Your Fingers Taste Like Peaches

I don't know if you watch Atlanta or not, but you should. It's pretty brilliant- especially the second season. It makes me a tiny bit irrationally "home"sick for when I used to live there. References to Little Five Points, Decatur, DeKalb County, all of it.

It reminds me of my mentor CJ (I'll never forget the rides in her red Nissan truck) and all of the things I learned from her that stick with me to this day.  It reminds me of the Freaknik pirate radio station that introduced me to a song that is burned into my brain to this day.  It reminds me of babies doing the Bankhead Bounce and it reminds me of how fucking contagious that dance was. It reminds me of the woman that used to run the domestic violence support group who had done five years for killing her husband and how much I admired how she forked out the truth. It reminds me of Rhonda and how I wonder how she's doing now after cracking me up for so long while we dated. It reminds me of the earring of two intersecting women's symbols that I found of hers in my bed. (That lesbian symbol used to haunt the fuck out of me. Tattoos, earrings...you  name it. Like some Indigo Girls Poltergeist or some shit.) It reminds me of hot boiled peanuts and the afternoons Diane and I would be out in the shed sorting clothes and laughing until we couldn't breathe.  It reminds me that, no matter what it's like now, I always thought that MARTA was a pretty solid transportation system. But that, my friends, was coming from the Detroit metro area.

Here's a simple interaction between two characters from the show that touched me:


person one (sarcastically):  I love how you send all of your important mail to my house.

person two: Yeah. That's love. I trust you.

person one: (smiles and laughs)



be well; be loved,

k.

(image: Txema Yeste via hotparade tumblr)

A Rom-Com Mixed with Kafka's The Trial

Today/tonight has been magical and weird. 

The universe dropped not one but two situations in my lap to address that I was recently rightfully called out on for not addressing. It created one of those moments (times two) when you do the right thing - no matter who is watching and no matter whose life you are currently banned from.

The universe is funny and consistent in how it moves swiftly and surely to make sure that I am delving into my best self.  It just felt odd to have both situations dropped so plainly into my lap to right/address.

But I raised to the challenge. And, no matter the witness-less auditorium, I was successful.

(pause)

Sometimes it can take me up to a week and some change to talk to someone I care about or am in the process of knowing about something that has made me uncomfortable. 

I had one of those conversations tonight.

It was short, deep, necessary and understood. 

The strangest part was that I had bookmarked the conversation for tonight by telling her I had something to tell her.  But she had also told me she had a question to ask me but that she'd wait until we were in person.  It turns out we both had things we needed to get off of our chests- albeit very different in their content. 

It felt good.

In the midst of what she was saying she said "...and I knew you had a good intention, so I wasn't worried about it...". And there it was: That weird healing that happens when someone assumes the best running its tender finger across my heart. An assumption of goodness simply because...why wouldn't they?

It is important to build with people.

Piece by
piece
with lots of
peace.

(pause)

These days, in general, have just been filled with weird things.

Things like not being able to figure out what the mystery trash smell in your spotless house is. Then you open the washing machine and just start fucking laughing because you ran a load of laundry a week ago and never moved it to the dryer. (So much for presence.)

Things like getting flowers and your heart jumping in hopes they are from one person, but them being from another. You feel kind of guilty for the let down, but feel it nonetheless.

Things like being in a room with 18 second graders and overhearing conversations among multiple kids about their interactions with ghosts and it both fascinates and scares the shit out of you because they are speaking about it so matter-of-fact-ly. 

Things like having a taste of joy with a person you love on a rooftop in the sun with good food and hilarity and, somehow,  it tanking anyway.

(pause)

I've been thinking a lot about commitment as of late. How it is built and not just said. The depth of it. How long it lasts.

I've been thinking about words versus the value of simply spending time with someone.

"I care about you"

versus

standing on a bridge together, chucking rocks down into the uncertain waters below, and the threads that lace us together in the simple experience of it. A memory solitary and shared, all at once. 





be well; be loved,

k.

(title: a general summary of things)
(image: Pierre Soulages, Peinture 260 x 202 com, 19 juin 1963 oil on canvas via yvonneconstance tumblr)

Lessons From House Plants

In between fresh flannel sheets, in a clean room.  The scent of candle wicks and wax and their slight amounts of smoke snake and rise in the air.

Today has been one of self love, love,  and slowness.  One of those days when I get up before the sun rises, and am moving about in a hoodie (hoodies up!) and running shoes to all sorts of places to get errands done.

There is an enjoyment in things as simple and basic as picking out the food that will nourish me in the next week.  There is a humbling feeling to it.  To be able to go and gather the food I will eat in the next week from a store a few blocks away with money that I have for it.

I drank coffee while having a long conversation with a friend back in Brooklyn.  It was an incredible conversation in that I learned so much. About my friend, about myself, and about how trust-filled friendships and relationships are the places that we can all, truly and in a lasting way, grow.

There are those moments where we feel we have come so far, and simultaneously recognize how much further we need to go.  Today was one of those moments.

(pause)

I'm really getting into using gouache, lately, in painting. There is something incredibly satisfying about the vividness- the opaque brightness- of the colors as they absorb into a thicker, white watercolor paper.

I have been documenting.

My relationship with writing on a keyboard, writing with ink, painting, and drawing has been fluctuating so rapidly. Different utensils for different moments.  Different mediums for different expressions.

For now, I go back to reading.

It is always suspicious when one's amount of production exceeds the amount of of time spent to absorb, and seek for, influence.



be well; be loved,

k.

(photo via a--t--m--o--s--p--h--e--r--e tumblr)