pandemic day 17

April 3
Global cases = 1,041,000
USA = 246,000
Sacramento = 361

I saw an image of NYC firefighters standing in the middle of the avenue applauding hospital staff. In five or six days they are expected to start running out of painkillers, PPEs (gowns, masks), sedatives, and ventilators. One nurse described going to work as 'sheep going in for the slaughter'. The governor is comparing covid19 to a 'slow-moving hurricane'. It's friday and I'm off work. I slept in and awoke to the beautiful sound of morning birds in springtime. The natural world outside is like nothing ever happened. It's my anchor. I took a walk to the seven eleven for a cup of coffee. Plexiglass now separates cashiers from customers. More and more people are wearing surgical masks. The city in the morning is quiet and far from the usual hustle and bustle of a morning commute. Over ten million Americans filed for unemployment in the last two weeks. Wimbledon and the Olympics are cancelled along with the entire sporting season. Kids are fetching chromebooks as school is out indefinitely. Church services are supposed to be accomplished online but several devilish pastors across the nation and in my hometown have been arrested for encouraging their congregations to continue to come on Sunday. The true idiots who somehow rose to power by accident are showing their true colors. Even our so-called leader of our nation ought to take a class in leadership. What ever happened to FDR and 'the only thing we have to fear, is fear itself?'

put me away. they

all the pain in my body i was

talking to myself they won’t put me

away i seem to be okay i

gotta full time job the only chemical

in my system is caffeine

they won’t put me away

i gotta therapist i

got a yoga class a bunch of misfit friends

and family though they live so far

away they won’t put me

away

i got an imagination that’s my favorite part my

greatest strength my best asset my one

talent i think i’ll write it

down and make it

real

prose version: all the pain in my body could not stop me. i was talking to myself and giving myself encouragement. hopefully they won't put me away. i seem to be okay. i gotta full time job and the only chemical in my system is caffeine. i gotta chiropractor and a therapist. i got a yoga class and a bunch of friends. i gotta family though they live so far away. i got an imagination and that's my favorite part. i think i'll write it down and make it real.

broke the dial on the contrast

i once got more into socializing than books
the writing and reading
when you go blind like that there’s no sure thing
you gonna come back


i spun around that way for years
comparison shopping
broke the dial on the contrast


now i got my vision back you
can be damn sure i’m deep
into paper


you need no contrast to believe
in yourself

july 31, 2019

this morning i did my jumping jacks and boiled the coffee to mix with cream. this morning i called my dad, today is his birthday. my kittens are alarm clocks and get me early out of bed. i did the dishes and prepared a salad for later. i rang the tibetan bell and listened to my heartbeat. i called the love of my life for he is on the road again. i cannot count my blessings. i can sit here at my desk and beat up the old english language for a while. all what makes life at 46 worth living.

Reading (ATE58)

journal #

i have been posting every day on this website for several years now. probably not every post is a gem. but when you bundle them, all the writings make up a constellation of my life. so i like it. walk into the woods some night. find a clearing out beyond the artificial lights. look up into the sky. what do you see? not all the stars glow so brightly. each is different from the other. is the sky any less a wonder to behold? 

your atypical

your atypical was beloved
we were all so inspired
especially me

when you acted like a child
and ran circles around
the tree

when you drew a moon
where the sun was
and it came
to be

atypical. photo by katya, 2017

aka.pain diaries

Gettin' to be great at anything is like throwing yourself into a whiteout a snow sky (not a blackout) and surrendering to how the world feels you touches you allows you to exist... and fights you to see what you're made of (engulfs you if you're not made of anything worth asserting yourself) and celebrates you if you can stay in it's light (and darkness) long enough (aka endure) to change and tolerate pain, and work at staying the same while changing. call it core values if you want. call it spontaneous expression. call it art or authorship if you want. call yourself god. see if I give a fuck.

in kind

Correspondence was not much fun anymore. i was lucky if i got a card in the mail. emails made me nervous because there were so many awaiting reply. the days of receiving long letters penned in script by hand in ink on someone's personal stationery were over. i had a thought. if i took the time to write letters the old way again, bypassing text and email and chat and video, and even bypassing phone, would I get a response in kind? and then might time turn back for us and write our lives the way we once wrote them, when we wrote long missives on personal stationery with silver trim and painted envelopes, hanging sideways over our elbows, quietly playing with each letter,  slowly, conscientiously by scripted hands, young and rolling in ink.

know things

there are things you know and oh, did i tell you i know some things, too, like how much i miss you and need you around, to fill up my heart with your being profound?

k @ home 2017

how you keep it together

the sun rises every morning. sometimes you have to pull the curtains back from the windows and let the light in, otherwise you may not know. the sun did its part and showed up. you have to do your part now, and arrive on scene. in the light and feeling the world upon your exposed skin, you can be rugged and raw. just exist. you won't have to recite your lines, though they may ask you. the longer i live, the more i find it difficult to rehearse. painful to memorize. how i keep it together (when i keep it together) is by showing up honest and true, hiding nothing. it can be painful getting here, and the magic lies in spontaneity. which also means... we cannot always keep it together. it won't necessarily break their hearts to see us falling apart for a moment. i love to watch them watch me regroup.

here.now

Life makes its own meaning day after day. Joseph Campbell knew what people are searching for and it's not the meaning of life. I want the embodied feeling of being alive. The vitality. This is a greater cause. Still I am driven to write the books I was chosen to write for the world.  Lately I feel I am closer to a wholeness of energy, a fullness not unlike tonight's super full moon. I think it may be a payoff for all the obligations I've taken on. It's an interesting experiment but I have to write the books. Nothing compares to how you feel when you do what you were born to do.

last day

fightin to breath
swamped with media
loving you

mad at a careless system

sometimes it feels like
the last day
and

our boots crush the leaves
trodding on
into the thick

dream #1234

So many dreams to go. This one is a waking dream of  acceptance, to see myself in the context of all my world and relationships and choices and demands, the push and pull, the ebb and flow, and wake up each day willing to embrace it. To fight for what I want and need, knowing full well the fight will never end for the challenge is the life.

hacks get hacked

Now we uncover the hacks and the vices of folks who got power truth spoke to. now they wish that their names be forgotten after fame had a name to remember.

books

i was invited to Folsom this week by a book club to showcase my work and meet some who read my first serial fiction. i had a blast and got to share my process, and listen to some fine critiques of my work. now i know i cannot fool anyone and why would i? good books can sell and weak books sell, too. i am determined to publish only books that brought out the best in me writing them. blood, sweat, tears, and coffee. it's no use to be loved or hated if you cannot take pride and stand behind your little offspring-creations.

un.plan

vitality gets dispelled by a plan, yet planning is expected and encouraged. i wish we could release our blueprints more readily, without fear, to the wind stirred up by a rising sun.

perishable

reading the news headlines every night before bed, i tend to become tired and uninspired. reading a book does me better. i think i am perishable. i need to care for myself a little extra.

the telling

Those who survived terrific and terrifying scenes of yesterday, survived simply in some cases today and tomorrow by not telling. Like authority or ego outgrowing itself -- the truth was irrevocably exposed, and one could feel so out of place. Not making sense, all sense falls away...no grammar, no ruler, no rules. no meticulous edit. no beta.need.care.anymore. without any closure you-they-it has and have found recourse to-from...above-below...this. the very end. the beauty in live-to-tell was not in the telling. it was in not telling. or. surviving and not needing to tell. for now, you and all you have been through are known if not cherished.

an easy recycling of a difficult time

They landed carelessly on the bench and caught up. A duck waddled past them and floated itself in the pond. The lamps were beginning to respond to dusk, and passerbys grabbed their coats around them to keep warm. Not a second went by where a leaf would not take flight and spiral to the ground, and the path was crunchy underfoot. They drank tea from paper cups and decided how they might make use of the night. There was a rooftop to situate themselves with a lesser known vantage of the skyline, west by northwest. They could hang their legs over the ledge and let worries fall away. They had known one another for years, yet it never felt stale; sometimes united, other times more divisive. The lights on the skyline got blurry with tears, still beautiful in an abstract sorta way, the shattering and scattering of every straight line. An easy recycling of a difficult time.