A crow sat by window all day and watched me teach, I knew it was a bad sign.

I have nothing left to say. I have been emptied. Someone once said, I would never be satisfied and I looked it up tonight “convinced beyond all doubt.” Six months ago I would have agreed with this person about my need to push at everything, but now honestly in so many things I have been convinced beyond doubt.

I am believer. Deep down I have always been. Jeff said on Sunday that living a deep life, loving deeply is about walking away from the demons. We will always have voices which tell us lies, old roads and patterns to follow but we have the power to walk away. We have the power to believe.

Send in the crows. I am here.

I am and you are.....always the one I choose.... 

swing

 

Master of my domain

Well the new part time job is a full time job which would be okay if I didn’t teach two other places. If you stop within three feet of me I might make you paint something. I am supposed to be all moved into the new/old house this weekend. I will NOT be moved---said in my best Gandhi voice.

Ideally in a parallel universe I am sending my manuscript off. I am finishing my short story collection. I’m producing new work. I am a writer b/c this is my time and I am not wasting any of it. I am not going to stop, I had a momentum going and I am not going to stop. Unfortunately my parallel universe does not own stamps nor does it take in account children FOLLOW you into the “other dimension” and bang down the door.

The great thing about NOT blogging is that people think you are out writing the next great thing. You are so busy being the next Gertrude Stein that you don’t have time to blog. I am here to tell you in my parallel universe you are right.

Side note: the girls want a kitten. I will only get a kitten if we can call it Gertrude Stein, Celan or Camille Claudel and my girls are holding out for Oreo or Graham. Why am I not the master of my domain????????????????????????????????????

drink up

I cashed my check from the Massachusetts Review this morning and I am happy to say that brings my yearly income of being a poet up to over 5,000 dollars and since writing money is magic, poet money is double magic I am buying drinks for all!!!! Or at least the ones who show up on my step in the next 48 hours....

I remember writing my first sentence IAMTERESA I remember bringing it to the teacher’s desk, how she said the letters needed more space, how I found each of them their own page and how they stood, these big tall buildings claming their place. I remember the pride, the confusion at being told I was wrong and I didn’t believe her. Yes, I would do it another way b/c I had to. I wanted to succeed but I knew what was beautiful—I have always known what is beautiful.

I started teaching a new art class for advance students, ages 6 to 12; most of my students paint like they are in high school or early college. I am a big believer in letting children do “adult” art, use “adult” materials. One of my students is from Sudan; he has spent most of his life in war. He told me Friday that ”art is god.” Yes I said, yes.

Another parent dropped his son off and claimed, I wanted a football player and they gave me an artist. His dad dropped him off like he was some foreign object given to him without instruction. Here is my room, this is where you breathe this is where you paint.

 

I am very happy to be in the Massachusetts Review this month and really excited that you can read my poem online. Mr. Mueske is also in the same issue so I am in good company. Plus my girls want to bring it to school because it has a naked woman on the cover.

In other news, my new office is on the third floor so I will have really skinny legs by August, now if I can only learn to climb up stairs on my belly. Thus far I have booked a photographer, African drummer, stilt walker and silk dyer for our summer program. I still find it amazing that they PAY me to check my email at work.

I really want to write a poem. I miss being a writer….

 

My mind wears its own heartbeat. Place your thumb, finger on my left lobe wait for direction. My mind will not fail you. My heart however is not to be trusted. It is the size of a frog, a frog’s heart; a blood pearl. And if you believe that, if you consider the lie I’ve just told of my heart, then you do not listen. Granted I’m half girl, tadpole; my lungs withhold air and water, yet my mind has its own beat. My heart is not small. I can tell you what I have lost. Zen’s trick of placement: picture what you desire, close your eyes, look to the left. I am the blood pearl. What is misplaced waits in the corner. My heart and my mind are brothers or sisters, they switch genders at random, they cannot be defined by their genitalia.

We have covered the walls with mirrors to watch ourselves leave.
When we enter we are half fish, amphibian; our mouths loose with want. To love something you must consider its death, a full hand desires nothing. I will not leave you unless there is deep changement. Please become a frog. Or a prince. I offer my favor. Do me a favorite. When we enter the skin, under our arms is a flap, a flitter-- thank god for the mirrors. To love something you must consider its absence, the webbed hand is nothing more than a net. I will not marry unless you consider the order of ascension. Please attach your own oxygen mask before helping others. The first step begins with a leap, then you lose all conciseness and then you wake. Upon waking you must eat the apple and then the Adam. We wear masks so reflection does not remember.

 

Secret Garden

I woke up at 6:30 this morning and went over the new/old house to finish painting the downstairs so I can hopefully rent that part of the duplex this week. I found my garden, what is left of my garden, the lilies and the roses; the things abandoned four years ago which continued to grow. I felt not like the little girl but Colin’s mother who was dead and somehow returned to her place to undercover what she had left behind. I spent four hours being happy then came home and cried---grief is like that.

I spoke Creole twice today. I bought three boxes to Goodwill and saw a man and his two daughters coming out of the store and offered them Isabel’s plastic kitchen. The little girl said to me does it talk to you, does the water run? No but you can make it talk. You can use your own voice and it will say things.

I spoke in Creole about the sun and the little plastic kitchen. I longed for a country that is not my home but may always be. Some days I have to pretend there’s water, my plastic kitchen is happiness, some days I have to pretend it will all be okay even though I'm not sure it will.

Last weekend I was at the beach.

Today I was at a Mayday workshop with my daughters trying to figure out how to be a pole giraffe for the parade. If you send enough money I will post photos. Two years ago I was a giant flower and someone took a picture and turned it into a billboard—I’m not kidding.

I wonder what I can do as a giant giraffe? Today I learnt that elephants remember by vibrations; their bodies work as giant conductors for sound and they never forget what their bodies remember. I was almost an elephant but I wanted a long neck. I wanted to see around the corner.

I am that girl---it is not always a weakness. 

The great thing about moving is that you unearth the strangest things. Yesterday I found “the big giant head”; the big giant head was made when I was twenty, it was part of a sculpture I made with this woman jumping out of a mirror and I also used it on some talk I gave about image and society. The giant head is mine, literally. It’s an image of my head at 20 and I remember at the time being incredibly proud of it. I also remember my roommates and I placing BH in various places like the hood of a car, or under a friend’s pillow. The big head has history and now b/c I’ve had it for this long I do not know if I can throw it away. When I am old my children will clean out my closets full of scraps of poems, paint and yes most likely, the big head. 

longing

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): I had a dream about my three closest Leo friends. In the dream, I was observing them as they wriggled out of cocoons that were hanging from a large tree that resembled a dinosaur skeleton. They were covered with feathers and their arms had turned into wings, though they still had human faces. Once they were free of the cocoons, they soared away. As I watched their ascent, my own arms began to transform into feathered wings. I felt that I, too, would soon be able to fly. Here's how I interpret my dream: You Leos are ready to take off, and your flights will serve as inspiring examples to other people.

I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately—Thoreau

I went to the ocean to live deliberately, same principle different texture. Yesterday I was offered the position of Art Director of the Urban Arts Center here in Minneapolis where I would create an art program for children. I’d book the artists, do community outreach and I get an office. The latter is incredibly exciting—I’ve never had an office. So far this morning I have hired a stilt walker, a writer, an urban photographer, and I am in talks with this woman who does giant fabric dying (like make your own tent.)

I’m incredibly excited. I will still get to teach. I can still do my other gigs. I can bring my children. I will get to work some at home. They pay me.

I am hoping the writing gods will understand my sacrifice and bless me with words. Please. I offer you beautiful art. And yes, I too am incredibly lucky.

I went into the world and now I am home