To whoever is reading this blog.

I will start writing again soon, I promise. I just need some inspiration or something and don't want to force it :)

It is almost winter and autumn is just beginning to fade away

It is almost winter and autumn is just beginning to fade away into mid-November. The fog looms over the brown twigs and earth; a thin white veil, transparent enough to allow in only the faintest memory of the bright colors of summer-time. The moment is still as a baby bird. Like a painting it hangs on the wall of a very famous and old museum. People come here often and wish they could jump inside of it. Out of the tired and gray places where they learn to rest their heads. Into the timeless promise of nature, serenity and eternity. Here the people are always smiling, sipping on green tea in tiny porcelain tea cups their grandmothers left in passing. Warmth is never left behind in a fire place built of brick. Not in this place. Nor is it ever left in the arms of lovers or in the loyalty of a dog. It is taken everywhere in tiny containers hand crafted out of tin and glass and wood. It is the most important and necessary element that can be found anywhere in the world. It is the ingredient for life. It is love and it is in every corner of every bungalow and every mansion. It is found in every coat pocket and in every molecule that makes up a rocking chair and a fire fly and a canoe. It is everywhere and easily found if you just open your eyes.

***

Look for me on the mountaintop, where the Spanish rain pours down like honey dew and mist. I will be the one holding the flame, whistling the song, remembering your name. I will be the one with the rhyme and the music and the white swan. I have not moved from this place in centuries. The books have all been read. The letters have all been sent. The rules have all been broken. But your voice remains as silent and vague as a red Indian summer. The love is sticky, the voices are trapped inside the mirrors. Nothing is going right without you here. The architect builds everything leaning slightly to the left. I lean into you, into your memory, into the wide and open moon. It's dark tonight. It's black and beautiful. It's everything, but it's not you.

***

It is winter, and it’s summer, then the light fades into autumn. When I see you I am in another story written by another author. But then you pull me out of my shirt and out of my skin and I am in the river again where everyone is dancing. I find freedom in the blue grass and saxophones. I find your lighter and your voice in the latest hour of the night. It is just the two of us in a storm of cigarette smoke and an unbelievable imagination. And I don't know who imagined who, if it was me or if it was you.

This could happen to us if we let it.

This could happen to us if we let it. We could be the only love song playing on the radio. You could be every line of poetry I have ever tried to write and I will be the only piece of music you’ll ever compose. We could melt together into the frost and snow. We could be that honest. We could be that pure. We could be a part of everything around us and inside of us. I could be the only glove to ever fit your hand and you can be the only book I’ll ever finish reading. We could let this happen over night. It doesn’t have to be a dream. I will be every color you’ll ever need to paint your Sistine Chapel. You can be my light at the end of the tunnel. I will play your violin. I will dance upon your table top. You can be the only person in the audience. And we can listen to the smokey lullaby of a saxophone playing in the distant Northern sky.

Two very unfinished pieces.

I try to spend an entire day in silence but you won’t stop telling me the story about how fragile we are. You won’t stop reciting the poems and singing the songs. You even hum into my ear. You strum your guitar and I finally fling my arms around your neck and pull you into the hallway and into the light. There is a window. There is a window that you stand in front of and become illuminated like the angels. There is an apple orchard and here we are inside the music and there we are again skating across Swan Lake on Christmas morning. And over there is where our story is told and over here is where we stay inside, nice and warm....

***

I am eight years old and it’s time to go to sleep. The champagne glasses are clinking downstairs in the living room. I can hear them very well but I don’t know if I’m dreaming them up or if it’s really happening. They sound like stars. Grandma is rocking slowly in the old oak rocking chair. She reminds me of the sea and the frosted tips of waves gliding over my feet. She is the safe haven where my childhood is preserved. She is the one who tells me stories and reassures me that, no matter how many times I stain the carpet with grape juice, my family will always love me. Outside the crickets are singing lullabies in the shadows of the thickets. Outside the crickets are dancing the waltz with the fireflies. The night feels infinite and warm. I don’t need a blanket but I keep it tucked under my chin because it feels like an extra pair of arms hugging me, like the entire world is embracing me, telling me that this is where I belong and this is where I will find love. The clinking, fizzing, bubbling and popping of the champagne has faded. Half of where I am is filled with spelling bees, bicycle trips to the ice cream shop and Saturday morning cartoons. But soon all of me will be where the other half is....

Outside the rain is pouring down heavily upon the pavement

Outside the rain is pouring down heavily upon the pavement, beating the earth the way a musician in love with his music plays the drums. Inside I am hanging up my coat and slipping off my boots. I’m coming home to you.

***

I don’t know about the world. I don’t know about the creatures that live and love deep down in the ocean. I can’t name all the far away globes of light and gas in the sky and I don’t know about the pearls behind your ears. I don’t know Greek mythology or how many times to water a plant to keep it alive and green. I’ve read many books, but hardly any of the classics, and the only museums I like to visit are graveyards. I can’t taste a difference between organic and regular milk and I still forget to recycle. I don’t know about the promise of wealth and beauty buried miles below the earth. I don’t know how to skip a stone across a pond but I think our love is a lot like those ripples that expand until they become a part of everything and you no longer can tell what is love and what isn’t. I think I know that our love is a lot like that.

I sit myself down in the center of an unfurnished room.

I sit myself down in the center of an unfurnished room. It is completely bare, every bit of it empty except for the one corner where I place my coat and hat. This will be the last time I will truly be able to call this room mine. I will never again fall asleep to the cricket’s song in this room. I will never again watch the snow flakes tumbling down like angels granting wishes to the children below them from its solitary window. This will be the last time I pretend to be a ballerina in this room, a princess, a mermaid, Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. I inhale deeply and exhale out every childhood memory that I created within these four walls. I take my time remembering, collecting what’s mine from the history that is embedded so deeply into the floorboards and the ceiling, and reminding myself that no matter what I will never lose the child within me. I’m just moving her into her very own apartment.

I meet Benjamin at a popular blues nightclub after a very unexpected phone call (part 2)

I pause briefly, expecting this moment to remain suspended in time until everything is resolved on its own. I turn my back to the main entrance of the club and to him, but I can still hear the soul of love playing inside. I can still feel its mischief and its melancholy swaying between my shoulders blades and my knees. The warm spring breeze reminds me of lace curtains, flannel pajamas and unfinished books. He is silent. I can’t tell if what I’m hearing is his breathing or the world falling into a deep sleep. Finally, I turn to face my unfinished story. “If we’re going to do this,” I’m trying to gain back some of the control I’ve lost, “you have to tell her.”

There is a pause that is as threatening as an impending nuclear attack. It floats with menace between the two spots we both seem to be rooted to. Neither of us move, not away from each other, not closer to one another. Or maybe we both desperately want to but don’t know in which direction the other will go.

Then, as suddenly as church bells toll, he takes my hand in his and the distance between us is closed for good. “All right,” he says. It was as simple as that and as majestic as the church bells ring-a-ding-dinging to announce a brand new day.

[This may or may not be continued at a later date. For now it feels finished.]

I meet Benjamin at a popular blues nightclub after a very unexpected phone call.

I meet Benjamin at a popular blues nightclub after a very unexpected phone call. The trumpets blow swollen melodies of lust and tenderness right across the room and into our conversation. It makes it that much harder to ignore the fact that we were once engaged and almost married. It makes it impossible to forget that he now has a wife waiting for him at home. It makes it all the more sweeter when he leans across the clothed expanse of the small round table and tells me that he misses me. I hear the regret in his confession. I see the years replaying across the film of his blue eyes. Suddenly the music is too intimate. The implications and the heartbreak of every note is only magnifying the reality of where we both are in relation to where we once were. I get up from my seat with some mild effort, almost spilling my glass of wine. He knows my clumsiness only comes out when I’m nervous, when I’m nervous and falling in love all over again. He doesn’t say anything though. He’s so good to me and pretends that there’s nothing going on except a friendly meeting between friends. He even steps aside to let me pass as I head towards the door. I pray that he’ll follow me, and he does.

Outside in the street the crowd is dispersing. People are making their way home, hand in hand, body leaning against body for support, for a closeness that is fed by vulnerability. No one wants to get lost on a dark night like this. One street lamp is out and for a split second I don’t notice that he actually has followed me out. But when I feel someone brush up against me as softly as a feather landing on the pavement, I know it’s him. I can smell his cologne and I recognize it as the same brand I bought him for his birthday three years ago. I wonder if it’s the same bottle. I wonder if he’s going to follow me all the way home.

[to be continued...]