20things : odd farewells

1. So I've gotten emotional over this whole house / history / house story aspect of moving. 
2. I have a lot of narrative that took place here; it makes me unexpectedly emotional.
3. And a lot of stuff I've been dragging around since before I lived in Ohio, which takes the narrative back further into the past.
4. I sort of cried a little when I separated out the majority of my carefully curated collection of costume and handmade necklaces vs. the ones I could still wear with the arthritis in my neck.
5. I donated almost all my cds and over half of my books.
6. Probably about nine bags of clothes and random baroque costumery, also gone.
7. My cassette collection (laugh and I'll cut you) went into the trash.
8. Juno and Ravi's medical records --trash.
9. But then I got emotional about something that surprised the hell out of me.
10. I said goodbye to my makeup. (I don't really wear 90% of anymore. Well, aside from a few basic items and nail polish in summer).
11. And not just "bye bye makeup" {trash}
12. No, I said goodbye to items as individuals.
13. Cranberry colored lipstick : you were a couple of really good office temp jobs."
[INTERRUPTION as I am writing this] : Luna, stop shredding that box.
14. Kohl eyeliner : My favorite eye pencil! You went to a lot of clubs and fancy dinners.
15. Liquid liner: I never really got you. You were always good for drawing on other parts of my body than my eyelids.
Luna, we actually paid someone to bring us that box, stop using it as a scratching post.
16. Raisin colored lipstick : Thanks for the help when I had to retake my photo ID when I moved back to PA. Everybody comments on the good picture.
17. Blue lipstick : You were years of clubbing, and a matching blue wig. Your wig-friend has already gone.
18. Roll-on glitter : That raver thing was more than a phase. Or else it was a very long phase.
Luna, I swear to GOD. {I finally just hoist the cat from her site of bad behavior and into the dining room.}
19. China-blue nail polish : I got inspired to get you after Ava and I had our first pedi together. It was the second time I'd ever had a pedicure, the first being my wedding.
20. I don't think I realized how symbolic and laden stuff has gotten for me. Like, individual items all have a story, and I'm remembering that story as I'm sorting them into donate, trash, and (the rather smaller) keep pile.

That is all.
Still not eating great, but I had a sandwich yesterday and nothing bad happened.
Luna is now back on top of the Forbidden Box, gleefully attempting to maul the tape with her teeth and claws.

Seriously reduced jewelry collection. If you are interested in knowing about / examining any part of the rest, please comment or send me fb mail.

How many bottles of nail polish can one like, legitimately have before it gets to be, arguably, too many bottles of nail polish?

20things : word / cave

1) Sometimes there is a cave where I go.
2) Or rather, where I am put.
3) Where I put myself?
4) It swallows all light, all sound, all thought.
5) And all my sleep.
6) I sit there at the back of it.
7) Words are what I do.
8) But the cave has swallowed all of them.
9) The cave has taken light, sound, and thought...
10) but it has left feeling.
11) Some feelings.
12) The cave has taken joy.
13) I'm in the back of the cave with...
14) no light, sound, thought, sleep, words, or joy.
15) I can see lights moving outside the cave.
16) It's the rest of the village.
17) They are preparing for morning and day.
18) I finger the floor beneath me.
19) Rocks and minerals are sharp against my palms.
20) How long until I become them?

Word / 

Cave

20things : faint

1) Yesterday morning while packing I fainted very, very briefly.
2) This is not normal.
3) Only one other time has this happened to me
4) [the first time I was a teenager and very sick].
5) And it was like I had a head full of
6) bees     swirling static     many many radio frequencies
7) And I thought whoa
8) And I thought this is kind of extreme
9) And then it was like
10) head controls legs? yes/no [choose one]
11) And I thought I'm gonna hit the ground now
12) But there's a chair.
13) We call this one the comfy chair.
14) It is a La-Z-Boy with like water damage or something?
15) But we refuse to throw it out b/c it is so comfy.
16) I slept in that chair in college. And after.
17) I think I have been Mike's friend for as long as the comfy chair has existed.
18) I fell into the comfy chair awkwardly.
19) My limbs were in all the wrong places.
20) But the many frequencies sort of tuned into one and the falling woke me up.

20things : movement

1) Have had extreme bouts of anxiety wherein I haven't been eating.
2) And then I don't sleep and then I sleep a lot.
3) And then I throw out more stuff.
4) And then I donate more stuff. 
5) And then I build boxes to pack more stuff.
6) Occasionally get pulled out of myself to meet with others.
7) The leaving is hard. I don't like it.
8) I don't like it.
9) But the destination is worth it.
10) When I'm back at home more anxiety...
11) ...which usually comes with hysterical crying.
12) I try to do this when I am alone as it is troubling to others. Crying is new for me so I mostly welcome it though.
13) Or sleep. Sleep also.
14) I no longer have the layout of my house memorized in the dark. 
15) Because of all the boxes and some furniture rearranged.
16) Since I can't see in the dark I developed this coping strategy. 
17) Mike says turn on lights.
18) I like navigating in the dark.
19) It makes me feel special.
20) I have some new bruises now.

The other day I saw these early buds of spring. They might be pussy willow, but I've never seen pussy willow on a tree before, only cut.

20things : Not Again

1. Not again is what I thought when I tore off a corner of the thick yellow envelope and carefully pulled apart the seam.
2. There had been an email alert that a new document was coming.
3. It contains lines like WITNESSETH:  THAT THE SAID PART OF THE FIRST PART, for and in consideration of the sum of TEN AND NO/100 DOLLARS ($10.00) cash and other good and valuable consideration in hand paid at and before the sealing and delivery of these presents by said PART OF THE SECOND PART, receipt of which is hereby acknowledged, does by these presents, REMISE...
4. I don't know what REMISE means.
5. I don't really know what any of that means.
6. The first definition of google says remise = an expensive or high class hackney.
7. I'm a little unclear about the noun hackney. I think it means a carriage of some sort.
8. I don't think that's right.
9. After more looking I find the definition to relinquish a claim to.
10. It seems I am relinquishing the claim to my mother's house.
11. Which I thought I'd already did.
12. I'm a bit muddled in the head from all this.
13. It's like.... cruel, almost?
14. I gotta find another notary? When I almost cried at the first one?
15. I can't do grieving and downsizing my own fucking house at the same time.
16. There's not enough energy for each one.
17. This afternoon I have to go through all my books and get them down to two bookshelves worth because we went through the floor plan with graph paper and little to-scale cutouts of the furniture we want to take and we can only hold five bookshelves.
18. I am relinquishing the claim to my books. Books make me feel safe. Lots and lots and lots of books.
19. The poetry section stays. I don't know what's going to happen to the rest.
20. I just don't know what is going to happen.

Talking to the blind eye

So I wrote this poem based on three things:

1) I was charmed at AWP by a panel called something like Readings and Performances in Digital Media which featured, among other things, a guy who wrote perl scripts to generate poems within certain parameters. When he read them it was a cascade of language that generated a pleasant emotional heat.
2) A conversation with a friend, at the end of which we made it our goal for the week to talk to our injured parts.
3) Anagram divination.

***


Talking to the Blind Eye

A lithe gilt knot. 
Bed yen.

Gal knit to debt, 
heel, 
yin.

Bind heel, yet talk gin to.

Taking blithe, 
needy lot.

Tiny ink 
to bleed the lag.

A picture of the eye that is completely blind. As you can tell, I wear my hair over it. This is because I'm self-conscious about how it has a will of its own and stares off into nowhere.

Leaving for Boston in a Snowstorm and I remember

When I was 13 walking through the woods with a friend. She dodged all the bare branches that stretched from the thin tree trunks and blocked our path. I wanted to move as fast as she did, but the snow-covered terrain hid rocks, sticks, sliding things. Trying to catch up, I kept falling. I couldn't see the branches so I pushed them away angrily. She said don't push them away; they'll push back. Go around them instead. The branches whiplashed into my face, already wet with cold and shame. I didn't listen to her. I batted at them from the edges of my non-vision. I ate my anger as branch after branch stung my cheeks.

The trees outside my back porch this morning.