I read the last page of Starhawk’s The Fifth Sacred Thing, brimming with hope. I cradle the book, both arms against my chest, kiss the cover, cry grateful tears. Nonviolent resistance wins. Bird, Maya, Madrone—all safe. I’m awake with longing. Oh, to move people!
[15 of 30 in November, re-posted from today’s tweet @tryingmywings]
I sit, angry, stiff. Then I become aware of the bees on the ivy’s spiky balls of blooms. The soft hum of them and their warm, steady presence soothe me. I breathe, one hand on my belly. I remember the bee women in Starhawk’s The Fifth Sacred Thing, working their magic.
[re-posted from today’s tweet @tryingmywings]
I sit in the warm almost dark at the Fullerton train station. To my right, the western sky and its smog-rich orange keep deepening. To my left, the almost full moon rises, a lopsided oval, bright and clear in the blue black sky. I sit and procrastinate on my grading.
[re-posted from today’s tweet @tryingmywings]
As if they read my tweet yesterday, my white-crowned sparrows celebrate this evening, give me hope. They sing from the bougainvillea, loud for the first time, clear, bright. The hedge across our small road answers. Then more singing in my courtyard, late dusk wonder.
[re-posted from today’s tweet @tryingmywings]
Today I see a photo in the L.A. Times, 70,000 people protesting the anti-immigrant Prop 187. A sea of color surrounds city hall, young Latino Americans taking to the streets in 1994. I cry, big pride in them. Good chills thrum down my thighs, big belief in Californians.
[I plan to post one tweet each day in November @tryingmywings. I am re-posting them here.]
I walk back down my gravel driveway after taking out the trash. I see a lone guayaba on the ground, bend to pick it up, turn it over. It’s beautiful, ripe and unmarred, untouched by bird or desert rat. The very last one, I suspect. I’d thought the two I ate three days ago would be the end of them. I stand cradling the small perfect fruit in my palm, this sweet surprise. I thank my guayaba tree, kiss a patch of smooth dark trunk between the lovely peeling bark skin. I feel lucky and grateful. Then I move, gentle, through the big palm fronds that brush my trailer, and I feel my sadness. Is it because of my family? Maybe. Maybe it is that. And maybe it is touched by autumn, too, the changing light, the ending in this, the movement toward the new. I love the changing of the seasons, the anticipation in that coming to be. But it’s a time of letting go, too. When I was young I always felt a kind of longing in the fall. I called it “autumn aches.” Maybe what I feel today is that. And maybe I feel the earth’s sorrow, as well. I open my wooden gate, careful of the guayaba I am holding. The Mexican petunias are a wild splash of purple in the center of the courtyard, a volunteer sunflower, big new bloom, beside them. I stop inside the gate, press the guayaba to my lips, breathe the scent of it. The sparrows lift back into the bougainvillea, soft movement, brushstroke on paper. The sadness, I tuck away. I’ll carry it with me, let it live, quiet, just beneath this joy.
I turn off the ringer on the phone, curl up on my side for a late nap, driven by desire and need. I send up a small prayer, to wake before the moon sets behind our mountains, before the last of the light leaves the sky. Anxiety has my fingers moving against the pillowcase. I hear their noise and stop. I let my angst sink back into the earth. The scritchery noise again, callouses against cotton. Again I let my anxiety seep out of me. I do this over and over, and then I sink into sleep. I go deep. I’m surprised when I wake in only half an hour, already this swift shortening of our days. But, oh, when I wake. The ridge of our mountains a clear silhouette against the last light of the sky, palest amber tint. The fat waxing crescent moon hanging just above the ridge, the first thing I see when I open my eyes, bright greeting, dear companion, answer to prayer.
No Holds Barred 