I Sing with the Beatles (52)

In my joy class we sing “With a Little Help from My Friends,” all of us swaying and clapping together in our little Zoom boxes. After, I have Alexa play it for me again and again until I memorize all the words. I pick “When I’m 64” to learn next because I think I should sing it throughout the coming year while I’m 63. Late at night I sit in the living room, heater and ice-maker noises behind me, solar Christmas lights on the succulents outside the window, headlights on the 210 moving like water in the distance between the black curves of the foothills. My eyes close while I type, and I jerk awake more than once, but when I finish my work, I look for the song. I find the music with the lyrics, and I play it on my laptop with the volume turned way down. “Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m sixty-four?” My knees bounce as my feet move, and I sing along, delighted with the music and the words, the minds and hearts that made them. I am lifted out of my limited self in the quiet night, unhindered, even happy, spread out like the valley to the west, silent now in the late dark.

Exhausted (51)

Unexpected warmth
the big lizard does pushups
in the corner of the back yard
I lie on my back
in chavasana
and wake up snoring.

Without (49)

I’ve cancelled my writing groups for the month of April. People are wishing me well, supporting me in this choice to take care of myself. And I just keep explaining it’s not like I’m taking a holiday. It’s not like I expect true respite here. I am only reaching for a little less stress. This is an act of desperation. Attending any Zoom meeting right now requires superhuman effort. Leading the meeting pushes the stress into the extraordinary range. I adore my Meetup sessions. There are beings there I love with every bit of me. But I can’t relax into them right now, can’t bring my whole self. My attention is split and scattered, my body anxious, stiff, my heart constrained. I am going on hiatus in the hope I can find a way to lead these sessions again with an undivided heart. I miss you already, my dear ones. May April be good to you.

H-Words (41)

I am grinning, my spirits lifted a bit by the lightness of humor, by just being together, and maybe because we are such funny creatures, we humans. We have a history, of course, and a present, both far from funny. You do not need to hunt for atrocity in our world. It lives large on every page, large print as we grow older, maybe even the books we love to hunker down with, embrace the horror with the unlikely heroines, or dream of the day when the U.S. Congress is finally, forever and ever, no longer so hideously white and male, but dark skinned and female and queer all rising to the fore.

[Spontaneous writing session with the words humor, hunker, hunt and history.]

Cakewalk (36)

Today I sit on the edge of my bed in the morning looping cords over my head, laying stones against my chest. I sit for a minute doing nothing, relishing this Saturday, knowing I am off from both my jobs. I sing my little “It’s my holiday” song complete with hand movements and wiggled hips. And in these impromptu acts, these sounds and movements, I feel myself relinquish eleven minutes of believing life is hard.

This JOY!

I don’t usually post other things to this blog, but I can’t think of a sweeter, more lively or loving or empowering “antidote” and encouragement to our current state of affairs than this video from the Resistance Revival Chorus. It may lift your heart, make you dance or clap. It made me do all three. It made me cry good tears.


Sending you all metta.

Riba