A jetstream zipper shows it's teeth overhead.

D) Roadside RV outlet. Shiny fleet of ships on wheels.
J) Blinding light at a box store mall. Flat sign, flat sign, bush, bush, bush.
D) Road stoned driver seeks refuge at ShopKo.
J) Sale signs grow here. Even the fish live in boxes. Look! A mockingbird feather!
D) Back on the road, blinded by a new-age trinket glinting in a neighbor's windshield.



-- Post From My iPhone

Pumpkin on the side of the road.

A flock of blackbirds shifts in the sky like lava in a lava lamp. "It is good to be on the road,"says Doug. Bahjah leans on the armrest, her casting her eyes about convivially, proprietress working her counter. I can't shake the thought of these last few months,"What do you have to say for yourself?" But life is so interesting, no matter. I think of Paroles. "I shall eat, drink, and sleep as soft as captain shall." And I can say I've worked. We will shed much and learn to believe what we couldn't.

-- Post From My iPho

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The night before.

There is a certain satisfaction to starting over. Sure you cut your losses. Mourn what you built that you can't bring. But we are coming through in tact, together, winnowed down and further winnowing. It is a dream, really. My head is clearer than it has been in years. I am getting rid of half or more of my clothes. My foot is healing and I am back to pure joy that I can run, am able to.

When I wake in the morning for the past several days, I tell Doug my dreams. In the process of telling him I find that I can't breathe. It has been years since that has happened. I feel joy, even a sense of control in chaos. Why this, then? One of the dreams was about the weather in San Franciso. There were great storm clouds inverted in the sky so they hung down like floating cities. They were dark and inscrutible and godlike. The menace was comforting. But telling it, I couldn't breathe.

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