things I can never find when I'm looking for them

 stapler
scissors 

the right size bandaid

the thing for the thing

form I need in my glove compartment to show the guy or buy the replacement

exact page in the car owner's manual to fix it or understand it

social security card

other charger

good hand warmers

readers

freezie guy

my son's vaccine records

the name of that song I love so much

or movie

or actor

or thing that happened in the 80s

word document

email I need 

thing that attaches to the rug cleaner or vacuum 

paper to write down the phone number (confirmation number) you are giving me

instructions 

house repair paperwork/records

someone's business card that I desperately need, that would solve everything 

my son's dorm address

receipt for the

a reliable handyman

that old perfect tee shirt I used to love that I probably gave to Savers before I realized how good it was

Cerave hand stuff 

instructions for the thing that keeps breaking and I keep forgetting how to fix

the thing that was just right in front of me

the thought I was just about to tell you

community vegetarian dinners nearby

neighbors I can hang out with or at the very least talk to

vegetarian restaurant

sleep

50+ yoga class for idiopathically mobility restricted people who grieve their super limber old bodies

some kind of any kind of doctor or any kind of anyone who can fix it

the perfect comeback

my new best friend

my new community 

my new life

new therapist

friends from childhood

any trace of the hippie alternative school I went to as a kid

my memories

my dreams

the best day of my life

my infant son who is now 19 but still just one more day would be nice

old voice mails

the perfect anything

that bouncy neon cat toy that will occupy them for at least a short while

patience

poem I want to share with students and everyone

proof

the proof I said I had, 

said i wrote down

that elusive text that disappeared,

always disappears

myself before 2017

myself in general

my better slippers

a place in MN to go where I haven't been that's better than the North Shore

whatever it is I think I'm missing

time

more time

a longer day

foreverness

reread your old writing and root for yourself again (and again) which is why you wrote it down in the first place even if you didn't know it

 I just found a poem I posted 9 years ago on another blog that I forgot about and it made me cry and be happy and grateful I wrote it down because I was there for me. And now here for me there, then, now.  You may not appreciate it when you write it, you may think it's bad or clunky or pretentious or whatever... but it is you and you wrote it down for you (and you may as well love it because what else ultimately, i mean what's the alternative?)  and someday, yearsdays away, like the words I'm writing now, you will come across it on some vague Wednesday afternoon and be so endeared to it you'll want to step between the lines of time and give yourself a hug.  

I Remember How Ice Skating is Like This 

and now walking is like this

skidding and gripping and slipping and cramping all cartoon like and

reaching for the wall

for relief
for safe harbor
for gratitude

to rest (oh thank god I can stay here forever i don't have to skate anymore i hate this i want off  these skates make my feet fall in all funny and what's wrong with me that's not how Lisa's skating, but Lisa has a skating skirt so that must be why, but fuck it, my feet are falling into themselves and I am going to fall and break my head and my ankles and my calves feel like shishkabob and please let me just hang on this wall forever until it's time to go or better yet let's slide skate all the way to the open part and crawl on the wet felt neon blackbluered floor until you realize hey I can take these things off hallelujah!)

and i look for the wall on dry land
my good leg leading the way, a loyal dog
until we reach the counter, the wall, the doorknob...
only now the wall gets hot and burns up and so do the canes
and we all go down: canes, good leg, bad leg, me
sacrificed on the pick

and now walking is like this

and I worship my good leg and
I worship my two canes, one silver, one copper, mismatched in girth and height who
I've grown to love like letters of the alphabet

who I miss dearly and long for when they are out of sight or reach

because without them I am ice skating

and now walking is like this

it hit me hard today, again and again, over and over, clear as winter morning

and now walking is like this

i remember how ice skating is like this

August 10, 2017

and now walking is like this

skidding and gripping and slipping and cramping all cartoon like and

reaching for the wall

for relief
for safe harbor
for gratitude

to rest (oh thank god I can stay here forever i don't have to skate anymore i hate this i want off  these skates make my feet fall in all funny and what's wrong with me that's not how Lisa's skating, but Lisa has a skating skirt so that must be why, but fuck it, my feet are falling into themselves and I am going to fall and break my head and my ankles and my calves feel like shishkabob and please let me just hang on this wall forever until it's time to go or better yet let's slide skate all the way to the open part and crawl on the wet felt neon blackbluered floor until you realize hey I can take these things off hallelujah!)

and i look for the wall on dry land
my good leg leading the way, a loyal dog
until we reach the counter, the wall, the doorknob...
only now the wall gets hot and burns up and so do the canes
and we all go down: canes, good leg, bad leg, me
sacrificed on the pick

and now walking is like this

and I worship my good leg and
I worship my two canes, one silver, one copper, mismatched in girth and height who
I've grown to love like letters of the alphabet

who I miss dearly and long for when they are out of sight or reach

because without them I am ice skating

and now walking is like this

it hit me hard today, again and again, over and over, clear as winter morning

and now walking is like this

what I meant to post a long time ago, but it was stuck in my draft box: telling stories to get them back

 Today in Friday Writers one of my longtime (on and on I could go) students put into words what so much of this writing together is all about. In our first round of writing, she mentioned something difficult she was going through and during our "response write" another student wrote about something similar that a friend of hers was going through and all the success and support they had found further along the story than the first student. After that round, H thanked her for her story, adding, more or less that "this is why I tell this story to as many people as I can... in hopes of getting stories in return." 

Exactly that. Stories are the human currency we need to survive. You would never know it from it’s glossy and inviting surface, but the business of writing misses the point and has done a disservice to writers everywhere, creating a narrative that only "writerly writers, capital W writers, so-and-so writers " are worthy of having their stories bound and heard, that being heard is a privilege,  something one must earn before going public (publishing), only to be edited, cut short, polished the life out of before being a good enough story to put out there for the world to criticize (what we’ve grown to expect in the narrative created by paid and polished critics). I could at length argue the benefit of critics and publishing and all the good it has done—it’s more of a both/and—but the industry has come at the cost of missing out on countless of the stories we humans need to hear. The truth is, stories of any kind told in any way (written, danced, told, sang, painted, etc) by anywhom, detached from the commodities they all too often aspire to become, are the best gifts we can give each other, whole heart offerings etched in pen (etc) to lay on humanity's altar. 

Writing is what happens next

Dear Writers Everywhere and Everyhere Eternal,

Keep writing. Keep sharing your written gifts. We are collectively writing the human story and those who are heart hungry will go looking for it and drink it in. It matters! 

Write to remember. 

Write to offer. 

Write to receive. 

Write to be where you are, as you are.

Write to stay.

Write to grieve. 

Write to rejoice.

Write because it’s what you do and what you are.

Write as an act of love. 

Writing is your friend. 

Writing is peace.

Write where you belong is write where you belong. ⭐️

Happy Thanksgiving! Don't forget to thank your pens, your hands, your unique and familiar penmanship, your blank page and all the love you give it.

Let us remember that we are dear to one another. To ourselves. To this world. A wild and bright constellation of our stories connecting word-by-star, forever being written across the sky. Like the Sky Writing that made you so happy as a child !  💗

All hearts reaching: what I love about writing with you

 Every time we write and share together I am encouraged to witness the immediate palpable empathy that kicks in when you read your writing; from word one, we are rooting for you: we want you to get through this, we want to tell you to keep going, you can do it. No matter how big or small, we want you to go after and get the thing you are wanting, whether it is a trip to the east coast, a new puppy, allowing your grief and joy full expression, finding moments of peace amidst your grieving, getting there on time, finding the perfect pair of shoes, finding the courage to do or say the thing—whatever—and we will be listening along the way, through the obstacles, the inner and outer conflict. 

Despite everything wrong with our insane world and the wtf inexplicable ways of humans or the apathetic people we fear that we too have become and the moments we just want to give up, when I listen to you read, I know our empathy is still in check, going strong. As you read, we let all the insanity go and return to the present moment. We morph with you, becoming one with you as you read, grieving beside you, celebrating, feeling the warmth of a sunny day on our backs, marveling at the sprouts emerging in your garden, the excitement and uncertainty in the car with you on a long road trip to somewhere we've never seen, yet feel for certain we've been as much as we know you'll eventually get there; in one way or another, you'll arrive back home. We know it like we know that all told, we care deeply for ourselves and one another and we know we are not alone. 

It happens every time. 

Do remember

 how the other day on the table getting your yearly thyroid ultrasound you realized that you weren't exactly gripping your left hand with your right as much as you were holding it, giving it a place to rest and squeeze if need be and that your own ability and wish to comfort and hold yourself 

has been happening all along

Even though

they remind me of all the fallen fruit of my childhood, those carnival colors,  citrus stained slicks all over bleached SoCal sidewalks or sometimes even like a strand of prayer flags or those bulky paper chains we made out of construction paper as kids in slightly faded primary colors

even so, please don't litter your beautiful masks.