Don't Trust The Chronicler of History ...

For the second day in a row, I am not going to be completely honest in here. Thought I'd let you know in advance.

I will say that Bug & I took a rare adventure drive to Avon, so she could gather Humble Tools materials. We talked about all the things, and it was lovely, and I talked to BA on the phone from the jetty, and we ate at iHop before getting home at 730.

E had stayed home, after we'd had a difficult morning, to do college stuff and pay some bills, but we all decided to go out to the movies to see Iron Man at 9pm, which was as fun as you'd expect.

Sometimes I wonder why I do this, why I write these blogs, when some days I know I won't say what actually happened? I guess I'm no different than any chronicler of history. You should trust me at your own discretion.

Exhausting :: Shattering ...

Today was exhausting. Utterly. Fucking. Exhausting.

With E home on a rare Saturday morning, due to her placement exams at Berkeley, Bug went out to get our free comics (it was Free Comic Book Day) and then we had late bagels. In the unquestioned highlight of the day, she gave me the three vintage Gormenghast paperbacks I've been coveting for years. (She does things like this sometimes, which makes me feel weird, but I often accept the gift.)

It was a quiet afternoon. Then it wasn't a quiet afternoon. I can't write about that part here.

Eventually I got ready for the evening's gig at the 'Seed. Attendance was low, again. The Muse came late. My shoulder flared up so bad I had to take a song off. Bug actually came up and closed the show with the bowl (reprising the duet her & BA recorded for Womb Sessions 2.0) and her one note performance was shattering to me, laying bare how my too many notes approach is just a mask.

The Muse actually kind of yelled at me after the show, which makes our decision to go out to dinner kind of strange. Maybe the universe was watching out for us, though, when she got pulled over for a tail light being out, and we called the evening off. Bug actually circled back & picked me up on Rt. 23, we stopped for a burger, and came home.

I know I'm dancing around things in this entry. I'm sorry. But sometimes, you just have to keep secrets.

#poemstalking ...

Oh, the places you'll go, the things you'll see! When you're me.
- The Limitless Quinn

I went to bed last night with lines (not the ones above) running through my head. I got them down on my Pad as I fell asleep, woke up in my clothes and with the lights on at 7am and had a few more lines come, almost instantly. I couldn't wait to come up here, sit in front of the breezy windows, and find out what came next.

Then, the pigeon foolishness out back began.

Doors slamming. Salsa music playing at an ungodly volume. The incessant scraping of pigeon shit from the dozens of cages. Blue skies and breezes or not, there was no way I was going to find out what came next in the poem by sitting up here. So I took E to work so I could have the car, and I drove. For hundreds of miles, stalking my prey.

This action gave me a new word, a new idea, a new mission : #poemstalking. (It has a hashtag because I first thought it on Twitter, of course.) The idea is this : what if lines of verse didn't just live in the ether, or in my imagination, but rather in an actual physical location, and that tracking them down was akin to a poetic scavenger hunt. I could really get into this ...

I was pretty sure I knew where the lines were. But I took the extremely long way 'round, for no good reason. Unless whimsy and space count as good reasons. All the way out route eighty, across the river, over the mountains, winding winding winding, down down down, coming eventually to Easton, then down the long and lovely Delaware River Scenic Road.

I listened to music. I talked to Beth Ann for a bit. I breathed. Ohhhh, how I breathed, trying, if such a thing were possible, to make my body accessible for the poemstuff when it appeared. Close to 200 miles later, and with rather stiff legs, I got out of the car a few hundred feet from where I last lived, in Bucks County PA. Now it was time to go for a walk ...

The canal path. I don't think I appreciated it very much when I lived along it for close to seven years. Then, when it flooded historically in 2004, I grew to hate it for taking so much from me. Imagine my surprise this morning, when I knew beyond all doubt that this was where the poemstuff was waiting for me, hiding like a troll under the bridges, or quite possibly behind the old bakery off Main Street.

The walk was sublime. I filled my lungs and broke a bit of a sweat and got hissed at by overprotective goose parents. I smelled everything, heard everything, saw everything. A line came under the first bridge, a few more on a bench atop another bridge. Finally, a few more came, sure enough, while I was  sitting on a rock behind Cramer's eating a chocolate chip cookie while listening to the waterfall.

I was pretty sure the heavy lifting was done, and talked to Bug on the walk back to the car, which was a nice bit of grounding. All these years, and so many versions of ourselves, and we're still here. She's not really ever found her way back there, which is fine, but I'm grateful she understood why I was there, and that it wasn't nostalgia, but a genuine sense of inquiry and observation.

Driving across the even-narrower-than-I-remembered Washington Crossing bridge, I drove through Titusville, which was just as idyllic and time-stand-still-ish as I remembered. In an old life / new life mash up of epic proportions, The Muse called me while I was walking in front of the old church and graveyard, and we had a lovely 20 minute chat next to the Friendly Love Wall ...

So funny, that she works just outside of Princeton these days, and the one day I am in that area, she was working on location in North Jersey! So much for having a date at The Bent Spoon! Nevertheless, I continued on, winding through Pennington and various county roads I was surprised I remembered, arriving on Nassau Street after six, as the light was beginning to get interesting.

Why am I always drawn to Palmer Square, and to the pathways of the University? Why such complex feelings when I walk there, mystery and regret in equal measure? I'm like a ghost who keeps haunting a place, confused, not realizing it's dead. It's weird, but I accept whatever it is, and I keep walking, feeling, open to any clues, if they should ever arrive.

Standing in the archway above, which was actually another poetic dream location from awhile back (parallel universe, The Muse had wings, long story ... ) I was filled with such longing, wishing I could show her places like this, especially like this. But patience is my lot right now, even if it is not an emotion poets are famous for.

I made my way back to Palmer Square, for one more walk around, then it was time for the ride home, which felt longer and more tedious for its directness and lack of promise. But for now at least, adventures must end, and I was grateful for everything I felt today; positive and negative, light and dark, and promised myself I would do this again, that I would keep on haunting ...

Flame Shift #71 ...

First thing this morning, before I was even fully awake, this is what I wrote on Twitter :

Everything feels so tactile today. Almost hand carved. The water running in the driveway. The music I am hearing. What are the words?

They say The Work is mental, spiritual, physical. The work of the head, the heart, the hands. Today feels physical. Today is the hands.

This is the part of me that wants to dance, to work the forge, to shoot the bow, to bring puppets to life. Telling stories through action.

I don't listen to this part of me enough. My studies are slowly unlocking this. The Muse is inspiring this. Everything is changing.

So ... what to do with this? First, sit with it, I suppose. It's a clear call to arms to return to my body, disassociated as I am with it most of the time. It also feels like a warning, to get healthy, to address things more directly, to put a cork in the passive, ennui-filled insidious death wish that clearly lives somewhere inside me. On some level, I've always wished I was a brain in a jar, or a non-corporeal thing floating in the ether. I've long ago stopped caring that the medication I take has taken all thought of sexuality & pleasure from me. None of this should surprise anyone who knows me.

What a good thing it was to have Jason here, as the most special of guests, during the last two hours of this Flame Shift. He'd been up here once before, for a few minutes, at a party we hosted a few Winters ago, but he'd never seen The Womb in the daylight, nor spent as much time up here as he did today. As you might guess, with The Lady so present, we went deep, and I was able to tell him all the things I've been talking about here, and just like when I was first starting out, he was able to validate and push me in equal measure. Our relationship has changed so much this year, it was nice to see that we could still find that place together.

At 8pm, we went downstairs and had dinner with E & J. (Ohhhh, how I wished The Muse could have been here, but that's not quite how life is right now.) J cooked one of her trademark meals, complete with the salad, and we ate and told stories and had chocolate ice cream & sugar cookies (Jason's intake of both of which amused and delighted us!). I know I've said this before, but it's really like having a father in my life, or at least what I always imagined having a loving, eccentric father would have been like. When he left, all three of us were aware of how special the evening was. Who knows how many more we'll have with him, before he flies away to paradise?

So much to ponder, but for now, bed. Good night.

A Roiling Wednesday ...

I'm a few hours into Flame Shift #71. Things are a bit clearer than they were all day, when I was roiling, feeling everything, amidst a miasma of complications and unknowables. Not a great vibe for a Wednesday, I will admit. But we did go down to the sea, and got to drive out onto the Hook, which literally opened for the season about an hour before we got there. The damage from Sandy is still clearly visible, especially further down where the old historic barracks had their porches (what's left of them) propped up with two by fours. But my favorite green flowers survived, as you can see, and the bay was as beguiling and full of life as it ever was. So so wonderful to be back on that mad spit of land again. I've missed it terribly these last seven months.

Driving further South, as always, we came to Avon, which was a hive of activity. On one end, the boardwalk and railings are already up and they are working on the light fixtures. On the other end, they are still jamming pilings into the earth. But it looks better than it did a few weeks ago, as I imagine will be the case every time I go there as we get closer to Memorial Day. The sea was rough today, and I didn't get to go stand at the edge of the world, but I did stand on the jetty and talk to both Jason & BA while E napped. (BA told me a funny story of running into The Muse at the grocery store last night, after our Arboretum time, and said she was "flying high". Heh.) 5pm rolled around quicker than I would have liked, roiling and all, and it was time to get up here. The Lady does not tolerate me being late ...

More about Flame Shift #71 tomorrow. Good night.

The Mad Tower / The Muse Out Of Doors ...

It was a full day.

Quiet and productive in the morning, inspired by the notion that someone is making a Tim / Jeff Buckley biopic, proud beyond words to have volume two of The Womb Sessions released to the world. I went for a ride with E to get a sense of where the campus is of the school she is strongly considering enrolling, and we stumbled across a tower, that I imagined was the magickal workspace of some mad, future version of myself. I know. I'm incorrigible.

The Muse got out of work early and headed straight here. Instead of watching Heima, as originally planned, we went to the Arboretum, since it was such a gorgeous day outside. She seemed to love the place, bursting with colour as it is, and we laid in the gazebo for what turned out to be several hours, having one of our talks, like we do. Neither one of us wanted to leave. Would you?

Eventually we did get up, and worked our way back here, to find Bug and Sae having a big Loki fest whilst making Humble Tools stuff on the kitchen table. When The Muse decided not to stay and watch Heima I was slightly bummed, of course, but as always, best not to be greedy. This really was one of the great visits we've had yet. Such an amazing, amazing thing, to be this open ...

With my evening ending earlier than I'd thought, I had something to eat, then went down to the 'Bucks, and ended up making a new friend, the mother of one of E's coworkers, who is in the yoga / new age biz, and we had a marvelous chat that looks like it will lead to a new kirtan opportunity for BA & I. More as this develops, of course.

It was a full day. My heart is full. I am tired, but happy. Good night.