love. circling

we rode our bikes across the bridge. on windy days we stopped to watch the starlings fly down off the supports, hundreds of them circling in unison. traversing land, sky and water. it was here where, what felt like a hundred years ago, we fell in love.  

  #katyamills

one five

the river swells

the walls of peat cannot contain her

the plain floods and the citizens run for their lives 

had they only listened when she spoke

tugging on them from the murky depths 

while they swam  

#katyamills

in the fog

late at night

they come 

they travel down mountainsides

within water molecules 

by gravity

then rise up off the grassy banks 

as condensation to hover

low over the city 

the full moon witnesses

the harvest. the lost 

souls

#katyamills

full speed

we gather around the table
eating chicken off the bone listening

to the old man tell us stories

the snow
melting off the mountains
comes toward us now
full speed

#katyamills

headwaters

we descend Mount Shasta to a city park at its base, where you find the headwaters of the Sacramento River. they say the snow water takes 50 years to flow through the mountain to this source. people carrying containers make their way around the mouth to the reach the cave the pure water pours from. a sacred place. from here the giant river opens up and irrigates the land. from Redding to Chico to Sacramento. across the Delta and down into San Francisco Bay. the days are hot and dry. this is the valley. we search for olives...trailed by birds. #katyamills

heartbreakers

walked a rocky path into a river they

got swept away

left a part of her behind in

the broken clay 

artifact of those games

we all play heartbreakers 

of the world unite and 

take over  

#katyamills

ghost. tower bridge

Minutes before midnight we were passing through letters and numbers of roads. The harvest had grown thin with the moon, and the night was lit in pockets by neon-spelled vacancies between empty lots and service stations on the main thoroughfare. The fires of hell had been subdued by the fighters, and left a tinge of smoke to permeate the valley air. I hugged my sweatshirt close and listened to the engine of the truck as you brought her to speed. The tower bridge was in sight now, outlined by spotlights facing up to the sky. The river swirled quiet below in the dark, turning and churning and yearning for sea. We could not help but seeing a figure, taller than life and draped in unknown layers of cloth, standing in the middle of the street at the entrance to the bridge.  I looked at you and you looked at me. A chill came across our engines, as we thundered on by in the lowest of gears. The figure stood perfectly still. I tried to see who it might be and found myself looking into a void with no face and no name, and no resonance of life, none whatsoever! We both knew instinctively after passing, not to look back. I looked down at the body of water and saw some reflections of light in the water. The bridge underneath spoke out against the weight of us...thus had we crossed over.

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? 

trespass. in a storm

There was a storm last night. The wind and rain assaulted the trees and many limbs were lost. A palm frond fell on my head as I was leaving my apartment and I forgot my name and yours. I broke into a car with keys I found in my pocket, to find shelter from falling stars. They tend to be much bigger and more dangerous in person. I noticed a warm light stretching out from an apartment in an adjacent building, so I opened the gate and entered the yard and walked cautiously up the stairs, which were littered with stardust, the skin of trees and wet leaves. I knocked on the open door and called into the light. Nobody came. That's when I felt the tickle on my neck and realized my head was bleeding. Otherwise I wouldn't have gone inside. How strange and fortunate to find pictures of myself and my family on a desk and table; I no longer felt so bad about my trespass! Clearly this stalker of me had great taste in art and food and music, I thought, as I snacked on their Blue Diamond sea-salted almonds and sweet peanut-butter coated granola bars while listening to the Jimi Hendrix Experience in stereo on vinyl. They even had my favorite hot sauce and moonrocks, and brown eggs, too. Then some baby tigers approached me and looked to me like I was their leader. I offered them coleslaw but they weren't interested - not until I drew a puddle of sweet cream across a saucer for them.

Nobody ever came home, so I made the place mine with very little rearranging necessary. I even answered the phones with a catchy name I made up which was well-received, and all of the magical passwords which came to mind automatically, opened me into their systems so I could learn exactly who I was supposed to be, in one week time, and all my new clothes fit perfectly. How fortunate I cracked my head open on that singular stormy evening! Otherwise I might still have nothing and be nobody, and that was no way to be. Damn. Now I'm gonna have to consider paying taxes.

Journal # 01.17.17

The life is dynamic again, i go from the placid waters with the oars up, sittting peacefully on my raft with my legs hanging off the back and the little cyclones of water, gazing behind me lost in thought, to this inevitable drop again, not a waterfall anymore but something approaching rapids and i swear i don't have a helluva a lot of confidence in myself to navigate the rapids, i really worry i am gonna lose control and hit a rock and go flying. but i am used to hitting the ground hard and getting up with a busted hip or knee and limping around for a while feeling bad for myself. that's something i know how to do really well.

the river. with family

The river came to us and met us at her banks, midday and summer hot, we had only to approach her like disciples with our faith in her and find our place (which seemed designed for us, divined for us) where she came flush with the land, a mossy patch of soil leveling there with the freshwaters. we laid a thin blanket down and had submarines for lunch with cuts of avocado and alfalfa and cream cheese on bread. we used the sub wrappings as plates and we talked. there was my older brother, m&m (my niece), Skipper the dog, and me. they were on their way to Tahoe from the Bay, and thought of me and stopped by for lunch. i decided on the river cause i had not seen my niece in so long, and i wanted us to have a peaceful place to reconnect. besides a few river rats around us (i mean locals who were mostly friendly albeit boisterous), we were all enfolded there into the pastoral scene as if we had been painted in by a master, in oils and acrylics on canvas. nothing here could or would speak to the frenetic city behind us or the insane politics of the world. we had shade from the heat and a chance to show one another the kindnesses of a decade ago. i cannot believe i lost her for so long, the greater part of which I can attribute to life's path, problems and poor choices i made. while they were trying to raise a family in the twenty-first century, i was literally falling and climbing and slipping and reinventing myself and trying to manage in a world which i didn't think really wanted me. i seemed to have marginalized myself, but it wasn't all my fault. it was just my life. and nobody was really blaming anyone, but the river between us could not be forded back then.

now we found ourselves on the same banks, reunited, and i had my lucky break after several years of remedying the mischief of my life and lifestyle, involved in many decent and useful causes these days, full of purpose these days. i got the chance to speak my truth, and m&m got hers, and i had a wonderful listen while my brother her father sat between us and the dog at our feet, panting in the heat. my brother and sister (in-law) have done a fine job parenting as anyone could do. i am grateful to them, not having made that commitment myself. anyway i can be a part of the family, is good enough for me, anyway i can help. today it means not being demanding or complaining or selfish, just staying open to any opportunity may come along, for i love them and that's all i know. i was not so attentive to my family in my twenties or even in my thirties, so overwhelmed was i by my own life. and unhappy or depressed some of the time. vices and habits and poor choices in company. you know the story. i may be at fault for many things, but not for becoming who i am today.

so here we are, the past behind us, making what we can of our moment together. i didn't seem to think we had much in common anymore, me and my family. but i learned in truth, by my experience (such is truth) that when you have blood in common, that alone is the mark which oughta draw you together; blood alone oughta bring out the best in us. to be there for family no matter how incongruent your aims, how varied your pursuits, how rocky the terrain of your individual temperaments. you show yourself (when welcome) and give of yourself as only you can. i may not be any great success of any kind, yet i have survived a sometimes cold and callous world, city life, and the effects of an often misguided sense of my place in it all. so i am blessed to reach out and be received. we had a nice lunch. we had a nice talk. we saw a sea creature surfacing every half minute for air, as it plodded upriver. it was unusual and mysterious. My brother and niece were both worried that it needed salt water to survive. Skipper the dog met a friend. the river rats began splashing about just down from us. the sun reached the top of the sky and looked down. it could not quite find us. we packed up to go. i believe this is as good a new beginning as any. my niece she seemed unsure at first, and i was a bit anxious, but walking back to the car beside her i felt the good feeling with them, knowing we are blood, we have good history, and there's hope - the sun has found us now - and nothing means more to me than this.

Journal # 06.03.16

Give me the night give me silence, a destination where i stand, so I can live here - off and on - this land. Give me an apple to stir up my blood - i will give you my all - anything and a juicy story to tell. Find me at the river at dawn - the valley drawn - straight outta my mind. Come and hold me if you can. I made a ring of water and hold no promises - i'm an honest girl - still circling round the fire burned my heart. Now I know I have no control. And when I remember it's better this way. The green glass Tanqueray and all the drunken dreams dissolved, unreal, taken by the current, back to the channel, the great wide open and changed the world. We were left behind where we found us, belly to belly and eyes upon us, down in the dust of the dusk, nine at night. Making out all right, on the bank, snuggled up against a fallen tree, you and me, summer times together, we started something never ended like the war. Fallen in your arms again some day, unexpectedly, you and me, over tea. You may throw your cap into the air - spinning like the dream - left me dead lost in my despair. Tangles in my hair, I will jump off a rock into the eddy. Wake myself up so good to share my life with you. Under the sky, dead heat in the sun. Wet. And ready...

not a color exactly. a hue

I found myself in a color, in a hue. We were driving away from it all. I gave him the keys to my car. He knew a place far down the river where we could get close to the water and sit in the shade. The river looked blue from above, and green when you came close. But it was neither of those. I had been in a room with friends, earlier, on a sunday morning. I drank decaf coffee and listened and began to smile. Not everyone had a story to share. I find great comfort in a spacious meeting hall, where you can say what you need to say and nobody will talk over you. Where you can say nothing and still be seen. Faraway, sitting on a riverbank, was the same. I lost myself in a color, in a hue. I wouldn't call it green. I wouldn't call it blue.

silently carried by water. (a creative nonfiction)

I suck up air and float down the river on my back. I cannot hear anything cause the water is over my ears and I like it, I cannot see anything with the sun in my eyes and fish gather beneath me for shade. A feather floats by, and another. A long time ago she was my age, my mother, now I am hers and I have no children at all, almost six feet tall. The snowy egret is fishing on the far shore and soon it will be fall and the salmon will swim the other way, the friends will stop on their way to Lake Tahoe. From Lake Tahoe. We will have coffee cause that's what you do without kids, drink coffee and talk about something; life may not pull you along so you push it. Push it into passages push it into song. Give it to anyone else to find meaning... to make meaning... and then? That's your children, there. You give them to the world or they go out alone, people see you in them, they see you; they reflect you and you, you are proud of them; very sad if they fail, god forbid if they die. I suck up air so I can float down the river on my back with the feathers. We are soft, we are moving, absorbing all that we can, trying to stay on the surface, yet always we fall deep... to find meaning... to make meaning. Push into song and pulled into words into narrative. Drinking coffee cause that's what you do, not six feet tall, no children, none at all nearing fall. Snowy egrets and passage of time. Fish in the shade, sun in the eyes... silently carried by water.

the current

awaken to you
your strength in
the sun

awaken to me
black lashes
white walls

to the river
we go

your hand in mine
we watch
them drift along

i wrap myself
around your broad
back

i press myself
into you

the sky and the sun
the river and geese
me and you

by the current
taken

Belonging - Journal # 06.17

Belonging. I long to be among friends. To be seen and understood and appreciated. The freedom to say what I feel like saying without getting shot down. To laugh with friends. To not suffer undue judgment and cruelty and gossip. Gossip is abusive. I long to feel comfortable and move about a room without worrying or feeling self-conscious. Sometimes I think it is me, that I am the one causing this stress on myself. Last night I was with a couple of good friends who know me well. I realized that no, I was wrong. I am simply sensitive to my environment, and for good reason. Because I have been in truly threatening worlds and have been badly hurt because I was extra trusting of strangers or acquaintances who did not have a place for me in their heart, and treated me accordingly. So I am cautious and careful. And I am very relieved tonight, to see this is not any permanent scar, but simply a reaction to changes in my environment, based on experience. Because around my friends last night? I was happy go lucky high energy madameoiselle sweet sugar remoulade, all smiles! Thank god for good friends! xxx

Sunday Journal (06.14)

Locke, California. Sweet delta breeze and a friend of a friend of friends. We piled in the GTI all four of us for breakfast on the banks of the river just shy of Freeport and just shy of Sacramento, east of the cold rails on a mosaic of a table a cut above the painted toenails. Three coffees and a water from the laughter to the lips. Just shy of a ghost train, midday, and just in time. Delta Breeze rustles through the trees and blinds made of bamboo framing the windows of you know who. A friend of a friend of friends. The sun came up like usual this morning, and lit up the sky different than ever before. I turned and thanked the door for the score. Skipped the stairs in pairs, and got airborne over the orange fat cat -whiskers like fish- rolling belly up, white, like the opposite of last night.

And so went the day, and so went the day. Kind smiles of distant friends growing close like the cabbage in the garden, and my faith in love is still devout *. The girl with the bleach blonde hair, sweet Joanna of the wild blue eyes and the deep blue seas, asks for an avocado omelette, could you, please? I shake the salt and pepper over my eggs and the slash and burn of hash and browns. I could see the whole clearly now, bird's eye view. I lost and found my glasses somewhere along the way, by the garden. A man who makes cutting boards by hand, of the most riveting natural grains of wood, helped me retrace my steps one by one. We found them on the tortoise. He was reading Ulysses and rather slowly, a symphony of hens behind him.

Joanna says no, hold the toast. Hold the rye, hold the sourdough, hold the wheat, and your hand over your heart for the Canadian national anthem. This lovely man before me, the one with the twin daughters who are having too much fun to settle down, has embroidered quite a morning for us all. Hospitality doesn't come overnight. Sometimes it takes almost six months to make.  Ramon spontaneously grabs the 12-string and sings us a song, the beaten strength carries long. I remember how music once saved me.

Confucious in cobwebbs says it won't be long. Echoes of the Peking Opera in the theater long-since closed, and soon to be refurbished to keep all of Locke upon its toes. A friend of a friend of friends now a friend of a friend... now a friend.

-KatYa

* Rusholme Ruffians, The Smiths