Pink glow above the rim of my dark mountain, sparrows still calling in the late dusk. Cozy at home, I let the day be tender. Shame arises in the wake of the retreat. My sin of interrupting looms large. But this healing is newly balanced, too, by my awe and my delight.
[25 of 30 in November, re-posted from today’s tweet @tryingmywings]
I sit cross-legged on my couch, the heater blasting, crickets singing through the open windows. My whole body thrums, like getting off a train after a long ride. Tonight it is the motion of our time together that resonates in me, and images of our metta rattle dance.
[24 of 30 in November, re-posted from today’s tweet @tryingmywings]
When did I last feel this way? Saturated, as if I can’t absorb one iota more, almost goofy with it, punch-drunk. But I don’t pull myself away from the discussion, don’t want to miss the moment, drawn to these people, swimming in this rich, lively human broth together.
[23 of 30 in November, re-posted from today’s tweet @tryingmywings]
After I let go of my car, a weird thing happens. I finally give up bleach. I stop buying Ajax, switch to Bon Ami. It’s as if making the choice to live car-free leads to ending household chemicals. But it is not conscious effort. It is more subtle, maybe even cellular.
[19 of 30 in November, re-posted from today’s tweet @tryingmywings]
I move the broom across the courtyard. The sun pokes holes in the back of my arms. Papery blossoms, sunflower seed shells, tiny, downy feathers collect at my feet. After, the sun bores into my calves when I bow forward in yoga. This sun is not the sun I grew up with.
[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]
I wake to cat screams in the courtyard. I clap and yell, still half asleep, kneejerk. The cat fight stops, low growls outside my sliding glass door. I go outside to break them up, a huge gray cat I don’t know, long hair all fluffed from the fight, his backside disappearing over the wooden gate. My neighbor’s cat, who I love, escapes behind the shed. I talk to her through the gaps between the wooden fence. She sits cleaning herself on the hood of her fathers’ car, all twitchy from the fight. I go back to bed, take her shock with me, sadness welling. I ache for both cats. I hurt for the gray, hope he isn’t feral, isn’t lonely. And then I cry for my own two little ones, four years dead. Later I sweep the courtyard. I hear a kestral calling, looping about a nearby palm. I can’t tell if something has disturbed her, or if she’s just having fun. She widens her arc and flies over the edge of my yard. I stand still, holding the broom before me, watching. And then I see the waning moon is watching, too, big half moon still bright in the morning sky. It’s one of those moments when everything feels all of a piece. I stand there until the kestrel flies away, and it is just the moon and me, and some subliminal sense of all of us right now. The sparrows across the road and the hedges they roost in. The fan palms jutting into the blue in all directions. The mountains and their close, steady, silent presence. After, I cut a dozen branches from my laden tecoma. I apologize to the bush, to the bees. I sweep my part of the little road, a big pile of loose tecoma and bougainvillea blooms, some dried and crinkly and some still soft and fresh, all those shades of yellow and magenta, from pale to vivid. I scoop them up, and it feels wrong to throw them away, this rich and layered art. When I go back inside, I leave the gray trashcan tucked near the tecoma on the street, the cut branches of still-fresh blooms sticking up and out, a big bouquet for the bees.
No Holds Barred 