Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Do shellfish dream of electric seaweed?

Last night I dreamt that I checked my blog, and all the posts I thought about but never wrote were somehow published on it. The ins and outs of life, the occassional realizations, the struggles, the successes and the musings which are all too deeply archived to ever really access again were all there for me to see, in story book format (my medium of deepest recognition.) The dream presented itself in amazing detail, it was like mining all those fleeting thoughts that you regretfully forget when pen meets paper (when pads press keys) and the best part (I dreamt) was the realization that NOW I HAVE THEM BACK. I became excited by the possibilities; I could be my own therapist and know why I am where I am. I could read these thoughts to recall my journey as it felt inside the most honest part of me, rather than my blogging voice or the feedback of those around me. There was so much tingling potential.

Then I woke up of course.

Thursday, November 05, 2009

Are you still here?

"That's the most surprising thing of all!" says Mohamed, observing our half-cut carrot bought in rough form, days from its harvest, bruised, nearly limp, shoved into the dirt and now sprouting. "It's blushing green," says Josh.

The last few months I haven't blogged. Would snapshots do? Arriving to a power cut, someone's spicy chicken crawling with maggots in my fridge, sending emails to a black hole, giant shoes holding my door open, the lobotomized pizza man serving my overtrusting heart the first piece of humiliation, a prescription bottle discovered emptied by a disappearing lover, an empty bed where my laptop had sat paused on a documentary, texts from the police, could I drive the suspect to the courthouse? A new home full of boxes, a man passing my windowsill, not bothering to speed up when I scream at him, my purse- a few embarrassing contents- spread out in my yard while 2 militants paw through, my own keychain dangling in the door, the sinister glance of the stray cat the day my first (last???) pet went missing, a falling lime waking me, the shadows of banana leaves waving, running everyday, the endless tallying of touting to join me, a collection of "champion ladies," and other zombie-bumster one-liners, a thrice broken fridge, so much loss back home, life-saving smoothies, pitch-perfect little voices, wine in swimming pools, bathing under a papaya tree, anticipating breaking heat.

I've always chronicled small. I assume you see in it the reflection of things bigger, if not then why would bigger matter anyway? Other people's lives contain momentous events, the ones I try to show up for when I'm not distracted, like a child, by a vegetable in some dirt, the ones cuing others on how to handle you. I don't have that construct to tell me if there's good to come, if I've learned, if I'm better for any of it. I just know you can cut apart a carrot, you'd be surprised because if you stick it in the soil, it'll grow.