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.