The Magic of Falling and the Inclination to Fly

I'm sitting here at 7:58 on a Monday night typing underneath a sky that makes me think everything is possible.

I've been thinking a lot about a idea that was offered to me when I was in my early twenties that has stuck with me.  It's the idea of surrounding yourself with people who you want to be like and people who you admire. It doesn't mean that you have to mind-blowingly admire every person in your life, but that, generally, you gravitate toward the people you see lesson, love and inspiration in.  The people who, by their very relationship to the world around them and how they interact with it, make you strive to be better. Make you aim to be less afraid.  (Here I'm thinking of that saying "When the root is deep, there is no reason to fear the wind.")  This is the people I hold in my life, the people I'm beginning to hold in my life, and the people I will hold in my life in the future.

It's like building your own dream team so to speak.

Anyway.

I'm thinking of my friend Alex tonight.  He recently sent me a video of him telling a story to a group of people at a house party. (I harassed him until he agreed to have someone record it).  Since I got it, I have watched it multiple times.  I have shared it with multiple friends in multiple countries.

His graciousness, love, talent, humbleness, intelligence, and eye on the love of the collective over the individual always infuses me with a lesson and mentorship that I am forever appreciating, learning from, and craving. He is able to speak truth to power as easily as he is able to welcome someone who may feel excluded. His agility at navigating languages (both literal and figurative), his sharp analysis, and being able to laugh at himself moves me in the way that the people in my life move me to do and be better. And, perhaps above all, to create and to connect instead of sever and isolate.

I'm not sure why it makes me tear up when I watch it.

Part of it has to do with the love and respect I have for people who choose to feel over numbing out. 
People who will speak the truth and take risks and speak beauty in this world that, too often, reaches to crush emotion, to hide emotion, to encourage people to hide themselves under hard shells thinking it as protection, and/or to commodify everything around them that originated from a beating, flowing, vibrant heart.

I think that may be why I tear up at it.

(pause)

I want so gently to remove your mask. It's hard enough to find water here.

(pause)

It takes a lot to hold on to what your heart feels.

This world is set up for people to pretend to want, to desire, and to hate so many things that make no sense. Things that have no authentic connection to a true (untainted by power systems and expectations) desire. 

To love and be loved and to offer love.

To recognize that sometimes that love simply comes in the form of making eye contact with someone and seeing them. To make room for who they are because they are wanted.

To recognize that sometimes that love comes in the form of choosing to connect rather than sever.

To recognize that sometimes that love comes in the form of building and letting yourself be loved in a way you were never shown.

Raise your voice in swells, find your meanings then
Use your signs inside to relive and never care

No point in holding back on what you're holding
No matter it be shit or it be golden
Foundations shift, they're still shifting
We set up, we set up our falls

Hold on tight to your fears
Cause that's your hatred
And that's your love as well

Learn to use all your fears
As a fuel, an engine
To get you where you need

I must always remember
There's no point to surrender 

I shift

I shift



Here is to the far-flung families we build and the heights to which we can lift (and sometimes propel) each other within them.


Be well, be loved.

Thank you, Alex.


k.

(First italicized words are written by Crass. The second set of italicized words are from Turnstile by Hot Water Music)
(Image: John Evans, Beach with Moon Heavens via chasingtailfeathers tumblr)
(Title: Inspired by the beautiful story Pájaro, by A. Frixione.)

The Trappings of Family, or, "How Do I Get In Your Muthafuckin Heart?"

I've been going to the water, early, lately. To sit and stare and write and do.

I. (She)

I want your mouth on mine

Press your mouth into mine
Give me your legs I can't get enough of
your hands
and that part of your neck that runs from your ear to your shoulder

Let me fuck you

until you melt into me
a thousand times over
Tell me a part of what's upset you
each time you cum

Let me open you from behind

describe permanence and home
into your ear
watch your eyes close in surrender
and your mouth start to open in want



II. (She)

A list of what I have to get rid of and/or let go of:

The secret things you gave me that I have no business still having.
The plans that I had to go meet your mom's people.
The idea of meeting your dad and seeing who this man is who is in part responsible
for creating you.

III. (She)

It was your bone structure. Your hands. Your serious and concentrated look. It was how you would try and make it up to your cat when you would be frustrated about something, alone in your apartment, and hit the furniture and it would startle your cat. It was the little travel coffee mug thing you bought me. It was how you would need me to spray water on the windshield to clean the passenger side of it if you were in my car and there were smudges in your sightline. It was your filterlessness. It was safety. It was the pour over coffee thing you bought me. It was how you made coffee. It was the music that you listened to. It was your stark analytical mind. It was your laugh. It was your voice. It was the baseball bat that you gave me that I would later have to explain to a state patrol officer. It was your routine of taking baths. It was "Nobody Else But You". It was the fact that you were "that guy" - the one who smoked pot in a a non-smoking apartment building. It was Eleanor. It was how you would try and get me to watch a show I had no interest in 500 times (You read that the main character was taken off of the show after several people called him out for sexual harassment, right?  Yes. Including trans actresses). It was how you actually listened to R&B. It was everything in its place. It was your desire to travel. It was your eye for detail. It was your strength. It was the color of your eyes. It was your teeth. It was the retainer you wore at night. It was your socks that I appreciated. It was your sweatpants. It was your habits. It was your bones. It was me taking my camping trash with me every time I left your house. 

IV. (She)

Do you remember the day you were at my house and you accidentally knocked over a glass bottle of olive oil and it shattered?

We moved things around and cleaned it up as best we could, together.

Hands and knees and oil
trying to be careful
to get the chunks of glass.

We used towels but mostly this white and sparkled gift tissue that I pulled from the hallway closet. We used every rectangle of it until it was gone.
It was surprisingly absorbent.

I remember you remarking something about how you appreciated that I didn't get mad.

That if you would have done this in your mom's house, she would have yelled at you.

"Of course. It was a mistake," I said.

I turned around
and put the glass we had collected
into a paper bag.

I thought about what you said.

I couldn't imagine someone yelling at you for a mistake.
Especially not one that could have hurt you.



I understand this interaction in a different way, now.

Your reaction to mistakes and its history.

I understand it as lineage.

It doesn't have to be but

Here I am:

by myself and

with nothing left

to use

to absorb the mess.
 


k.
(title: Second title is from Rihanna's Love On the Brain)
(image: Gerhard Richter (German, b. 1932), Souvenir, 31/64, 1995. Oil on canvas, 21 x 21 cm. This work is number 31 of 64 unique parts from the painting CR 84, which was cut into individual canvases by the artist. Via thunderstruck9 tumblr)

What I've Got: A Lullabye and an Anthem

*What I've got is the beauty of friends who will come over with a pizza post-show because they know I could use some laughter.

*What I've got are friends who write who inspire me and who do things as brave as read their writing at a house show AND RECORD IT FOR ME SO I CAN HEAR IT. (I'm looking at you, A.)

*What I've got is yet another day of feeling *fucking so good*. [Yesterday I went to a job that I go to once every month and a half or so.  There is kind of a physical memory of how, at the end of the day at this job, I would feel so terrible that I wouldn't be sure if I could drive home.  And yesterday? I was at the end of my day being like: Bring it! and daydreaming about the avocado roll that was in my bag that I couldn't wait to devour.]

*What I've got is the fact that I can't read this Ray Bradbury story (Somewhere a Band is Playing) without losing my shit about some of the words he writes.  For example, one character asks another how he guessed that he was a writer.  The guesser replies by saying:

"Your tongue improves your words on their way out. Keep talking."

(insert muffled sound of a big sack of flour falling to the ground, here, as I pass out.)

*What I've got is the fact that I get to go to a new brunch place with a fabulous person I miss on Sunday morning.

*What I've got is that I'm both happy and have an odd weight in my heart from an interaction today. I didn't realize that those things were able to coexist, exactly.  Overall, however, I feel joy in my heart and a knowing clarity.

*What I've got is the promise of what will happen when I wake up tomorrow morning (or later today as the case may be).

Things are good, warm, well tended to, and hopeful.

Off to bed with me.

Tonight I'm going to leave you with these words not written by me:

Goodnight my love
Remember me as you fall to sleep
Fill your pockets with the dust and the memories
rises from the shoes on my feet

I won't be back here
Though we may meet again

I know it's dark outside
Don't be afraid
Every time I ever cried for fear
It was just a mistake that I made
Wash yourself in your tears
And build your church
On the strength of your faith

Please
Listen to me
Don't let go
Don't let this desperate moonlight leave me
With your empty pillow
Promise me the sun will rise again

I too am tired now
Embracing thoughts of tonight's dreamless sleep
My head is empty
My toes are warm
I am safe from harm

be well; be loved,

k.

(words, above, by Slint. From Washer.)

(image taken by me of a pigeon that kept looking out every once and again while Lani and I hung out on the patio of a local bear bar)

Exhale: Ode to the Beauty and Necessity of Open Windows

Change, when it comes, cracks everything open.

-- Dorothy Allison

The other day I was celebrating (still and forever) that all of the bologna that is a thyroid related issue (among other things...) that is product of post-cancer-related surgery is over/resolved. When I mentioned this bologna in person to someone recently, the person just said:

Holy fucking shit. The thyroid controls or impacts like...everything. Mood, depression, energy, mental function, your period, weight, ...seriously everything. That must have been absolutely awful.

One of the things that is beautiful about surrounding myself with people who have compassion and understanding are moments like these: Where, instantly, every part of my body feels relief. Comfort. It is almost the feeling of laughter. When you feel so understood or accepted in a moment that you almost want to cry and smile at the same time.

It's a feeling not looking for pity or excuse - but just simply room to be.

If I had worn a hospital gown the entire six months that I knew you, would you have treated me differently? Would I have gotten more compassion? Would I have been treated as human? 

The explanations, the descriptions, and even the test results didn't seem to be enough for you.  

You still interacted with me as if what was happening inside my body wasn't happening.

Even now, looking back, you are still registering it as me doing something "to you" and on purpose.

If I had pushed myself around in a wheelchair from the exhaustion I felt and the pain in my bones, would it have changed how you interacted with me?  Would you have not yelled as much? Would you have not expected as much as you did?

Who knows.

(pause)

It's strange.  I knew you were going through so much with your family. With the death of your mother. With your new job. With your move. When you would black out and put yourself in danger, when you would lose your temper, when you would start crying out of nowhere: It made sense. I understood.  Not from an experiential standpoint. With that, I could never begin to imagine. But my heart went out to you. What you were dealing with and what you continue to deal with leads me to open every door and window for you to breathe. To offer so much compassion. 

Because 

holy fuck. 

(pause)  

Several years ago, I had the opportunity to share the stage with the incredible Dorothy Allison (Lesbian femme identified bad ass writer who wrote Bastard Out of Carolina, Skin, and a number of other books and essays). In front of roughly 300 people, I read a piece about my relationship to my diagnosis and to my doctor.  It talked about essentialist notions of illness.  What people expect from you when you are sick.  What people expect from you if you don't "look sick".

One of the most memorable moments of that night was a Sister of Perpetual Indulgence (http://theabbey.org/about-us/) coming up to me in full drag and a tear-streaked face.  She told me that she was positive and that everything I had said hit her so closely. Everything from ignoring her doctors phone calls in some feeble attempt at wishing the illness away to people expecting or not expecting things from her based on if they knew and what she looked like on a particular day.  

(pause)

A few weeks ago, you made me promise you that I would follow up on an unrelated medical exam.  I found myself thinking “I completely intend to. But, if something comes back cancerous, I’ve felt the level of compassion you offer. You are not who I would go to.”

(pause)


I want to believe it has all just been a matter of timing.

Of your world crashing while mine was just temporarily spun around for a bit. 

This is what I choose to believe.

I've always been a person to assume the best in people.

It is, when it comes down to it, what I believe about people.

(pause)

You were mad that I reached my breaking point and told you that perhaps you should program a robot to date because there would be no humanness to deal with.

About a week ago you emailed me demanding an apology for this being said. And for me implying that your bedside manner sucked. 

Your demand misses the point.

There are a lot of things that are stressful in life.  That are sources of indescribable pressure.

I made room for that with you.

I wish you would have made room for that with me.

It is the difference between the ugly and solitary feeling of building pressure from something you didn't cause

and the potential gloriousness of this form of pressure.

(pause) 

I know that a person's level of compassion can be related to how much compassion they have for themselves.  

I want you to grow all of the compassion in the world toward yourself.  

To be gentle with yourself in these months and years.

I just couldn't do the drag of illness in hopes that a person will believe me when I say that something is wrong. 

I couldn't cart around an unneeded IV on wheels in hopes that you will take my medical situation as real. 

People should be able to express what is going on with them physically and simply 

just 

be 

believed

and

given room

to be.

Be well, be loved,

k.

(image from justinegoestomedicalschool tumblr, but it looks like it originally may be from a things to draw type website)

The Bass in Your Walk: The Sun on My Skin is a Baptism

Gender shit aside, I'm not going to lie: One of the things I love the  most about days like today (sunny and 80 degrees) is the feeling of the sun warming my shirt, and then the feeling of that warm shirt against my nipples.

It's fucking fabulous.

I've been listening to records lately. It makes me happy.  Although I have made a note to invest in a record player that matches the Technics one I used to have, I find something charming about the tinny sound of the one in my living room.

I'm gearing up to have a little house warming party, albeit a year after the fact. Thank you to a beautiful and gold-hearted sergeant  who helped me with the structure of where the fuck to put everything:  Although it is still in the process, your architecture is saving my ass in this process.

Highlights of this week include but are not limited to:

The juxtaposition of hot weather and the ice cold mandarin orange seltzer water I have been partial to as of late. (Thanks to Sarge for this one, too.)

A very tall, very buff uniformed firefighter who, when asked why he was able to give commands to bystanders in points of emergency simply responded, "Because it is what needs to be done. (pause) And because of that, I don't care if I hurt your feelings." I immediately fell in love with this witnessed moment of my life.

Although it  hasn't happened yet: Seeing Lani tonight.  It's been a while, and I truly look forward to it. I don't realize how much I feel in my own skin when I'm around particular types of queer punk femmes who are friends of mine.  It's nice to admire someone's perfect make up and style while being blown away by the analysis and thoughts coming out of their mind and mouth. And, although this may be a reactionary reason to look forward to it:  She doesn't have ulterior motives.  Right now I'm really trying to hone in on my friends who are...well...FRIENDS. And not trying to secretly spoon me or some shit.

(Speaking of friends and continuing the highlights): The plant clippings that Jodi gave me.  I don't know what or when it happened, but for the past 5 years or so I've just really been loving the shit out of having a good amount of plants around- living, growing, cleaning the air... The purple plant and the succulent are the two I'm most excited about. (No shade to the new ivy plant. I'm always a sucker for the plants that grow and curl and hug.)

The one lowlight that was kind of a highlight in its own right because it was fucking ridiculous: Me driving home yesterday during rush hour having just had a piece of dirt or a small piece of gravel go into my eye.  Sitting in the sun in slow moving traffic trying to use the straw in my water bottle as an emergency eye wash but resulting only in having one raccoon eye and the particle still being in my eye.

I still don't think it's out yet.

I'll just think of it as an optical hair shirt for my eye in some form of a mix between odd Catholic kink and my forever foppish road (read: catwalk)  to repentance. 





Be well; be loved,

k.

(Image: It's been a while since I've put in an image of St. Sebastian.  Here is one by Sandro Botticilli.)
(title: Is, of course, a riff off of Lloyd Dobbler's line of "The rain on my car is a baptism" )

And You, What Would You Do For Love?

Today has been incredible. Exhausting, yes, but in the best of ways.

The day started around 5am and didn't end until around 7.

Here's the thing with interpreting:  There are some days there isn't much to do. You may get to a job that is booked for five hours and there is maybe twenty minutes worth of interpreting that happens.

But then there are days like today where there are multiple Deaf people, hearing people, Deaf-blind people and Certified Deaf Interpreters.  As an interpreter, your eyes, ears and brain are on every scrap of the room and sound for 9 hours. You have to think visually, auditorily, spatially...you become obsessed with sight lines. (Where can you stand where every person scattered about the room can see you?) You have to be ready to copy what someone is signing so that people in the back of the room can see it. There is no "off" time unless you count being in the bathroom or the one handed wolfing of food that you do.

It felt good.

I love working with the teams who take these jobs.  They are usually the more skilled interpreters.  I love the inherent need for everyone on the team to be flexible and communicate in a quick and efficient way. I love the lessons. I love the humor. I love the humility. I love the support. I love the professionalism.  I love the boundaries.  I love the ethical considerations.

As an added bonus, when leaving to make the trek home, a man's car battery had died.  I got to bust out my little car emergency kit I have in my trunk and give him a jump. I won't even pretend: I felt totally cool being able to help out. I have been waiting for a reason to use it.

I just took a bath with a bath bomb that a friend gave me a few days ago.  Something citrus-y but with lavender petals in it. It turned the water bright yellow with the flowers floating all around me while I soaked.

One of my favorite things when I take a bath is to bring a tall glass of ice water with ginger in it into the bathroom with me.

I love the juxtaposition of the temperature.

Watching the steam rise all around me while ice cubes hit my lips as I drink. The cold of the water down my throat with the heat of the bathwater on my chest.





I'm home now. 

Exhausted but content.

Sleepy but happy.



k.
(image: Hachiro Kanno via topcat77 tumblr)

As per usual, I'm completely into the photography of Joshua Kissi (Street Etiquette).  If you haven't followed him or Street Etiquette or even TONL (a company aimed to diversify stock photography), you should check it out. His photography is phenomenal. Here's his IG handle.

The Reason Fist Fights In Movies Tend to Start with a Double-Fisted Grab of a Shirt Collar

I was curious about you.

We were just scratching the surface.

Your belt wrapped around my legs, or me behind you to imagine for a bit.

One of the issues with everything being back to normal is that I want to fuck all of the time.

I don't want to fuck just anyone.

I am enjoying the sweetness of beauties that are so thoughtful in their gestures.  The ones paying attention to my likes and trying to recreate them.

An old fashioned movie with poetry and gifts and thoughts.

Those things are nice.

But they aren't what I want.

I find myself thinking beyond the flirtations with you.

That's what those months were.

Surely, you know that.

They were flirtations.

They were not your face in between my thighs.

They were not the sweat of your imagination.

They were, without question, not the sweat of mine.

I know that it scared you.

Scared you in that same way that, as a child, you would feel the rush in your stomach when you couldn't feel the depth of the pool with your toes.

You clung to the side

but there was always the thrill

of letting go.

Not gradually

but pushing off the edge

and in your kidd-o way

not giving a fuck if you died

because at least the thrill of it

would be the last thing

you remembered.





be well; be loved,

k.





(image Mark Rothko, Reds (Red Painting), 1957-1958 via dailyrothko tumblr)

[Shout out to Ayurvedic herbs. I feel like a new man. 110% for the past several weeks. I am so thankful/grateful. My body and brain can tell that they are back to normal, and just in time for Spring. 

Here is to celebratory little white panties and ridiculous amounts of leg.]

The Rules of Beyond, or, the Large, Visible Dip in Between the Neck and the Two Collarbones

I'm sitting outside in the sun in some of the lushest, greenest grass I have been in in years.  There are fat, bright yellow dandelions spattered throughout the grass.  Besides my laptop (here's to hoping that the battery lasts...) I have a water bottle filled with cold(ish) water, an 8oz thermos filled with very cold coffee, and a banana.

Let no one tell you that I am unable to "rough it in the outdoors".

Part I.

Last week I was telling my friend Joey about a book I read a few years ago that oddly changed my life.  It's not that it is incredible, necessarily, but the timing and particular content was both exciting and very needed at the time. (It also includes an interview with a young Angela Lansbury).

I had been standing in a long line at a burrito joint reading a book while waiting, and a man turned around and asked me what I was reading. (At the time: Say Her Name by Francisco Goldman). Unsure if he was just making fun of me, I told him. When I realized he was genuinely interested, I told him more. Then, I asked him what he was reading and if there was something he would recommend.  He became sheepish and admitted that, as he was a business major, he had been reading very dry books he wouldn't recommend.  There was a pause, and then his face lit up. "No, wait", he said.  "There is a book that you *have* to read.  It will seem a bit dated in some ways, as it was written in the 1940s, but I swear you should read it."  He told me that the name of the book was The Magic of Believing by Claude Bristol. He told me to ignore the covers of the book as so many of the newer editions were like neon flashes of business and barf, but to read it anyway. There was something to take away from it.

Being a sucker for the tried and true practice of following up with coincidences (life is but a Choose Your Own Adventure, is it not? We may as well make this shit interesting.  I promise you that it always is...), I left with my burrito and immediately requested the book from my library.

Part II.

I've been thinking a lot about ghosts, today.  Wondering if there is an amount of time someone must be dead before they can come and hang out with you/contact you/communicate with you.  I know that usually, if the death was very sudden, ghosts can hang out for the first month or so and infiltrate the fuck out of your dreams.  Then they come back later, although they tend to sprinkle winks to you here and there in the forms of random coincidences or pulling people into you life in a way that seems illogical.

But I've been wondering if there is a rubric of sorts that maps out who gets to come back, how, and when, exactly.

Last night Chaya visited me for the first time since the month after she died. Needless to say, it involved me sitting on stage at a Cardi B concert in which Mary J Blige was making a significant guest appearance.  But that wasn't the heart of it.

Let me separate out what happened in the dream, and what happened in real life.

In the dream, my friend Patty had been arguing with a new friend of hers about the television version of The Handmaid's Tale.  She wanted to know if it did the novel justice.  She knew that it had been an influential/memorable novel that I read when I was 19 or 20 and she had come to me to settle the argument.  The problem, however, was that I do not watch the television version of it.

Somehow, during this argument, I realized that we were in the apartment of an 80-some-year-old artist that lived in the apartment building of a person I dated about 4 years ago. The argument somehow made a letter fall out of a book that was for me (very Chaya).  Patty brought the letter to my attention and I started to read it, trying to figure out how it was Chaya knew that I would be here, and that the argument would unearth this letter and find me. The letter told me of a fortune she had for me.  Although it was discussing  money, I could tell by her handwriting that she meant something deeper than that.  A symbolic fortune.  Insight from the other side that I wasn't able to see from where I was standing.

I'll spare you the rest of the details of the dream. In short:  It involved a small handful of people I have dated (Three to be exact.  Of course three.  It is the trinity that is involved in this type of communication). One was implied (via the apartment building), one was running around trying to take care of things and keep them calm (he does this) and one was somewhere just out of reach trying to conjure and make peace with her own ghosts.

In the dream, I was aware that Chaya was around me. Trying to communicate something to me.  Trying to tell me about the fortune of art and information that she wanted to share with me.

I kept thinking, "I believe that this is real. But is this real? Is it Chaya, and, if it is, what is it that she wants me to know?"

I believed.

I wanted to believe. 

I continued to walk about the apartment in the dream and started going through the things of the old man who lived there in order to find clues.

Part III.

When I woke up, I was completely disoriented.  It felt as if I had been under the earth for hours and had just been dropped, from the sky, into the mattress I found myself in. Coming back into consciousness, I tried to piece together where I was.  I moved my eyes around to take in the room that I found myself in.

Wood floors.

White walls.

Dried flowers.

I stood up to get out of bed.

In the first step I took, I stumbled and fell forward.

I caught myself in the last second of the fall on a crate of records I hadn't noticed in the corner.

My heart pounded from the almost disaster. I caught my breath and started to push myself up from the crate. As I did, my eyes focused on the singular, random book that was laying across the tops of the records. I paused, with the print of the book just a few inches from my nose. My breath still quick, I took in the cover of the book that read

The Magic of Believing.



be well; be loved,


k.


(photo by Man Ray, Dora Maar, 1936)

Missing Uniform: The Salt on Your Lips

I.

One of the things I love about traveling is the feeling of suspension. Everything back home is a baseball tossed towards an evening sky and then frozen, mid-air, until you are back within a ten mile radius of home.

I currently find myself on white, clean, flannel sheets with a down comforter wrapped around me.  I have been reading, writing, and enjoying the company around me.  There is a creative streak in my blood, and I can feel its boil: 

I welcome it.

II.

This afternoon, I was thinking about Ray Bradbury again.  Thinking about how almost every time I hear or read his words, I feel like weeping.  It is not because the story is sad.  They don't tend to be.  Nostalgic, perhaps, but not sad. It's just that his use of language - his way of describing things - brings me quite literally to my knees. His brain, his words, his ability to imagine. I've never read much of his alien and futuristic stuff.  I've kept mostly to that of his that has rooted the supernatural and glorious in the mundane (Something Wicked This Way Comes), the product of which is a sublime beauty I can barely look directly at. Dandelion Wine is another branch of this that creates a nostalgia drenched in golden light for something I have never seen.

Incredible.


III.

There is magic in the air, tonight. I'm not sure how to explain or articulate it, but it is certainly there. It is not a hint so much as it is a dense syrup around our shoulders tonight. It is nice to be in the company of whatever it is that is in the air.

IV.

There is something to be said about leaning into what feels right.  Leaning into what feels true.  Even when you are unsure.  I have been doing that. The doors that it has been opening have been gilded with gorgeous stories and glorious people. 

I look forward to seeing where else this weird river will lead. 


Perhaps I will see you there.








Be well; be loved; follow exactly what your gut says to you.



k.

P.S I'm going to send you a dream tonight.  The colors will be red and blue and will involve the shape of hands.


***

Today I have been listening to this Kate Bush song covered by Chromatics .
But, of course, the original is better. If anything because of the depth of voice and this video.
(image via anotheratona tumblr)

Last Chance for a Slow Dance: The Art of Savoring All of that Which Undoes Us, or, In Praise of Light Pt II

Up early for departure.

I love road trips in that you can't do much but ponder and reflect en route to the destination.

I did that last weekend.

I'll do that again this weekend, albeit a different mode and in a different direction.



I miss the line of your eyebrows.

I miss how your eyes would widen slightly, and a smile would spread across your face when something was askew. I loved the seriousness of your face.  Even when you were mad at me, I wanted to laugh (and sometimes I would and you would get even more mad) because I find your face so loveable.

Little ALF laugh chasing your cat around with a toothbrush.


The other night I went to meet a friend at a bear bar so that he could drink and I could eat limes.

I had a person ask me if I'm trying to get over someone when I wasn't responding to their flirtations. In that moment I had this memory of me and you starting to make out in my car close to one of your favorite bars and you sliding all over my seats because I had just cleaned them and that McGuire's shit is slippery. You laughed at me about it. I laughed, too. I smiled and laughed that little laugh that is almost a cough that happens at memory.  The person asked again, but I just held their eyes and said nothing.

If they have to ask, they should already know that nothing is going to happen.








I'm going to leave you with a poem by Anne Sexton that has taught me something different each time I have read it, the majority of my life.

be well; be loved,


k.
[title: Last Chance for a Slow Dance is a Fugazi song title]
[image: Fleurs (1994) Edouard BOUBAT (1923-1999) ]

Admonitions to a Special Person (A. Sexton)

Watch out for power,
for its avalanche can bury you,
snow, snow, snow, smothering your mountain.

Watch out for hate,
it can open its mouth and you'll fling yourself out
to eat off your leg, an instant leper.

Watch out for friends,
because when you betray them,
as you will,
they will bury their heads in the toilet
and flush themselves away.

Watch out for intellect,
because it knows so much it knows nothing
and leaves you hanging upside down,
mouthing knowledge as your heart
falls out of your mouth.

Watch out for games, the actor's part,
the speech planned, known, given,
for they will give you away
and you will stand like a naked little boy,
pissing on your own child-bed.

Watch out for love
(unless it is true,
and every part of you says yes including the toes) ,
it will wrap you up like a mummy,
and your scream won't be heard
and none of your running will end.

Love? Be it man. Be it woman.
It must be a wave you want to glide in on,
give your body to it, give your laugh to it,
give, when the gravelly sand takes you,
your tears to the land. To love another is something
like prayer and can't be planned, you just fall
into its arms because your belief undoes your disbelief.

Special person,
if I were you I'd pay no attention
to admonitions from me,
made somewhat out of your words
and somewhat out of mine.
A collaboration.
I do not believe a word I have said,
except some, except I think of you like a young tree
with pasted-on leaves and know you'll root
and the real green thing will come.

Let go. Let go.
Oh special person,
possible leaves,
this typewriter likes you on the way to them,
but wants to break crystal glasses
in celebration,
for you,
when the dark crust is thrown off
and you float all around
like a happened balloon. 

I Appreciate the Thought But, No, I Can't Go See the Tulips With You

 I get it now: 

Why it meant so much to you that, when we drove to Portland to go and see Neutral Milk Hotel, I stood by you and did my little "guard" thing. You had a severe back injury due to an accident that happened years prior in California. So much so that you couldn't stand for a long time without your legs starting to go numb.  Every time we would go to a show together (all of the time, thankfully), I would seek out a stool or chair and shoo people away from it in order to give it to you. 

(I knew sometimes it was awkward for you because people read you as a young boy- both 'young' and 'boy' being 'reasons' you should not need to sit down, let alone have someone bring you a chair.)

When there wasn't a chair around, you would sit on the floor in a sea of standing people, and I would stand behind you - one foot on either side of your hips- forming a little human guardrail so that no one would step on you.

I didn't think of it much at the time.

It was just a second nature taught to me by folks in my life with various disabilities.

But now I get it.  

I get why it meant so much to you.  

I get how it took pressure off of you. I get how you weren't put in a position to feel broken or like a drag or like someone who couldn't keep up. I understand now why you would get emotional about it sometimes- emotional in the good way. 

You deserved that. 

I'm glad that I gave that to you.

 I'm glad that you accepted it. 

It's odd to think that I understand why it mattered to you more now than I did at the time.

***

Tonight I sat at a metal table out in the light rain with a friend of mine and we traded dreams and insights. The air has been smelling so beautiful as of late starting just around 7:30pm. 

I wish I could tell you all of it.  For now I will just say that things are more than well. They are beautiful and calm and inspired and way too influenced by the Spring. There's a joy in my heart I can't quite explain. 

And, at the same time, there's a pinch in my heart.

There's room for both.

The joy is many things,
 one of which is watching your influence inform my actions.

The pinch is not so many things,
one of which is experiencing this joy without you.


Be well; be loved,

k.

[image: Consolatrix Afflictorum: A street shrine for Our Lady, Consoler of the Afflicted in Savona, Italy. via allaboutmary tumblr ]

The Crunch of the Snow, or, The Clearmindedness That Accompanies Drinking Water and Eating Well

.a poem.

We shall have beds full of faint perfumes,
Divans as deep as tombs,
And strange flowers on shelves,
Opened for us under more beautiful skies.

Using their last warmth in emulation,
Our two hearts will be two vast torches,
Which will reflect their double lights
In our two spirits, those twin mirrors.

One evening, made of mystical rose and blue,
We will exchange one flash of light,
Like a long sob, laden with farewells;

And later an Angel, half opening the doors,
Will come, faithful and joyous, to reanimate
The tarnished mirrors and the dead flames.

--C. Baudelaire

.a list.

No FaceTime
No Pop Overs (showing up unexpected at her house)
No pain meds except for Tylenol
No driving under the speed limit on the freeway
No nightshade allergies
No inky pants on sheets or wall
No starting to say something and then stopping
Yes to gerber daisies
Yes pot
Yes 


.a performance.


This performance by Chelsea Wolfe of  House of Metal (Live at KEXP)  from the tour I absolutely loved.




be loved; be well,

k.

(Italicized text: Death of the Lovers, translated into English. From Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire)

(Unitalicized text: A list of the likes and rules of a tender heart I kept on my phone while trying to learn it.)

[image: Francis Bacon - Two Figures at a Window (1953)]

[Currently reading: Gone to Dust/Matt Goldman. It's surprisingly good so far. Well written Minneapolis noir from an author that worked on Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and, evidently, wrote for Sienfeld)]

White Tiles and the Bathroom Rug That I Bled On

I.

Tonight I went to meet up with an ex and long time friend of mine who is in the country from Spain. Leave it to such visits to make a Monday night feel like an adventure.  Walking through downtown from just North of it back to my car in light rain in the part of the city owned by La compañia.

I will see him again on Thursday.

These years have made many good chapters of us.

I'm proud of who we have become.

I have a lot of respect for how he dealt with a particular situation many years ago. I'd like to think that I would do the same.

I'm mostly convinced that I would, but, who knows.

It's weird how geographic distance can expedite growth, or, at least make us get to the point quicker. It shines a light on how time is of the essence and that we should be as honest and loving with those we want to be honest and loving with as possible.

When he moved away last year, I remember the goodbye being hurried and dusty on a warm day in an industrial part of town.  A few days later, when he was on the plane leaving for Madrid, he wrote me a text from a phone he told me would no longer be good once he got to Europe. It was long. It was beautiful and appreciative of who we had been and, from afar, continue to be to each other.  It meant a lot.  I could picture him taking a last look at the city from the plane while composing it, knowing that from that point on, he would no longer live here. From that point on, he would always be a visitor.

II.

In the mornings when you would wake up, I would note no resistance to your rising. Moments later, I would hear the force of the shower turn on.  I would hear you draw the curtain back- more slack a sound than sharp. Within these sounds, during the fragility of the 5am hour, I would find myself moved to my core.

How did you learn to take care of yourself when no one else was?

Your father gave you routine; your mother the shape of your eyes.


III.


In the meantime, play this loud enough that you begin to feel the bass in your chest.


Ring (Featuring Kehlani)




be well; be loved,


k

(Photo: I like a decent number of the rings that Hvnter Gvtherer designed in collaboration with Chelsea Wolfe for their Farouche collection a number of years ago. This is Double prick ring from Hvnter Gvtherer rings.)

Twin Tailors and the Art of Being Kept Without Leashes

[Tonight's phone date cracked me up.

There's been a lot of joy to absorb lately.

Sometimes, it comes in the form of long distance phone calls.]


Let me tell you about Geminis.

We are fiercely loyal, committed and true.

It's a preference of ours.

And it's not that only if and once those commitments are officially over that we can be dirty, filthy queers.

It's that we are both at the same time.

That, too, is a preference of ours.

Things get mistaken, however. People assume that our filthiness contradicts our loyalty.

Recently, a lover pointed out this seeming contradiction.

We were talking about sex. How connection and honesty is important, how the slow burn is usually the way I go.  And then, mid-romance trope, she interrupted and was like (I'm paraphrasing, here), "Um...yeah, but you also will fuck dudes in the ass that you don't even know/have some big connection to...".

And I had to laugh.

She was absolutely right.

We Geminis tend to have such a seemingly contradicting nature.

But it's all true.

We do run wild.

It is less about promiscuity (we aren't) or even about sex (it's not). It's about living two lives worth of life.

Enter the Gemini:

We get bad reputations.

We also cause them.

We aren't liars.

We just have multiplicity of desire and fascinations.

This is as true about our brains as it is about our bodies.

They are connected, after all.

***

Earlier this week, some rings that I had ordered a few weeks back finally arrived. They were ordered to replace one of a set of rings I lost.  These are plain black heavy but thin bands.  One for my index finger, and one for my ring finger. I like to think of them, as per usual, as two wedding bands. Instead of them being on separate people, I wear both of them. (Cue Bjork's Isobel , here.) I wrote a bit about my feelings on marriage here back in 2013 .  There are reasons I would consider doing it. It's just that none of them have to do with societal or familial acceptance as much as access.

Nothing is more loving than access.



But when has the state ever truly offered that?




Be well; be loved;

k.


P.S. One thing I am celebrating lately is that I can *finally*, officially and certainly state that I am back to 500% normal, health-wise. Holy hell. I should have realized something was off just based on when I completely stopped writing (back in November).  That in itself should have sent me straight to the doctor.

It has been a long, long, long ass journey.

I feel like kissing the ground, the air, and the hands of everyone around me in being thankful.

Instead, I will just fully enjoy every aspect of the synthesis of my body and brain. I just can't wait, and can't believe how much has has been completed and has been felt in just the past few days, alone.


[photo: Alicia Burke for Glass Magazine (Spring/Summer 2018) by William Lords (via Shadesofblackness Tumblr)]

Poise of Passion; Private Weirdo Gorgeousness: PJ Harvey's Gender, Unapologetic Lipstick and Lack of Teeth Showing Smiles

I've been listening to that collaboration that happened with PJ Harvey and Thom Yorke, This Mess We're In , quite a bit this morning. PJ is someone whose gender makes sense to me more than most, somehow. Dressing in suits, dressing in micro skirts while staring deadpan at the camera, a fuck-you-I'm-not-contouring-shit incredible nose and stretched putty mouth. There is something about her that has always read to me as gender gorgeousness more focused on art and music and her passion than on paying much attention to the social expectations being handed out around her.

Fuck yes.

Separately, I'm trying to follow up on the lifesaver that was thrown to me Friday night. Angels don't knock down your door.  (Except I also know that this isn't true: They will. They do.)

I've been listening to a lot of music lately that reminds me of a particular house I lived in in Columbus, Ohio.  Not so much the house, but the people, the art, the relationships, the heartaches and the discoveries. We were (are) all so obsessed with music.  Every time an album worth its weight would come out, you could hear various songs off of the album being played from 4 or 5 different rooms at the same time.  It was funny, and beautiful:  There are two albums in particular that I know we all agreed on by virtue of this simultaneous and staggered play.

Yesterday, while driving home, I realized that there is a stretch of the highway about thirty minutes outside of the city - Westbound- that reminds me of a stretch that comes into Columbus.  It was a stretch I would only see when I would take somewhat far away beginning interpreting jobs. Although I lived in Columbus for, relatively, a short amount of time, it was formative in so many ways. It haunts me sometimes. In a good way. It reminds me of potential and aim and friendship and how I have grown and how I have kept that which was gold that I found there.

It may be time to return.  Before Casey moves away, and to remind myself of the details in the eyes that social media erases.  The eyes of those I love and haven't seen in person in far too long.

In the meantime: I'm being fed by the beauty of seclusion and connection - the feeling of home that cloaks around you when you find yourself celebrating your oddities, quirks, perceived gender inconsistencies, social faux pas and unapologetic garishness in art and interaction.

I'm off to follow up on this angel stranger:  Here are to those who steward you through shit you want to do that you are completely lost in.


Be well; be loved,

k

p.s. Bye bye mercury retrograde