So this happened...

I can't believe it's been over 4 years since I've posted on my blog. Of course, I've been a bit busy. You know the kind of busy that happens when your mom dies and then 6 months later you fall in love with an intriguing foreigner who sweeps you off your feet and completely dismantles your life - changing EVERY aspect of your life as you know it. You know that kind of busy? Yeah, that happened.

So much has changed. I grew in a new direction, leaving behind friends, or so called friends, and flights of fancy that were mere distractions from the depth I have discovered in this new reality. Love does that. Your entire world turns and you find yourself somewhere you've never been yet it feels familiar, friendly yet fictive. It's like being in England when you're from the states...it's sorta like here, the language is kinda the same, the cars still drive, albeit on the other side of the road, and you can understand most of what's going on around you, but it's definitely...different. Some mishaps are bound to occur in a foreign land. Sure. But...do you suddenly wake-up and 4 years have flown by?

A new job, a new home, a new car, a new dog, a new partner and a new plan. Just like that, still me, but completely different.

I don't want to throw-up every dirty detail, nor toss rose petals all over the place. Foreign lands are challenging to navigate, but worth the trouble. You will see things you didn't know existed. You'll be stretched farther than your patient soul knew possible. Yep.

Sending love and hope to your patient soul.

The past year has been a difficult one, testing my inner fortitude at every turn. On Valentine's day this year I spent 10 hours with my mother in the ER. She was having difficulty breathing and none of her inhalers seemed to help. The doctors performed every test they deemed important to rule out any life threatening situation, eventually concluding she was having extreme anxiety. They gave her an IV of Adivan and it did calm her down. They released her and I took her home. We ate a little bite and I spent the night with her because she was scared.

The next day I had to work so her friend took her to her GP to discuss what had happened in the hospital. He told her to take the Adivan 3x a day to ease her anxiety. After trying that for about a week she told me she still was having trouble breathing. She would wake at 2am with trouble catching her breath. I made an appointment again with her GP to see if Oxygen would help. He was on vacation that next week so we had to push her appointment to 3/11.

On Friday, 3/1,  I took mom to get a small cyst removed from her left cheek. She really wanted it removed. Afterward I took her to the grocery store/pharmacy to get new Rx's, pick up refills and get a few groceries. She had a hard time making it from the car to the grocery store - she had to stop and catch her breath before grabbing a cart and carrying on. I remember she put he arm in mine and held onto me as we walked. She was slower and seemed more frail now.

After we got home I fixed us both an open-face salami sandwich on the fresh ciabatta bread she bought. It was so fresh; I can't remember enjoying a simple salami sandwich more. I hugged and kissed her goodbye and scooted off. She had a cocktail party to go to in her building so she wasn't trying to keep me there any longer. She had to cut up orange peppers into squares to scoop with the pita chips they would dip into olive hummus.

That night I called her at 9pm to check to see how her cheek felt. She said she felt fine; she didn't even know she had anything done. I told her I loved her and that I would talk with her tomorrow. The next day I had to work and I didn't call her. That Sunday we didn't have plans to see each other so after work I came home and my roommate and I went out for an early dinner. I remember saying I had to call my mom and she said it could wait until after our dinner. That night I was just about to call her and my friend Kim called and we ended up talking for 2 1/2 hours. It had been a long time since we had caught up with each other.

The next morning I kept thinking of my mom so I called her uncharacteristically at 8:30am - no answer. At 9am I got a frantic phone call from her friend, Maryann. She asked where my mother was and I told her she was at home. She said she doesn't answer her door or phone and there are 2 days newspapers on her front door. In that moment I knew.

Almost a year to the day of my last blog post, I lost my mother. She died at home alone, on top her bed, probably early Sunday morning.

Everything is different now.

Last night I had a dream that confused me. My bed was atop the ocean shore, apparently safe enough, floating like a houseboat close to the shore. All at once this large tidal wave rushed the shore and lifted my bed up to the sky with such a force that it catapulted me into the air a great distance. I flew ahead in such a gust of air as if I were soaring like bird riding an air wave. As the force lessened, I softly landed several hundred feet into some kind of market place. The kind you find on boardwalks, with different little stands and stores close to one another. I landed near a yogurt shop.

As I felt the solid earth beneath my feet I knew I had just experienced a miracle. This huge tidal wave should have killed me, but it didn't. Instead the force carried me far off into the distance to a place of nourishment and joy. When I returned to my bed, it was there along the same strip of shore, floating in the lapping waves. It had also landed safely in place. The big difference is the bed was supposed to be secured so it could not move out into the ocean. But for some reason, my old landlord, Mr. Murphy, had not tied my bed in place, allowing me to be catapulted!

When I woke up, I remember feeling really fortunate that I didn't die in that tidal wave, or that I didn't end up adrift out into the never ending horizon, lost at sea. I remember thinking I could have ended up floating all the way to the Indian Ocean had my bed not returned to it's original spot. It was all a miracle to me, especially landing softly to the ground after such a long gust of wind. I felt like I was flying, weightless - until I landed on my feet. I was not afraid, though, I was invigorated by the journey.

What could this dream mean? The typical symbols are there: the ocean, a bed, flight, but mixed with images like my mattress, Mr. Murphy, and the yogurt shop. It confuses me. What do you think?

a Christian riposte

It is impossible to understand

how you –

with your venerable looks

that betray all those worrisome years

raising four daughters

loving one wife

restoring an old Victorian

planting tulip and daffodil bulbs thoughtfully around trees

to bloom happy colors every spring

tending to a forgetful, 80-year-old father

and the Missouri River flood that

damaged the farm that fed families for generations -

It is impossible to explain

how you –

tightly woven into the patchwork quilt

landscape and the tallgrass prairie

in the heart of the corn belt

have seeped into my achromatic life

like tealeaves transform

water into a steamy elixir,

soothing my apprehensive affections.

Is it impossible to decipher

how the unhurried bonds

that knit two hearts together

have reached beyond the clouds

like redwood titans in the NW corner,

or, like that giant globe of twine

wound layer-by-layer,

tangled piece-by-piece,

an immovable universe born

from a single string?

How letter-by-letter, word-by-word,

a seed became a forest?

Stories exchanged for stories

of wanderlust, family dramas and deaths,

graduations and vacations

over dinners shared,

sometimes lips paired

with passion talks and city walks –

within library walls, museum halls,

or garden paths and hours passed

over treasure maps.

Those, with their slapdash scrutiny

cannot appreciate your exalted beauty

housed within a poetic heart

traveling alongside mine

revealing an immaculate image

of my own complexion

clearer than any reflection shining from

a glassy, pacific pond.

How could they possibly see

how you –

can make me feel

more like me?

contemporary poetry

Blue is black
a dialog without words
buried under
rubbly vowels
chipped mountains
stand letters

Who are you talking to?
it sews itself inside you
says John
line drawings
trains
simplistic like

Do you have a philosophical bend?
past social agreements -
I don't know enough
but
how much do you really know?
how much does anyone know?

a girl
sentimental
not that
giant fart in the room
left by silent assailants

[Inspir]ation

Crumbs in my bed

fallen from my head

that's where I am

not in an attic

nor looking out a window

a hair

a kernel

left behind

reminding me where I live

here

not in total fear

clear that I am mass

plus velocity

plus acceleration

spinning round this plane

framed by four walls

call it what you will

until you see me

here

The sky is clear after the storm. Not much wildlife on the coast today. Waves of cranes fly overhead, and then seagulls appear in flocks of 3 to 13. The occasional bee lands atop the purple wild flowers in full bloom along the unstable Encinitas cliffs. Not much happening in the water, except for birds in the distance swooping down to fish for their lunch. A large boat heads north in the gray distance and a red chopper heads south above the active blue waters. Not a silky silver sea today. No, we have pale blue skies and a vast steeliness to match.

All of this goes on while a war is waged in Libya and thousands grieve for the dead and injured in Japan. The rush of water here is peacefully calm in its natural thunder. I wonder what the big Tsunami sounded like there?

I've struggled to keep this blog active because I'm not very good at concealing my life events from my writing life; they are one and the same. And as any writer knows, our essence always comes out, somehow, in our writing, whether we like it or not. We seem to leak who we are and how we really feel in every form of communication, especially in writing. Many try to hide behind their wit or sarcasm, but experienced eyes can always detect the truth behind the lies.

We'll see how this year's blog posts unfold. For now, all I can promise is to try to remain faithful to this forum that seems to disappear into the ether. However, with my ever increasing need to create an income, my musings tend to be brief. A sad state for me, that's for sure. I could live in the land of poetry forever, but sadly I must emerge too often to attend to the practical aspects of existence, not just the existential.