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.

We are so funny

 because this is what I noticed myself craving today:

a trip to the dollar store to buy a colander                                        a higher sink in the bathroom like the one at the furniture place because that would solve everything.       And a smart place or thing to organize all  the extra garlic and onion

And last but not least a (or maybe a few) tiny dehumidifiers and oh yeah, one more, a hand towel that will actually dry my hands and around the bathroom sink where the faucet is too low

I also waited on an email from my yoga teacher, but waiting is an entirely different category of craving.

to the mid thirties platinum blonde mom I saw at Wolfe Park tonight with her 7 or 8 or maybe 9 year old boy

listening to that I guess grunge band                                       as the usual kingdom of clouds road in on the lowering citrus sky 

or for that matter to any mom about that age out and about roaming beneath generous summer skies with your about that age son:

It's not that I was staring exactly, in case you were wondering 

in case you looked up the hill at me through those dark black sunglasses I know so well, wondering why is that fifty year old lady with pink shoes glaring at us, the same way I saw up all those hills at staring elders feeling stared at or judged (for certainly there was so so much to judge)

What I really want to tell you is that I wasn't staring: I was mesmerized 

I was watching a movie of my old life: I was there, that was me, he is my child, you are me right down 

to the scattered, unsynchronized, sleep deprived, over caffeinated, text checking, starving, free spirited, free to be you and me micro moment exactly, to the bandshell music that only rarely, but sometimes perfectly captured the moment as you swizzled your neck around to check on your  blonde firefly: his little jumps and hopscotches and mama calls, falling freely into the summer night, his voice so edibly sweet. 

I want to tell you I am not staring at you at all: I am drinking you, I am feasting on a mirage, I am believing in miracles.  I am loving you

If you look up the hill just for even a second, we could bridge on the arc of a smiling sun so i could tell you things, so we could prolong things. But you never looked my way, go figure, you never did, you moved too fast.  And  I wished and wished that you would stay longer, that this movie would never end but a million other things were calling and in one exquisite swoop you were going, biking away with my son.

What I'd rather be doing this summer instead of going to and making so many doctor's appointments

 swimming

painting my toenails

spending money on clothes instead of copays

work on my writing

write more songs

 finish painting the living room wall

deep clean my floors

 practice piano and learn how to whistle loud and play bridge and bridge shuffle

build something

paint a mural in the writing room

bike forever like I used to

meet you for coffee or lemonade

go on a walk with you

see all my friends

go to the zoo

take day trips

garden

berry picking 

make postcards

finish 

be spontaneous

be the supermom that I used to be and take my son on wild all day adventures while he's still game

go to the mall

clean out my closet

and my junk drawers

get rid of everything we don't need

call you back

do my PT exercises

go to a kirtan retreat 

get a massage

         help you

help out

catch up on all my New Yorkers

take a day off to do nothing

make a bunch of meals to store in the freezer

do things I used to do that make me feel less vulnerable

not do

not go

spend less time in my body

float

dive

be a mermaid 

touch the drain at the bottom of the pool 

hand out cookies 

bury treasure

grieve and go

here these words and witness

and stay

all I need today

 Or ever...

Consolation

 Whenever I find myself in an awkward situation, one where I might even start to feel shame coming on, I comfort myself by reminding myself "at least I'll get to write about this later."

unexpectedly

Do you remember just when the sun came out yesterday? Its warm petals reaching everyhere? Just after the verdict? It was exactly then when I was bending over its operatic offspring with an offering of water, when it so sweetly blossomed widely overhead, across every sky, where for a moment we all existed in a soft-focused halo of prayer. Gosh, golly, these singing sunshines still bring out the weep in me. When did I plant all these? Last year? Two years ago? Ten? Their willingness to come up and shine, even after their perfunctory, faithless, forgotten, handling, the rushed burying of their souls in the most reluctant of soil, awakens deep germinating guilt-grief in a way so many words and lost hugs cannot. Even beneath my longest shadow—then, now—here they are, here they are, here they are, being their always selves. How can I hug them back? 💛

 

and for no reason at all this

and these

 make me smile and also cry

Remembering fountains

 I love standing in front of fridge late at night with all the lights off, filling my bottle from the water dispenser, watching the glow and swirling ripples under that little light that goes on when you push. It's spectacular. I forget too often this quality of artificial light, how it loves water, a magical combination, a childhood dwelling where you put all your secret wishes and dreams and it reminds me of all the year round fountains I grew up with in LA drenched by all that moviestar light, diamonds dancing in a pool

If I could draw

I would want to show you the biker in blue that just went down the 39th street hill from the west,  on this blizzardous day so beautiful, pedaling upright, and how much his headlight, so round and bright, glittered the storm so perfectly, picture perfectly, like a famous painting,  so much so it was if the whole thing happened just to be painted, another fleeting messenger that passed you by, so as to one day see it again, hanging in a museum, and be reminded that you let it get away, that there was a time, not long ago, where you could still see the world in pictures, even though it didn't mean that much to you at the time, and what you'd give for those days now

without this dying narrative

And when you can no longer lift your right arm above your head or allow yourself a good pandiculation first thing in the morning, it occurs to you that maybe you have been treating yourself the same way they have, subtly at first,  but enough to know it wasn't kind, telling yourself it's not a big deal, there's nothing wrong with your body, wear and tear is all it is; ignore the red flags, stop asking for help. 

It would be easier that way, making them right. In the short term anyway. There are immediate advantages to not trusting your inner knowing; there are benefits to staying stuck. For one, the fight is exhausting. Ignoring yourself is effortless; it feels so familiar you hardly notice. Monkey see, monkey do.

Until the short term becomes longterm and you loose half of your body to the neglect you bought into, wanted to believe. For a million reasons that you've believed before until you could no longer sustain yourself on those beliefs, you had to accept that something was really not right, that, no, it's not all that normal to not be able to lift your arm over your head, just like your brother said it wasn't right when your leg wouldn't straighten or your face felt tingly. You knew it then like you know it now. You know now that there is only so much that they can do and that the doing is on you and you alone, the same way you know you will return, like a moth to light, with your dead lighter to the old narrative and it's dying flame because now what? 

 Now what?                                                                 

Now what without this dying narrative?

Of course with emptiness, with all else 

Text reply to my brother who wonders what to get my son for his 14th birthday

 Oy. You guys. Don't worry. He doesn't need anything. 

Write him a letter. Tell him about being 14 and what u remember. Tell him what's great about being a boy and what adventures await him. Tell him about who u are and what made u happy at his age and what school was like and ur first crush and first toy and chores u did and what u collected and of the sugary things u ate, what the most valuable thing you learned was and a funny memory and a day u could live over and over even now, and who your best friend was and what u thought of ur little sister and granny and papa doo and how u got in trouble and what u played and what made u sad and what ur city was like and what dreams u had.Tell him what he has to look forward to and the best thing about being a kid and about being grown up. Introduce yourself. He'd like to know you. 😊

I wonder what John B is doing right now

 And then when you find yourself writing about something as seemingly simple as your first car, that magenta Saab that you've written about a million times, the lemon that dad insisted on because of the great deal he was getting for a foreign car perched for early birds like you on the corner lot of that used car place on Sawtelle that you named after Magenter from the Rocky Horror Picture Show and that broke down on nearly every hill, miraculously making it all the way to The Evergreen State College, only to die in the rain forest upon arrival

and when you are halfway through writing about this for the who knows how manyth time, you find yourself back there, in 1988, driving to West Hollywood with Susan to John B's apartment  and writing about all that went down, the dream and the tragedy, both as you now see it for reasons you never saw before, and somehow, you are liberated and brought back to life, long after the last time you saw John B, long after Majenter went unwillingly for a dollar into the arms of your exotically gorgeous roommate, your lover-not-lover, girlfriend-not-girlfriend who damn, if only I was into women... and the deeper you wrote, the more you began to wonder about her, and John B, and so many others you have wondered about during Covid: are they still here? 

really

 Stop being so hard on yourself   

read the hundreds of emails you sent, the countless you replied to

your lengthy, honest, intimate responses to friends, coworkers, family, the handyman, the stranger from the bank, the wrong address

Reread your own writing as though it was written specially for you, to you

Feel into your love of animals and try as hard as you can to take in what goes out like the way you  do on a walk when you pause to really feel the sun shine beneath your skin

Look around: love what loves you   allow what you love to love you back

Right now, that is the most political thing you can do.

Please, please, stop breaking the house.