flux
its not so much the quiet that has gone missing but the privacy the creative seclusion ah the distance the stillness the self absorption it takes to cull to pick to taste the fruit and the time it takes to tend to ferment to ruminate to perseverate another matter altogether

it's not the muse that has gone missing but me and it's just a matter of stepping up of sitting down of setting down

it's hard to know the shape of the wind
the facts don't give shape to the story the story makes short shrift of the facts

standup woman speak for yourself how dare you represent me with the style of hand holding giggling girls on their way to the bathroom with the style of not daring to have an opinion or worse not daring to speak it how dare you call yourself a leader when more often than not say you were not at the table when issues of great import were talked about as if that excuses you thereafter from bearing the weight of the decision you carry forward
those in/with power do not have the luxury of innocence but the burden instead of gutlessness

and there is a hole in a household in a heart where once there was a cat she who grandmothered me us through a flood through a brain tumor through windy nights through a sunny afternoon a weepy movie she who embodied tenacity simplicity big hearts and bony fingers she who wended her way over hill and dale who kicked ass and took names having no time for grudges is now jumping between stars having mastered the distance between the deckrail and the guesthouse

grief as a semi permeable membrane more stringent more strident than melancholy whoshebe's done paddled out

there is something about not overcorrecting going on, something about the elegance of a still mind and taking what one can get like when it's time to stand stand as opposed to missing the beat listening first to a mind and the miss is as good as a mile, the body in relation to the surface of the board on the wave comes to its own feet and now that the anxiety is gone I get tangled instead in my leash
I stood because that was what I could get ain't that just too elegant and now I'm plenty stoked

bringing to mind fall in the dead of spring the sheep had been shorn & there was hay lying in wait already bailed on the bluffs

pacing across the page and back

rocking forward and back in the chair on the veranda he never said I buried my truest friend yesterday, only it sure was a good day's work and there was some cold beer if I wanted I helped myself we sat quietly for a good part of an hour only mentioned it as a was leaving so I'd know but not belabor it and that's how it was, taciturn

well there it is then, not there yet, you're still on the way, another version of change isn't made, it is spent, there's no there to get to there's no having gotten there it is all in the getting and then there was me in the background of the dream remembering the last huge fork in the road, the timing not yet settled and waking up in the dream having dreamt about wasting time waiting to take the next step along the way passing a roadblock I'd already gone by the time had come to spend the change already made

there was no edge old enough to be grandmothers all of us grey haired soft eyed the other one yelling at haints back against the wall each traveling the course of her voice to the outer edge of reality each with a story to tell explaining our actions but none of it changes the facts she attacked her we were helpless until the men came splay it mangle it spin it any way you want cover it with shoulds policy & protocol cover it with she was out of her mind facts don't change she attacked her
we had no edge

two years today since it all changed who knew how it would go his place at the table is still there but instead he's in heaven where ever the hell that is second best but it could be worse

a new kind of distance places I no longer belong not mine for the touching doesn't change the alliance but the valence is new behind a backdrop or more aptly in a labyrinth; a maze

she was no help when it came to edges, then again she also was a product of a culture that didn't do so well with separateness

he dares not hope
I'm not up for the fight

one by one I'm rebuilding my joints

I experiment with the uncertainty, not calling it something it ain't as edith, in the middle of a sentence veering off course thrusting her topaz at me, saying wear this give it back to me the next time I see you and I put it on my finger going on to the next thing energize it she said

it left me thinking of a group of women noneother than sophie and grazie and maggie and seiglinda

bigass as it is,turnsout tobe rather week-kneed

a time of generosity of allowing that each contributes to the best of her ability which just the same does not disavow meanness of spirit amongst our sisters
nothing personal she said as she understood my not taking charge as a particular inconvenience or an affront or a game of oneupsmanship
nothing personal as if my disability was something she wouldnot have to deal with
nothing personal she said with that indelible managerial tone as if out of sight would be out of mind
and she prides herself on being not one of them
she's full of shit and thensome

gradient: physics, a change in the magnitude of a property (eg temperature) observed in passing from one point or moment to another

the first thing she'll tell you about herself is she didn't learn to read until very late, or she's bisexual, or she's still canadian though she's lived in the US since the sixties

she wears long skirts flowing blouses sandals and doesn't shave her legs though she's not above a swatch of blonde in her hair

she interviewed for the job in black leather and that's the most honest she's been; what you see isnot what you get

not belonging, not respected she swooped in as if it was owed her, belonging and respect she was noisy and out of synch and was self centered enough for it not even to have crossed her mind, the privilege of health, of youth, of ill-gotten power and her so very white skin albeit gypsy brown eyes
the timbre of her heartbeat gave her away; she's not a coward she's no imagination, for all of it she's rigid as all hell she collects dogs and paper dolls she likes to be the best little girl of them all, god help her

there was a way in which she mistook all, a way in which she participated as if to signal it was not her cupoftea business a way in which she dared to think she wouldn't soil her hands a way in which by her very eye to eye "nothing personal" she cast pearls as if before swine and called me out
as if she were smarter as if I weren't good enough as if she knew when she didn't know jack shit
as if it were open to debate or up to notme to decide
asif I were the tramp

I'd been mulling fermenting aging mellowing but not writing
not not writing but not writing just the same and for sure I like the day's quality better when I do
writing the novel robbed me of my poetry of my wont as it were
still, there are so many stories to tell
arrogance one sided
generosity not amorphous
critical; content as a last resort, a place, a state like anxiety
malevolent–hmm vixenish
courageous integrity rather than righteous
faithful
hopeful
ruthless
been there ha
disabled though not necessarily afflicted
brahms as opposed to mozart
arduous heavy handed, grace where art thou

it's recorded and broadcast by the senses home again home again my body already missed it it was a beat the shit out of you day the relentlessness of an incoming tide and the dare you of the undertow and the push of onshore wind and the pull of the sideshore current and just the same it was exhilarating and for all the everywhich way about it there were rides to have and rides had it was a dash and a splash and thing is I was already eager to do it again
the body was
the mind knew better

damn if I'm not ruminating still over the it's not personal tag like no offense or just joking like of course it's personal what the hell is she talking about otherwise why even mention it and what does that even mean what is it meant to signify and if it was in a professional context carried out professionally about professional matters why would she even have had to clarify qualify her original statement, it was the it's not personal obfuscation that was the right hook to start with she should have left bad enough alone

thing was she was rude

it was behavior unbecoming a leader

moreso it was simply unbecoming, thingis I've not yet captured in a word whatever it was that annoyed the hell out of me ah, it was provocative it was a listenup & I was provoked so thereyougo I was pointed&clicked oh yesiwas

on the other hand I sat on the beach yesterday the bolinas trick and subterfuge not enough to lure me inside would have pounded me onto the beach outside were long rolling waves going nowhere except to the inside where I wouldhave ultimately been pounded onto the beach
no pointing and clicking here

it's happening to me that nevermind the surf report wind report weather and swell forecast put the stuff in the truck and let's go see for ourselves and we went and there was nothing there but wavestalking beats the hell out of pacing around

I'm 55 today, for the last five years having hovered at fifty stuck in the buick brain tumor and surf board story I've finally busted out

our across the back fence neighbors are moving the tattoo leather fetish guys, we miss them already, I think they thought as far as straight neighbors go we weren't halfbad

the rain came last night, a precursor to the fall he'd just mentioned is in the offing in the air and the damned mutant cat tried to push her way through the blinds and out the screen window in the bedroom, she'd have fallen on her ass, silly girl

for my birthday he did this remarkable thing of situating me in history, having gotten some magazines (life post seventeen national geographic motor trend) and music (cole porter) and movies (sands of iwo jima) from September 1949 fifty five years may be a lifetime, but we've not learned squat, silly us

golf shoes, three pairs all in good shape two mens one woman's pair, a smart hat, a sewing basket, a dull cream lampshade the lamp long gone, three coffee cans two full of hardware, and not the newfangled computer stuff and the third full of notions buttons and the like not like cans of hurricane air being sold on ebay and an assortment of tools with wooden handles, labels on the table with prices penned in waiting to be on to a batch of silverware not yet put out but it was the red chenille robe that caught my eye

our third PenHouseInk Press volume came out, Remembering Our Future picked it up from the printer at the Sonoma County Book Fair last time I was there was just after my little tumorette was taken out of my head, ha! I, we've come a long way since then
ran into Mike Tuggle purveyor of fine sonoma county poetry and a fine poet himself, invited us the ladies of the PenHouseInk guild to read at his invitation only poetry reading, of course we are delighted
back doors are my our preferred mode of entry ha and quite the opposite of defenestration

went to the knee guy yesterday, a second knee guy actually, the first guy about a year and a half ago who'd said the good news is your knee is so screwed up you don't need to worry about any more damage and the bad news is you'll need a new one sooner rather than later liked his directness but as it turned out would have preferred a bit more handholding
the second guy equally direct but more a mensch some how said I rarely say this but you need to quit screwing around...so the insurance tango begins again

it's all just one step at a time
and like he said it's not that complicated it is what it is
ain't what it ain't & the whole story is beyond, as opposed to, beside the point

and just like my shoulder was a work venue injury as opposed to work related, so this latest knee complication is a surfing venue injury as opposed to a surf related injury

and just like in the end after the flood we needed to dry out the house all the insurance details not withstanding fact is I either can&will or can't&won't goback to work

there I was rehearsing my lines for god's sake as if I were a criminal or masterminding some blessed scam and I thought how ridiculous is this, my knee speaks for itself nevermind the insurance madness
can't go to work barely made it for chrissakes through grocery shopping and like he reminded me, not good enough to surf certainly not good enough to work as in can't surf can't work fact is I can't walk and I am beached again, dang and that's that
meanwhile back at the ranch the scheduler called, and I'm on the roster for December 13th

it's not like the river getting around to rising after the sun's come out, I forget when people ask how are you doing with all of this that in the meantime I'm terrible, in the meantime I can no longer do what I want and that, how I am with this is, as they all say it will give me my life back, I forget to say that I'm really fucking looking forward to a knee that won't hurt every time I think of moving it, nevermind in real life

ain't no inwriting guarandamntees but how i am is exfuckingcited

as if

hot now a glorious September day spent gathering writing reading and I forget that it's not simply that I'm a dilettante ladyofleisure housewife my husband gone off to work--I've been through this before--the forgetting when left to my own devices, the as if

as if everything is all right

forgetting that I'm as if a lady of leisure because I can't walk can't do my job hell can't get the mail go grocery shopping or go down stairs to the washing machine can't water the garden, can't surf

what leisure then is that, except as if

and just that fast it was welcome to life after 50 from unworriedwell to kidneystones&diverticulosis

thenagain morechatty everhopeful nevermind disbelief with plans for surfing--he had a new wetsuit didn'tIknow---though he allowed he mightnot beable towork

did you get flustered he asked
did you, no he said lying on the gurney, irritated

like you don't need to be 14 to wear a miniskirt if you can pull it off

front: meteorology, the transition zone between two air masses of different density.

a shiny burnt umber skin over an unadorned body all right angles and bones under an offwhite no sleeves cottonjersey t-shirt green not new loose fitting fastdry pants no belt eyes loud open

not one or the other man or woman or adult or child sad glad happy wise mad clairvoyant blind blunt dull singing wailing shrieking whispering wooing cooing damningpraising

no checkboxes no shape like the wind never invited but like a cat always there on terms no one is sure of speaking mindheart all over you

ain'tkissin'myownasstyvm

"...When all is said and done, the greatest difference between those of you who still do not grasp why I cannot be in charge for even an hour and me, is that I have the courage of my abilities and the wisdom of my limits, and you are great pretenders. In the face of ever increasing demands, you pretend to do what you can not. I have the freedom of not being able to.

Please consider this notification that any (further) need to justify (my) limitations in the face of an already granted ADA accommodation is tantamount to harassment."

preparing for surgery as a scavengerhunt and he'd already scrounged a roadside commode and though I mostlikely willbe walking independently by beachsitting time I've been looking for chairs or other conveyances with balloon wheels and by god they're out there...SpinLife Sportaid wheelchairs&stuff with catalogues full of dooda's&whistles and a stairlift so my raggedy ass won't be trapped like rapunzel and a crow's feather for the nest which brings to mind the healingbundle I guess for that matter there's thatdamned topaz to account for
still scoutin' out easy in&out on&off bottoms, a walker
bath aids
and ofcourse a right leftknee