I can see my life in my mind's eye as a patent leather clutch handbag with a golden chain handle, ripped from the seams, the contents dumped in a compacter, the outside skin refurbished, the color made new and a shiny new price tag attached. I've donated most of my clothes and my well curated book collection, my hair has grown long and my tarot cards long put away (save for one, my favorite child). I can't remember when I last went to a cafe to read, waste away an afternoon absorbing the beauty of being young and molding time into my hands as I see fit. My social calendar is surprisingly full and yet my time with friends has dwindled to almost nothing.
In a tarot deck the Wheel of Fortune is the harbinger of luck, good or bad and the changing wind. Two days in a row I've pulled the Wheel of Fortune card and I feel like the cards are trying to tell me something. More change? More well-worn ideas floating away against their will? I shuffle my cards to a gloss and my present and my future lives are nothing but a messy soup of conflict and joy.
I wish someone could see the view from my room. A pack of old growth trees not unlike the trees from the forests of the Twilight movie. In the morning the children from the montessori school wake me a lot earlier than I care for, but surely I should get up on my days off a lot earlier than ten in the morning like normal people do. I should get my exercise out of the way and run some errands I've been putting off like getting my car cleaned and buying a new pair of work shoes. It's impossible to remember I'm not a silly debutante and all these could go away.
The new clothes, gas in my car, my living quarters and all these fabulous wine-soaked dinners... It's all a gift, you see. All of these is a wonderful three-month old gift that I keep unwrapping over and over. A few years ago I wished for this kind of life. I was gardening and I took off my shoes to feel the earth on my feet and I wished for a better life. I wanted the silly debutante's life and it was a secret I kept underneath my black shirts, torn pants and Lara Croft boots.
Stories and letters of a Virgo.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
A singular life
Nutella dipped strawberries are the best part of my work day and I daydream of the time I get to sit down and slice my organic fruit and slather European chocolate all over the perfect ruby slivers. If I wasn't at work, I would have a glass of Prosecco on a frosted flute and read the latest book I've borrowed from the library (a non-negotiable in my life) and dream and dream...
I long for a singular life--where my days and hours are free to roam upon each nook and cranny of time's landscape. But my planning book is filled with scribbles and my mental calendar crammed with lunches with my boyfriend, dinners with my boyfriend and all the menial, physical hours I work at my place of employment and in between I crave the noise of a page turning in my book, the loudness of the chaos of my own thoughts and just watch the steady dismantling of my old life.
Until recently I lived in the family home until I could no longer hold the title of family caregiver. In my culture that title is reserved for the unmarried women of the household with no prospects in sight. I've put my own schooling and career on hold to care for my mom who was afflicted with cancer and my teenage sister who was pregnant right after her high school graduation. I was given the job of the good child who was to stay at home and keep the good family name from tarnishing and giving in to rust. Until recently, of course.
I've made peace with becoming a very young spinster and living the spinster's life: singular dinners, afternoons at the playground with my nephew and other people's children and if I'm able to sneak away--a cafe mocha bianco and a crisp copy of New York Times at a good friend's coffee bar. But a man came along, of course, and he blowtorched his way into my solitude. He was the King of the Wands all the psychics have been telling me to look out for--the tarot card that warms and burns all at once.
I long for a singular life--where my days and hours are free to roam upon each nook and cranny of time's landscape. But my planning book is filled with scribbles and my mental calendar crammed with lunches with my boyfriend, dinners with my boyfriend and all the menial, physical hours I work at my place of employment and in between I crave the noise of a page turning in my book, the loudness of the chaos of my own thoughts and just watch the steady dismantling of my old life.
Until recently I lived in the family home until I could no longer hold the title of family caregiver. In my culture that title is reserved for the unmarried women of the household with no prospects in sight. I've put my own schooling and career on hold to care for my mom who was afflicted with cancer and my teenage sister who was pregnant right after her high school graduation. I was given the job of the good child who was to stay at home and keep the good family name from tarnishing and giving in to rust. Until recently, of course.
I've made peace with becoming a very young spinster and living the spinster's life: singular dinners, afternoons at the playground with my nephew and other people's children and if I'm able to sneak away--a cafe mocha bianco and a crisp copy of New York Times at a good friend's coffee bar. But a man came along, of course, and he blowtorched his way into my solitude. He was the King of the Wands all the psychics have been telling me to look out for--the tarot card that warms and burns all at once.
rain
Perhaps we both dreamt of rain,
somewhere between my sleep
and your waking.
A fated meeting bound by elements.
We close our eyes,
open them as they seem favored,
see the clouds open to an embrace
and leaves of rain fall upon us.
A fusion of black and white,
gray tears translucent as pain.
somewhere between my sleep
and your waking.
A fated meeting bound by elements.
We close our eyes,
open them as they seem favored,
see the clouds open to an embrace
and leaves of rain fall upon us.
A fusion of black and white,
gray tears translucent as pain.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Forlorn
Forlorn
(For C.)
I remember the last time I saw you,
the sunset took too long to leave
and deaf stars waited patiently.
Your footsteps were paper boats
leaving an empty creek.
The scratches of the slow manner,
I signed my letters with goodbye
weave a blanket of tears against the earth.
A cross burnt deep with memories
fell on my forehead.
A symbol of purity you held
like the stars in your wrists.
I am dizzy for you these days.
Champagne and chocolate milk swirl around you.
My eyelashes are yours, our fingertips fold neatly
like love letter you never wrote.
I witnessed the sadness of this life.
A broken Venus
crossed the stomach of your universe.
Maybe tomorrow
the cracks in the amber sky would dance,
impregnate the breathless spacxe
you've torn in the world.
Liquid moons shine against my cheek.
Words find their way in my silence to tell you
how the wind sounds like on a dying porch.
*published in Women's Forum, Seattle Central Community College. Winter 2005.
(For C.)
I remember the last time I saw you,
the sunset took too long to leave
and deaf stars waited patiently.
Your footsteps were paper boats
leaving an empty creek.
The scratches of the slow manner,
I signed my letters with goodbye
weave a blanket of tears against the earth.
A cross burnt deep with memories
fell on my forehead.
A symbol of purity you held
like the stars in your wrists.
I am dizzy for you these days.
Champagne and chocolate milk swirl around you.
My eyelashes are yours, our fingertips fold neatly
like love letter you never wrote.
I witnessed the sadness of this life.
A broken Venus
crossed the stomach of your universe.
Maybe tomorrow
the cracks in the amber sky would dance,
impregnate the breathless spacxe
you've torn in the world.
Liquid moons shine against my cheek.
Words find their way in my silence to tell you
how the wind sounds like on a dying porch.
*published in Women's Forum, Seattle Central Community College. Winter 2005.
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