Theme Week 9: The Meaning Beneath

The brakes fail. I see myself careening toward the edge but I'm helpless to stop it. Somehow I know that there are only seconds before it happens but I'm lost in the minutes that come just before. He whispers something. I'm looking at his mouth move but the words aren't registering in my mind. I'm begging him to stop, pleading that he find the brake and apply it before the inevitable happens.

It's too late. Through my window I watch as the earth falls away into the sky and they spiral together into the hard thud of bottom. The sound of shattering glass and breaking bones fills the silence of the words that I lack. I look down at my broken body and can't recognize anymore my limbs. Pieces of me are strewn all about and I wonder at the complexity of the puzzle that is me. I can't see him anymore. That must have been what he was whispering, that he was going to bail out. Thrown clear, without a scratch is what they'll say of him.

What I'll remember is that the sun burned brighter and the air was too warm for a late October day. I'll remember the vague sound of voices trying to reach me and the rush of adrenaline as I tried to pull myself, bent and bleeding from the burning heap. I'll remember the pounding of my chest just before it ceased and the heaviness of my eyelids against my attempts to hold them open.

And just before the end, I'll fold the letter, put it in my pocket and take my broken body to bed.

Theme Week 8: Physics in Action

I’ve been reveling in the nature of black holes and other almost unbelievable phenomena for as long as I can remember. I visit the Hubble site pretty frequently. It’s easy for a queer girl like me to get caught up in the sexuality of the nature of our vast sky. It is charged with particles and hostile gases insinuating themselves into the vastness of the unknown. The things that we don’t know about what lies in the infinite reaches far outweigh the speck of the knowledge that we’ve acquired. That thought intoxicates me and has the power to bring me to my theological knees more quickly than any church.

The chapters of my Physics book read like an erotic novel. “The Uncertainty Principle, Potential and Charged Conductors, Displacement, Velocity and Acceleration in Two Dimensions, One Dimensional Motion with Constant Acceleration, The Concept of Force, Momentum and Impulse, Rotational Motion Under Constant Angular Acceleration and finally The Cosmic Connection. These are just a few examples of the sexual nature of the physics of the night sky. For as long as there have been us we have lain with our lovers under those skies and wondered at the magnitude. That is no small coincidence to my way of thought. The fact that we are “star stuff” makes my skin tingle. Add to that the fact, and it is fact that my body is in tune enough with the tides and that beautiful moon that my very clockwork is affected and I’m adrift in a sea of wanton lust.

It is this queerness of my nature that understands how the queerness of these principles applies on a smaller scale, the relationship between man and woman. An electron is emitted by an atom and instantly is retrieved, integrated into another changing the dynamic of both. They bond in various, predictable positions to form a substance different than either of the wholes of each other. Two hydrogen atoms, one electron each see this oxygen atom. There are two beautiful holes, two delightfully empty spaces: naturally made for a union. They race toward one another like lovers on a beach and then magically they bond. Is it a violent process for them or a subtle almost musically synchronized movement that brings them together? Suddenly there is a droplet of water that falls into an ocean of other unions. I have had relationships less sexually charged than those words.

Now, we see the man and woman atoms on the beach reveling in their own afterglow lapping at the toes of man and woman on the beach reveling in the afterglow of their union as they stare into the heavens of man and woman chemistry of the stars banging and free falling overhead reveling in the afterglow of their union ad infintum.

Shall we talk about the seductive language of mathematics next or shall I let you finish your cigarette first?

Theme Week 7 - Building A Bigger Bridge

To Do:

1) Dishes
2) Vacuum downstairs
3) Put laundry away
4) Bloom where you’re planted
5) Water plants
6) Chemistry Chapters 1, 2 and 3
7) Get off the fence
8) Ethics Chapter 5, Study for Quiz
9) Email GP and JM
10) Fall in love again
11) Clean out car
12) Scrub bath
13) Snap out of it
14) Organize junk drawer
15) Sweep off Porch
16) Giggle like a girl
17) Dust the furniture
18) Clean the baby’s room
19) Remember
20) Forget
21) Do 3rd prompt
22) Get winter coats from closet – to cleaners
23) Register van
24) Inspect van and dinger
25) Call JAFA
26) Feel feel feel feel
27) Rework budget
28) Call USDE
29) Package for Chris
30) Card to Peta
31) Redefine yourself
32) Get over it
33) Aska’s Birthday List
34) Call mom
35) Find a higher purpose
36) Dance more
37) Organize desk (computer upstairs?)
38) Grocery list (Go to Dougs)
39) Represent belief system
40) Unwind the clocks
41) Burn the walls
42) Build the bridges

Theme Week 6: redo...No Place Like Home

There isn't much left of the house. Look how it sits alone here on the edge of this field, wrapped in shrubs and trees malnourished by the house's decay. The wood poles are still holding up the chimney, what's left of it. I used to wonder what kept those things from busting up. I've learned that it's pure faith. Those old boards are there for the duration. I still wouldn't walk under one of them, if I were you.

You have to watch your footing going across the porch. Best to pull those brambles back and let them close behind you. Worst you'll get from them is a swat on the butt after you've passed. Don't you love the way these old southern porches seemed to stretch so lazily? I can picture a swing over there though any sign of a hook for it has fallen with the roof. Really have to use your imagination...Squint your eyes. There, see it? Mind now. Best be getting off this old porch. No telling what's living under these boards.

Door just sort of hangs. Yeah, those are new hinges. I put them in last time I came. House like this needs a door. Besides, I camp in here sometimes. Like to give myself the impression of safety. Usually that's enough to afford sleep. You'll want to step where I step. Those holes were made first time I came in. Followed that lonely road down and couldn't resist opening it up. Had to be a treasure in a house like this. There was a painting where that graffiti is now. Bad painting. Least to these eyes. Beauty - beholder, though. Someone liked it well enough to come in and take it. Just through thoseFrenchh doors ( imagine them there - I do) and we can sit. Like you to see what brings me back every time I come. Most of the back wall is gone. Here. Sit right here. Now we'll wait.

Every time I come I leave a little something behind as a trade for all of the things that I take with me. Last time I left a bottle of red wine and a note. Before that a book of poetry I found at the yard sale right up the street and an emergency candle from the glovebox. See how that wallpaper is scratching itself from the wall? Like it's reaching across the room to get a better view. And see there, on that wall there initial carved into the door jam. FGB + EDB then those underneath: KHB NAB LEB. Figured that must be one of the families that grew up here. Touching that wood you can almost feel the pride in adding each one. Certainly has withstood the test of time. If we stay long enough we'll have to make up names for them. I give them new names everytime I come.There's more too. There's the cuts where he measured them. In that room off the main there's a hole cut out of the floorboard. Looks big enough for a shoebox. I imagine all sorts of things were hidden in there, slaves with their precious few treasures - something from home or from momma or poppa. Maybe some 10-year-old's box of baseball cards and bottle caps. We ought go have a look. But wait, before we go see, here's the reason I always come back...aside from the house. Watch. Just as the sun begins to disappear over the horizon. Yes. There it is...can you make it out? Ahhh...that's Beauty dancing in delight. Ever seen a reflection like that before? I didn't think so. Could just drink it in like a tall cool glass of sweet tea.

We best go now before dark settles in. Hard to make out the holes if you let the light get away from you. And we still have to figure out what we'll leave behind.

Theme Week 5: Driving With The Endangered

The cars were passing her as though she were sitting still. A glance at the speedometer indicated she might as well have been. 25 in a 65. Ain't nothin safe about that. She pushed her foot down harder on the accelator and let that first rush of speed find its level. 60 felt comfortable and certainly was safer. Let em pass.

She was flipping through the few cds that she brought with her. None were right. She was sad and wanted to be sad with sad music surrounding her like the exclamation point at the end of her mood. All the cds were upbeat and carefree. That wasn't what she felt. She opted for the bad music on the bad Bangor stations. At least it was sappy and slow and matched beat for beat with the tears streaming down her face.

Love lost, or the possiblity of love, lost is different for a woman in her 40's than to one in her 20's or 30's. A woman of 40 recognizes that there is nothing that is forever especially where matters of the heart are concerned. The pining and wooing and woeing for it is replaced by a kind of indifference or, if not replaced at least conditioned. Today she was 20 emotionally. Singing loudly to bad songs through the veil of tears covering her eyes.

Blue lights and a siren cut immediately through the mood. "Shit." One look at herself in the rearview and she knew what that cop would be thinking...drugs. Her eyes were puffy and red and black streaks of running mascara stained her cheeks. She pulled over as delicately as possible and tried to erase the look of madness from her face as the cop meandered up to the window beside her.

"Any idea how fast you were going, ma'am?" Oh sure she thought. Add insult to injury by calling me ma'am. He must have been all of 22.

"No. Ya know what? I have no idea what my speed was."

"Are you a little distracted?"

The reference made her smile. She didn't think he had it in his 22 years to understand the distraction.

"Yea, I guess I am. But I'm heading home and feeling better. I won't cruise too fast on the way back."

"Gonna need to see your license, registration and proof of insurance before I can let you go. You were driving about 35. On a road like this one, ma'am you want to be able to keep up with the traffic and not have anyone unexpectedly ram into the back of you. There's a minimum speed on the highway just as there's a maximum."

"No shit? Probably safer that way." She clumsily handed him the requested paperwork and watched in the rearview as he got back in his car and called it all in.

Her fingers were idly playing with the keys in the ignition. The bad radio station was belting out a bad Elton tune and her face was still covered with black streaks. She leaned back against the seat and pushed her lids down over her painfully swollen eyes. Letting the bad music and the bad vibes coming from behind her fade away, she drifted off into a quiet kind of sleep. She was in the space between not quite sleeping and not connected to awake either when she heard the state trooper's car fire up. She roused her self the rest of the way to awake just in time to see the trooper squeal his tires out from behind the car and the blue of the siren cut through the foggy air. As he pulled up next to her car he pointed behind her and she could make out the paperwork in the middle of the strip. And then he was gone.

She got out of the car and stood looking at the spot where he had been as if the empty space could tell her whether or not she was meant to stay and wait or if it was okay for her to go. The paperwork started drifting into the oncoming traffic. She snatched it from the air and returned to her car. A lucky break, she figured. And not a minute too soon. Must be something big to drag him away so quickly. Bigger, at least than her crazed 35 mph.

She got back in the car and moved it back into the stream of traffic opting to turn around at the exit and faithfully return home. As she turned off the bad music and put it the Amos Lee hopeful tunes, she decided that, really, in the scheme of things, better to keep a faster, smarter pace and your hands firmly on the wheel whether you're talking about driving or matters of the heart. She silently thanked the young cop for reminding her of that and relating it so well to what had led to her under minimum and then thanked whatever gods may be for sending the cop on his way. "No need to beat it into my wallet," she thought.

The thought calmed her. She checked her speed. 66. That's just about right. She congratulated herself and headed toward home, the slightest outline of a smile forming across her black streaked face.

Theme Week 4: The Ghost of Him

There was something devastating in the way that he looked at me. I couldn't tell if it was fear or just brutal attraction that kept me pinned to that spot, his eyes washing over me, flooding the distance between us. He was the cool, calculated way that a watch moves. Everything timed and in sync.

I watched him move to the seat in front of me. His eyes never left mine, or mine his. My heart was pushing it's way through my organs trying to get out...was its intent to or away, I couldn't tell. It didn't matter. I was not a participant. Just an observer.

He was beautiful. Strong face, centuries old. He devoured me - every piece, every hidden nuance of me with those green, transparent eyes. I could see straight down to his desire and it was fierce, unfettered by want. Pure need. I was embarrased by the depth with which I let this stranger touch me. His affect was torturous in the lack of expression that followed. I was his property and I'm not accustomed to being tagged.

He played me through the entire length of the ceremony. His eyes would hold mine then leave their shadows to guard my cage. I felt unveiled, uncovered...naked. The ceremony ended and he filed out into the stream of the moving crowd. He stole one last glance back at me before rounding the corner out of my sight. Finally, he smiled, the ghost of me dripping from the corners of his mouth.