In the end, what matters is that I do love him.

And, he loves me.

If I had to give background history on myself it would be spotty. Memory is a faulty thing. I do know, though, that it has been six years since I have felt freedom to tell a romantic partner those three words that bind or can destroy everything in a moment. For once I don't feel like I am being destroyed but held close.

Oh, and now I am a nationally published poet.

I will be done with my MFA in the spring. My path is changing, but I am not frighten anymore. I am ready for the change.

Time is going fast and I can't seem to catch up. I've been trying for days to get the apartment all tidy before my friend Dan comes and stays but haven't gotten very far at all.

Yesterday for some reason I brought all my journals up from the basement. I haven't flipped through some of them in years and was worried about them getting wet. I'm thinking about reading them all but I'm not sure I would know the person who wrote some of those things now.

Happy Bird and Opening Flower

"In the 1870s, two inventors Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell both independently designed devices that could transmit speech electrically (the telephone). Both men rushed their respective designs to the patent office within hours of each other, Alexander Graham Bell patented his telephone first. Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell entered into a famous legal battle over the invention of the telephone, which Bell won."The History of the Telephone"

I have issues with the phone. I find it an awkward device most days. But, on the other hand, I do have a huge cell phone addiction. I am constantly checking my cell phone; but yet, the ringing of it always makes me jump. I can text all day long, and really fast, but if I have to call someone, outside of this small circle of people I feel free to chat openly with on the phone, I feel odd and silly. Really, none of this behavior makes any sense. I have just decided that is who I am.

Last night, I decided that Nathan and I needed to blow things up, so I fumbled around in a junk drawer and found the fire works that Adam and the other Nathan gave me in January. I was super excited about it and he played along. My fave had to be one called Happy bird and opening flower. It seemed fitting for where we both are for some reason.

It is not often that I found myself in a position where I enjoy waking up to someone. I have a habit of leaving in the middle of the night and sometimes I have left a note with a vague saying like "peace" or "I'll call you soon." With Nathan though, that thought to escape, that need to run has never crossed my mind. And, I can sleep with next to him; which is one of the reasons why I tend not to stay. I usually can't sleep most days, and I almost can never sleep next to anyone besides Sid (who thankfully doesn't crawl into bed with me anymore) and our dog Sir Jack Bobo.

I am choosing to let go. In the end, I have a problem with normalcy, because I think that within a relationship I have never really had it. I have never been able to be completely comfortable with anyone for a long period of time and just relaxed and felt safe. As things start to settle back into a day-to-day pattern and the excitement wears off, I begin to mistake that comfort level as withdrawal and rejection.

I have trust issues. I’ve had men say they would be back, and than never return till it is too late (perhaps this started with my own father, perhaps once he whispered in my ear he would see me again and somewhere within subconscious I am still waiting for him in some ways) and I have in my heart moved on (it is true though, all my lovers who mattered, and most who did not have returned to me in some way or another).

The difference here, with him though, is I don’t feel the anxiety that I have felt in the past at this point of settle.

What is the distance really? When I think of the distance between myself and China(6668.0 miles(10731.0 km)), or my heart and the sky (78,0000 km), it seems as distance is only an abstract concept I have yet to fully grasp.

Last night, I dreamt of red and orange robes. Am I really being called to retreat? Or just sit more? Even if this is my path, I could not follow it for a few more years. Till Sidney has entered the monastery, which he does plan to do when he is old enough to go. At this point I would allow him to go at 16 as long as he has his G.E.D. first. I know to some, dear reader, this would be an odd thing for a mother, especially the type of mother I am, to say, but I know that Sid is much better Buddhist than I am and has is own life path to walk and I would be doing him a great disservice if I tried to stop him from doing what he is called to do in this life.

07-01-07 8:30pm


We are leaving Kansas City and are both a bit spacey and tried. We woke this morning to children playing outside the hotels rooms door and sat together and smoked before moving on to the Java Break for breakfast and coffee. From there, we found our way to a comic book shop where I picked up a couple of back issues of some comic Sid likes and didn’t have. He hasn’t called me very much the past day or two which is good but makes me worry about him too. I’m sure he is fine, and seemed happy when I spoke to him a while ago.

I was sitting at the table thinking about Alex, when she sent me a text message. We had a short exchange of words that ended with her saying some things that really did hurt. I can take others saying cruel things to me most of the time, but since she and I have been friends for so long she knew exactly what to say to leave pain. I almost cried in QT while waiting for the restroom. I was standing there feeling sorry for myself watching three children using the fountain machine when one, who I believe was autistic, spilled his soda across the counter. His sister almost lost it and was starting to clean it up, so I help, and as I did the boy started laughing about how funny it was, and I had to laugh to. It was funny. Outside, I felt calmer and handed Nathan my cell phone so I wouldn’t keep the game going. It seems like a far away dream now. I don’t know what to say to Alex anymore. She seems so sad all the time. I take responsibility for my own happiness. What more can I do?

We help Nathan’s friend, Tyson, moved for a bit and I took a nap in the sun. We had dinner, and now are on our way back to Wichita. A tad bit later than we thought we would be, but I’m ok with that. Part of what has been so nice about this trip is that we have just taken our time, and went where we felt like we either wanted to go or were needed.

Today, outside the hotel Nathan asked a tough questioin. He tends to ask the tough questions and I tend to just go ahead and answer them. Sometimes, his frankness takes me a bit by surprise; but I think I am learning to adjust to it. I have no need to keep anything, secrets or otherwise from him, this in itself is a bit frightening.

Really, it comes down to two things, 1. I have done a lot of “bad” (whatever that means) things in my life 2. I have also done a lot of “good” (whatever that means) things in my life. I like to think that I have learned from all my experiences something worth knowing. Most of what I guess would be called my “bad choices” most time felt more as a matter of survival than choice. And, what others thinks of as my “good choices” are just their own opinion of what value my life has and really has nothing at all to do with myself or who I am.

What I should be doing is staying out the window watching the sunset. That would truly be living in the moment.


10:09 pm

We did pull off the highway and watch the sun go down. It was breathtaking and almost too much to understand. For a brief moment I felt like I had never seen a sunset before and had a hard time looking at the oracle of red-orange because it was something I could not quite understand at that moment. It made me think of what a teacher in a class once told me about how some believe that after death we just go to the other side of that sun and live almost in the same way as we live now.

Looking at it also reminded me that I had a vision today that I guess I am trying to come to my own grasps with. Today, while I sat on the balcony and watched the blue jay fly around and away I saw a vision of myself in red robes and a shaved head. I was staring back at myself. And, I know that at some point I will have to go on my own vision quest. I am not sure when as of yet, but I will one day have to go. I have never expected to find enlightenment in this life but I do understand that I will have to help myself along tat path in this life so in the next I will be closer than I will be at my death.

Or, maybe I just need to go to temple more . . .

We’re [it still seems odd to write or say “we” or “us” maybe the libertarian (which is how I have for some reason began to refer to Thaddeus) was right and I have been on my own for just too long to really adapt to being with someone, but there would be no gain without a tad bit of strange discomfort] about 50 miles from home now. We have driven most of the trip home without the radio and in silence, then a horrible Nine Inch Nails song kept running through my head and I asked to put some music on. I just don’t like that band, something about the lyrical content always has made me uncomfortable (I think overly violent lyrics are fine; I just have seen enough violence and pain and blood in my life to not need to cling onto someone else’s interruption of pain in order feel something within my musical scope), even if it reminds me of my days as a young girl riding in cars with Amanda and Tiffany Tillman, smoking pot, and wanting for our lives to start. They are both married with children now. The last I heard they were happy.

10:44

We have just gotten off the turnpike to come around a turn to a beautiful full moon that is as breathtaking as the sun we saw earlier.

I have been thinking about the way a dead child’s feet would make no noise as it runs across the sand.

Will this be the theme or my own anti-war poem? Should I even try? I should, I need newer poems that don’t just confess.

But, after reading 70% of that article in the Writers Chronicle on anti-war poetry, I feel a bit frighten about the possibilities of sounding cliché.

I woke to warmth close to my skin and again it seemed as if it was the most natural place to be as it rained on outside. Rain that hasn’t stopped for days. The weather so cool for June and although many of us has recently longed for the sun to come back and visit us we in some ways have enjoyed the absent of its brightness, not having to squint our eyes quite so hard from its grasp.

We took our time leaving the house. I knew we wouldn’t get on the road by noon but I was not stressed by that fact and enjoyed the slower pace we took. After stopping by the store, we are now on our way to one of the eight wonders of the Kansas: The Garden of Eden.

The last time I drove this highway with someone else it was with Ryan Creamer before he went back to Wisconsin (Which is where that poem “Break-Up of my Landscape came from and was first called Landscape at 32--except for the line about being a Midwestern woman that came from Craig). That trip so far back in my mind now that even where I drove to Denver to see Taylor I didn’t recall much of that trip. I really only remember one thing as important and that was being caught in the rain and standing under an a gas station smoking. Our relantionship was pretty much over by that time.

Today, it is north with Nathan. We have not said a word in at least 30 minutes but I don’t feel at all awkward about the silence. It is as refreshing as seeing a red barn in the middle of the field. Still standing . . . .

I have once again become fascinated with birds, more importantly, sparrows. Besides being a word I hold too dear for no apparent reason I am over-interested in its flight path, the way it’s wings move through the wind and how it spends much time on the ground hoping around waiting for something to deliver it from itself.


Is this the place where I mention the silence frightens me?

Soon, we will reach the space in the Plains where the landscape begins to change. It becomes green rolling hills of such awe that the last time I drove through it I was alone and wish I had had someone to share my longing to roll down the hill and feel the grass between my toes. It was a sunny day and the whole land shone with such wonderment. Beauty is often overlooked.

This morning I saw the same light in his eyes.




We had a lovely journey into the Garden of Eden. I was amazed that one man had within his soul the ability to make what he saw with his eyes into beauty. His birthday was March 8. Nathan took many pictures and I laid on the ground and looked up in awe of what I saw: an angel falling towards me, the broad and wondrous hips of Eves body. How Adam looked so much like his creator. I walked under an ivory covered walkway and knew he was behind me and . . .

I sat on a stone bench and ate a tangy orange. I worried about nothing for a moment and watch my lover take pictures. The sun finally showing itself to us again and we are both in high spirits after a beer in the local diner, a trip to the small local market, and a wonderfully interesting chat with an artist who had a studio. I bought a beautiful porcelain piece of a tiger leaping through the air and three sweet small doves looking on. It required a credit card for purchase and thankfully I remember to bring one.

Now we are going to Lawrence, and Nathan has told me to keep my eyes on the left as the clouds may become something worth seeing as the sun sets.



8:30 pm

We have driven back into the rain, just outside of Salina. The sun in its usual place, grasp a tad bit outside of our reach and slowing guiding us to the dark of evening.

We have been working on telling our stories to each other since before our first kiss. I am amazed at my ability to at times and after a series of breath to be so candid with this man.
I was going to say something witty here about sinners and saints but have now been distracted by the touch of his right hand touching my left hand.

Trees line the highway and I have always wondered what this landscape looked like before the dust bowl. I know I have seen pictures but it is not like seeing them with your eyes. Your heart.

10:52 pm

The highway is dark. We have just finished dinner at the Cracker Barrel in Junction City where the waitress saw us kissing through the window as we left. We ride on through the dark and speak openly about things even if at the moment they may not be the most pleasant of conversation topics.

I am glad to know that it is to just me who sees myself as a woman who has come fully back around to front. I cannot change the past but I have, to use an over stated phrase) made peace with it. If you are only given as much as you can handle, than I am as strong as the ocean.

2:46

I am lying on a bed in a room in Lawrence. When we arrived we went and had drinks with Nathan's friend Ryan at the Red Lion. After a pitcher of Guinness we sat on Mass st. and watch and listened to a man playing the hand drums. Across the street I was taken in by a person draped in a white sheet sitting in front of Weavers front doors. It reminded me of the road trip that Melissa and I took some years back. A man draped in gray wool sitting in front of St. Mary's in San Fransisco holding a crudely painted sign "I have AIDS, please help." The smell of the ocean near by and no idea what help I could give except for a rumbled dollar bill I fished out of my handbag before running off to the jazz bar where we ran up a $300 dollar tap that some lawyer paid for us.