the green bridge

there was a man who appeared to reside on the green bridge these past several months. often seated, his back against a bolted cross, facing southwest toward the confluence of rivers. with drink and belongings in packs. for months now any time i passed we signaled. yesterday (on my approach) i became excited to wish him well for the new year but he was gone. i looked down through the gaps in the rail. the waters swollen brown with mud and runoff from the hills. and wished him well regardless.  #katyamills

belly full of life

dear magpie. you told me of the seals and why they come up river all the many miles to Sacramento from the San Francisco Bay sometimes, to feed on spawning salmon in the autumn. i ask you: the spawning fish are dying, are they not? coming up river and back home to die where they were born?

yes, you said.
then why? dear magpie, why not let the salmon swim home and die in peace?

the seals, they are not interested in the carcass of a dying fish. what they do as they swim upstream, diving underwater for several meters at a time, dark and slick, wet coats shining in the sunlight; what they do is find the belly full of life, and sink the teeth in there.

midtown patterns by k

magpie valley summer

i bent down by the river and cupped water to cool my face and hair. the summer was hot as ever and not letting up. you flew down and hopped over to me, where i could admire you in the half-light. little magpie of the valley, what have you seen and where have you been? your tail feathers long and dark, of blue and purple hue, your legs like twigs and feet splayed. cocking your head to one side so i can meet your parrot eye. what can i do for you, brave bird? 

you told me of the coyotes and their dens above the levee, and how they walk the rails to get from town to town. you told me of the river and how it made its way. you told me of your kind, long gone from here...and yet, you stay? there is an old man comes from the city to see you, he cracks a beer and lies down with a jacket rolled up under his head. you look after him. he speaks to you in a calm and gentle tone. you climb upon his shoulder where he takes selfies with you. then feeds you shavings of turkey and ham...dear magpie, i am hot and tired and wish to rest for a while. what more do you know? would you share with the likes of me? 

my marathon month - aka - a super special mindfuck

This has become my marathon month and despite all my other obligations i have to say it's been a joy to have been mostly devoted to running for the last six months. in 3 weeks i plan to run the Cali International, and last week's twenty mile 'Run The Parkway' race gave me a sweet shot of confidence. it was my first ever real live race, and 10 minute 39 second miles was my best pace ever, 20 miles my longest distance ever. i met some cool new friends on the run who i hope to see at the CIM. the morning was simply beautiful as we followed the American River up then downstream, and got a good dose of singing birds, rising sun, cheering fans and morning mist.

#246. post-race with medal

this was an inaugural race which is selling itself as the official CIM training run and will in fact be getting in bed with the marathon for a package deal savings for 2017. my boyfriend has a bum knee but already decided he's gonna try and also 'get in bed' with me so we can run the parkway next year together. (we'll just have to see how that goes - wink wink) anyway, my brother was a sweetheart and just bought me my first pair of maximum cushion Hoka One One Bondi 4's. thanks bro!

my super max comfort runners

 i broke them in a little with recovery runs - 14 miles - on the streets and the american river the last couple of days and so far they feel spectacular. the 'rocker' effect really helps setup a rhythm and yes, they offer good pushback with every stride, creating a forward momentum for you. dam, i felt the road so hard in the race last week. around mile fifteen my Nike Pegasus 33's could not save my legs from the pavement and it's a solid shoe but i guess i am used to more trail running. i was able to run the border of the parkway on the dirt for several miles though, so it may have been more to do with my decision to keep unusual pace. for the first half marathon i was runnin ten minute miles versus my usual eleven. quite a leap of faith in myself and mostly adrenaline i suppose. also i met some people i enjoyed talking to and was trying to keep up with them, too. a real friendly crowd overall, just over a thousand strong. anyway, the life of shoes log about 4-600 miles and mine are close to dead. and what with the dead legs feeling i had by mile 18, i decided i wanted to try for a pair with max cushion so i don't have to feel the road. in the future (if i race) i plan to go for trail race events like the AR50 (American River 50 mile ultra). that full day hike up to Auburn really makes my mouth water!

cool metallic bling!

what i love about running and training are all the factors at play and how it becomes a genuine laboratory experiment on yourself with so many variables: shoes, posture, nutrition, energy, pace, weather, distance, surface, time of day, hydration, pre-workout rituals, yoga, sleep, stretching, comradery, audio, mantra, visualization, adrenaline, topography, comradery, location, gels, s-caps (salt pills), amino acids, recovery rituals, ice baths, epsom salt, protein shakes, shedules, titrating, tapering, comradery, consistency, constancy, technique, anti-blister, anti-chafing, injury prevention, pre-race ritual, wildlife sightings, sprints, hills, post-race ritual, education,  (did i say?) comradery, effort, breath, rhythm... honestly i think Einstein would be scratching his head!

the American River

during the race i overheard someone say how they told a friend, who then asked them how much they're getting paid to run? people do look at us crazy when we tell them we actually pay entrance fees for these killer events. you probably need to be running 6 minute miles to get sponsored, idk. all i think you need to understand, though, is how you get a better you out of this deal. truly! a bioaffective-psychosocial-spiritual new you. that's my take. i am in the greatest shape of my life (bio). i am quicker to calm, if not emotionally sound (affective). my psychology is a real mindfuck (in the best sense of the word), as i am exceeding the limits of what i thought i was capable of. this part is particularly super special because it means i'm breakin on through and out! i am shattering formerly solid personal belief walls and opening up a new world where what i may have thought improbable is suddenly alive. in process. someone once said 'dare to fail' and it's true. i wouldn't now be busting my ass for Folsom on december 4th, if i felt i had to finish. it's exactly knowing that i never have but maybe could run 26.2 that has me surging and thrilled to try. and that, my friends, is the what and why.

marathoner?!

the weather broke @ a record fifteen miles -ii

The first mile to the american river had me feeling strong and not as tight as previous days, I sure was psychologically prepared, and as I summited the levee to the railway the 7am amtrak leaving downtown sacramento chugged east, blocking my path. I fell into the rhythm of the train and got a good visualization for myself as I stood there waiting and running in place. Be like a train, be like a train. Several miles later it occured to me that birds are like mantra bodies because they often sing the same song over and over all their lives! This reminded me how useful my own mantras have become, and reassured me it's not a needless to practice these repetitions: nam-myoho-renge-kyo. I had been singing it in the shower before sunrise.

Once I snuggled up next to the river, I picked up my pace a bit to the cool delta breeze carrying across the levee. The visor of my hat kept the red rising sun out of my eyes, as I ran due east for another mile before following the river bend south at paradise beach. It must have been 60F and I am acclimated to running later in the day, towards 75F, so my weekday training gave me an edge for the early morning long runs.

There is a boat launch with a water fountain at mile six, so I was able to stop and hydrate for a minute and take a pack of energy gums with electrolytes there. Quickly I got back on the trail, and I was feeling fantastic. My breathing has gotten easier and easier the more I run, which is what happens to long distance runners. Your body is amazing and learns to make the most of the oxygen. I always hit my inhaler before any run, because otherwise my asthma makes me wheeze, but two blasts is all I ever need before any run no matter the distance.

I discovered that mile 7 is about where I begin to loosen up and hit my stride. The trail took me under a couple of highways and now the sun had climbed and lotsa people were out walking their dogs and cycling and running, too. Some of the early morning fishermen had packed in their river waders and were heading home, climbing the levee right before my eyes. The american river is full of salmon and snowmelt off the Sierras. I did my U-turn and headed back on a slight incline then stopped again at the same water fountain at mile 9, as it was the only water I would get on my run...

ultrawriting and the swing-arm scorpion

Life is good getting better, all the running when mixed with yoga is another return to the moving current, out from the eddies where modern life traps us. I am also more involved than usual with a man who cares about me. The summer has gone quickly and quietly, a couple of heat waves and otherwise plain old lovely northern california sunshine. Yesterday morning I ran a half-marathon on my own along the river, for the first time ever and it felt great. I especially noticed falling into a sweet rhythm of breath and motion. I am hoping to use endurance running towards developing a discipline for endurance writing. There, the cat is out of the bag! I'm gonna start an ultrawriter craze. Writing entire novels at one sitting while choking down powerades and peanut butter! Think I won't? Watch me.

on a heli-tour

Last night I had a dream I was at work with a clipboard with a checklist of items had to be done on the shift. I was working with perfect strangers and asked them for help but they didn't want to help me. Turns out some woman with a big mouth who looked like a swing-arm lamp scorpion was in the hallway talking shit about me and some perceived hurt I caused her. I immediately confronted the scorpion and she blabbered this nonsense to my face and I didn't even have to look closely at her to know she was lying. After all, I have never before met a swing-arm lamp anyone! I told her to shut the hell up and she started inching up my leg, and I woke up terrified. If that doesn't get you out of bed, nothing will. I scrambled out and into the kitchen for some coffee, and worked up this joke:

What do you do when someone's telling lies on you?
Hang them by their toenails and feed them the truth!

paradigms and marathons and ezines and more

Activism. I was thinking back on the the Occupy Oakland movement and 2011. Brought on by one of Lacey Reah's threads about MLK and demonstrations. I don't always feel like revisiting the year, the time, because I was in trouble and of no use to anyone and definitely not a political movement of any kind, yet I remember the buildup one day toward an imminent call-4-action. There had been posters stapled to telephone poles and canvassing all throughout Oakland leading up to it. I was in my apartment watching Democracy Now which was covering the event, and you could already hear the helicopters hovering over downtown. They weren't gonna leave after rush hour was over and the sun went down and the people began heading out on foot, by bicycle, by skateboard, bus, or train to Broadway and designated areas like the 14th and 19th street crosses downtown, subway stops near the lake. The organized protests were to be non-violent, but the city prepared for the worst kinda riot. I'm sure corporate lobbies were strong, what with all the infrastructure and banks and businesses situated there. The media would of course cover it all. The police were mobilized in force, with full gear and helmets and shields all up to make boundary walls that might enclose the protest in a demarcated area. This was many months before the most successful demonstration, which started in the afternoon and marched all the way to the Port of Oakland and blocked the trucks and stopped the million-dollar-a-day commerce from taking place for a couple of days. And after the Oscar Brown injustice, which set off a stream of protests and was (far from the first) precursor to all of the demonstrations we have seen lately in this country against police shootings. It had become a pretty regular thing for the city of Oakland to prepare for these events. Obviously the city is rich in history of demonstrations, being the home of the Black Panthers and neighbor to Berkeley and San Francisco. But the police force by this time was so corrupt and out of sorts it had been federalized, yes, the federal government took the Oakland Police under its jurisdiction by force of court proceedings! So there may have been extra weight behind them in the form of federal funds, but weaker local leadership.

None in the new millenium would get as much media coverage as the Occupy Movement which was of such national interest and concern five years ago. The internet allowed for speedy pop-up shop demonstrations and facile communication. Democracy Now provided almost a central organizing principle to the whole thing, or dressed it into larger, truth and justice-seeking themes. So anyway, what was I doing? Nothing worthwhile mostly struggling and depressed. I remember feeling excited nonetheless because the city was buzzing with tension. What was gonna happen tonight, downtown? All I knew was that I was gonna go, and I said I was gonna go and I never went. The story of my life that year, making plans and not following through. Addiction would have a chokehold on me until February 19th, 2013. Still, I felt like I was there; I talked to friends who went and I walked downtown the next day in the aftermath and saw all the vandalism that took place, mostly by renegade kids from the suburbs wearing masks. Broken storefront windows. Spraypainted everything. The only thing that looked more of a disaster was me and my life. It had been a night to forget for the Oakland PD. National coverage caught the cops implementing their weaponry, you probably saw it on tv. Looked  like the 4th of July, and sounded like war, the noise makers, the usual flares and tear gas and rubber bullets and tasers. It made for a new meaning for when-the-lights-came-up-on-broadway. That night a soldier who had returned from the war in Iraq was put into a coma when he was hit in the head by a flare shot. He would live to tell.

So what of all this? Why would I have anything to say about an event in which I did not participate? In a year in which I was completely broke down and out of commission? I don't know. All I know is the Occupy and the Oscar Grant demonstrations had a great effect on me. The demonstrations against the Prison Industrial Complex did, too, but that one was safe indoors in a school gym. The ones in the streets meant more to me and it's because I was in the streets back then, marginalized and easily dismissed, often desperate for a handout, some food, a couch, or even a word of kindness. Sometimes I think you almost have to be marginalized and feel that way, to really care about those who are marginalized. I say that, but at the same time I pause to recognize it's not a fair statement, because there are plenty of lawyers and journalists and politicians and people who never have been marginalized, who have stood behind the marginalized. We call them heroes. And having been marginalized I know how it feels and I have a real adverse reaction in my gut every time I hear the Occupy Movement dismissed as some disorganized dilute homeless and criminal encampment looking for handouts! It was decentralized (on purpose) and not disorganized at all, and there were all kinds of people and all elements of society represented among its advocates, including the homeless and people with criminal records! It was branded by the government as some kinda terrorist activity so they could use funds from Homeland Security to stop it. And non-violent protesters were treated with shock and force and tear gas canistry, and piggybacked upon by losers from the suburbs putting on masks and coming in by train and breaking corporate storefront windows and spraypainting crap all over! The media at first blamed the violent response on the Occupy protesters or smudged them all together, though to their credit many journalists properly admonished the City of Oakland for terrorizing the movement, injuring civilians and overuse of force once they saw the Occupy people out there scrubbing away and cleaning up the streets the very next morning. No, the movement cannot be dismissed so easily!

There would be too much pressure against it, ultimately, for Occupy to continue having viable non-violent demonstrations across the country. But a statement was made and boldly. At the very least the general public got their heads dunked in cold water. That the wealth of this country is concentrated in the hands of too few, and the rest of us are seeing a declining portion of that wealth over time. Most of us knew this beforehand, and little could be done about it. The Occupy Movement was not any kind of failure, in my opinion, for it proved that something happens when people come together to rally behind a common cause. People come to know that they are not alone in how they feel, that horrible malaise of economic disparity. This venting may not in itself, correct the underlying economic disparity, yet is a critical part of a greater process which continues to unfold in its own time! This critical process is what we know as a social paradigm shift and is happening all around us, over time. It is met with great resistance (as all change is) but leads ultimately to overall changes in individual/institutional perceptions, changes in worldviews and changes in our culture trending toward justice, trending toward greater consciousness, many of which are toward healing and wholeness, and reclaiming marginalized parts of ourselves and society. You can see this all represented already in your world, if you just look around. LGBT rights, for instance. And there will be many more micro movements towards the macro movement. As individuals we need only follow the prescient wisdom of the day and 'be the change you wish to see in the world'. To anyone who feels marginalized or discarded or hopeless at this time: Don't give in and please Don't give up!          - KatYa

My poetry was chosen for another ezine, you can find it here alongside some other good poets of the community -- Words On Fire Ezine .  Also, I am training for the California International Marathon this December and donated some money to the crown jewel of Sacramento parks - The American River Parkway (my favorite place 4 cycling). This will be my first marathon. I am up to 10 miles now. You can find the CIM here -- CIM! 2016.  Book #3 of my urban fantasy series should be out by October 31st, latest.

the black flowers

About a month ago, I was riding my bike alongside the American River, looking for a place to stop and catch a breath. The mercury was in triple digit heat. I had been riding all day, and my ass was on fire. I found a spot to rest near the train tracks, north of Sacramento, and lay down my bike on a small embankment. The grass was lush green, and the wifi signal was strong and free.  I may as well have struck gold. I broke out my chromebook and started typing. Hallelujah.

In ten minutes time, I had found the zone.  That wonderful place where everything falls away including the mind, and the blessed divine channels right through me. I no longer cared that my ass was on fire. I was no longer distracted by pedestrians and cars. I forgot that I was thirsty. The sun, moon, stars, and sky all faded to black. I stopped worrying about the half-empty battery icon. I just sat there on that embankment, typing away.

Three black sprinklerheads rose out of the ground, almost to the second I fell into my zone. They were strategically placed around my bike, and the water shot out like liquid petals from black flowers. I was worried, but then smiled in a flash. Siddhartha could not have done better himself! The streams of water were washing my black chromoly frame in all the right places. And though my bike was beside me, the water was safely a half foot or more away. I settled back into my zone.

Five minutes passed and my spokes were glistening in the sun, baby! The wifi signal was busting out four bars or more. An invigorating signal. The sun was in the west, and my screen was well-situated facing the east. Glare-free. The conditions were optimal, and my zone was waxing something proper. God bless america.

That's when the black flowers subsided, back into the earth, beneath the lush green grasses around me. And all seemed well until four or more flowers rose up beside me and knocked me out the box. A vicious attack! I had to drop and roll to the right, to keep my chromebook from getting soaked. I was rattled. I lost my zone.

I stood up and looked all around me. I thought for sure somebody was remotely controlling these black flowers. It was close to April Fool's Day. Maybe some belated joke on me? Some city-payrolled slacker, with nothing better to do? But I could see no one. I had to sit my ass back down and try to get it back.

In five minutes time, the black flowers subsided. Clockwork. Not likely a plot against me. I glanced over to where they had been, irreverently, and caught a little rainbow in the air. Before the water fell out the sky. Then boom! A phalanx of flowers rose up and jacked me! Unbelievable. My keyboard got hit. My screen was shot up bad. All systems down, all systems, power down! I jumped to my feet and ran for safety. I wiped my baby down with the ends of my t-shirt, before I powered her back up.

I had to regroup. Not let it get to me. I situated myself in the demilitarized zone. On the sidewalk. The black flowers were ruthless. They popped up and sprayed me from the edge of the grass. I was stunned. I fell back into traffic. The horns sounded. Some bitch in a Charger sniped at me. Obviously she had never been up against the black flowers!

Clearly this was too good to be true. This oasis of internet and lush green grasses was a trap! The black flowers, they infiltrated the neutral area, shamelessly. I had to pack up and retreat. Then I looked back and saw my bike lying there. In the heart of the madness. I took a deep breath and charged in, the spray cutting across my ankles. I grabbed the bike by the horns and wheeled her about and out.

Soon the whole incident was behind me. It took me time before I could laugh about it. Atleast ten minutes. The shock wore off like lottery ticket scratchcover. My rims and spokes were shining beneath the weight of me, and I was back to cruising the riverside. My course was true as my wheels. Wind and steel and woman, united. Flawless!

And this, my carefully dried  and edited correspondence...from a post I once abandoned, water-logged. At the height of the mad rush of black flowers all around me. At the height of such madness I survived, one day, along the banks of the American River.