proteanme

I am trying an experiment. Posting first thing in the morning. I’ve only hit the snooze once,  compared to  my typical routine of hitting it at least 4 times. All of  my life I’ve never been good at getting up. Sasha is already scratching and meowing outside my door.  She is nothing if not consistent about wanting to be fed. It is chilly and quiet.  I really need to take the fan out of my window. There’s hardly any traffic on my street at this time in the morning. There was a bus a few minutes ago and maybe a big truck just now. I can hear the low hum of something outside that makes me think my neighbor has their furnace on. I really need to replace my thermostat this year. Put in something I can actually program. It is amazingly dark . Winter dark. I am remembering how the barista at Heart said she gets up at 4:30am. I’m picturing the early morning runners, with their breath hanging in the air, finishing up their last 1/2 mile. Hearts pounding. Legs loose. Sweat underneath whatever layers are keeping them warm this morning. I almost never did morning runs when I ran. Legs too tired. Plus 5 minutes into it and I’d often have to turn around and run home to hit the john. Sometimes I can’t believe I ever ran.

I am thinking of MTB for a second and wondering if she is up  now too and checking the weather and thinking about the rain which she told me is sure to happen soon.

Dorencbecher in mist

Originally uploaded by proteanme

I forgot about the fog. Its kind of funny because its such a frequent occurrence up here on the hill OHSU sits on and the first year I was here I was so taken by it that I took a bunch of pictures, like the one above. It wasn’t nearly as thick this morning. Its already starting to burn off and I can see the blue sky behind the mist.

So now what? I got all vulnerable and declared how much I want to change things in my life. Writing the declaration is so much more fun, or  maybe not fun, but at least its  easier than doing the work. Of course. I do have a vague plan, though. I’ve been at it all summer: ride my bike, stop listening to the news, listen to more music, trust my gut, go with my heart, make creative connections, eat less junk food, drink more water (yay for sparkling water), reach out to people I like, make sure the people I love know I love them . . . it sounds kinda cheesy, but that’s ok. I was having a conversation the other day where I revealed that I knew about chakras. My secret is I am down with whatever works for people to find joy and meaning in their lives and whatever set of beliefs, practices, etc make the world work for them. It doesn’t have to work for me. And it doesn’t matter what I believe in. It would be such a small and boring world if the only things that mattered were things about me and my point of view, which is often changing and limited no matter how much I try to be open. If it was all about me, I don’t think I would just go crazy; I think parts of me inside would die.

Yep. Poetry. It is amazing. And right now Roger Mitchell is hitting the sweet spot. Also, it makes me happy that he taught in southern Indiana for a big chunk of his career, because then I can pretend to have a secret kinship with him.

Beneath A Cloud

So much of it is or seems (who knows the difference?)
transplanted, uprooted, dangling, frittered.
I like invisible, though visible
has its properties, proprieties, its strange
amazements. I’m equal to the bees, let’s say,
transparent, bespattered, rearranged, though not
without being first arranged. How or by what,
I don’t ask. Gathered, scattered, secret. Here
for a moment. In terrible, terrifying,
ordinary distance from matter and things,
from reasons I can’t see the reason for.
Lucid and fluid. I look out the window.
Do things in stages, leave them unfinished,
believing that nothing ever becomes
completely. Is always coming about, around.
Sometimes remembered. Remembered again,
but fragmentarily, or by someone else.
Ancient, delirious, wise, unable.
Shouted across a field. Fallow, hollow,
hallowed. Done in the dark, all of it. At dawn,
on a Tuesday or Friday. All of it
always arriving. Convinced, confused. Knowing
and unknowing. A cloud beneath a cloud.
A sky bringing all of itself along.

-Roger Mitchell

There is something kinda strange going on with me. This last week when I was at these straight and mainstream places, like Clyde Common, and events, like a book reading, I had these very visceral responses of  “get me the fuck outta here.” As in I don’t want to have to deal with this straight and mainstream shit one more minute than I have to. I swear I could have actually run out of this one event last week. Like, actually moved my feet in fast like running way. It was weird and surprising and I feel like I’m tapping into some under current that I can’t quite name right now because it would be premature to jump to conclusions. But in short, it feels like I’m coming out again, except I’ve been out now for over 32 years, so rationally it doesn’t make any sense. Still, it feels like I want to go find a queer world and just live there and stop trying to live in this other world in which I and tons of people I know are ignored or stared at or blown shit or worse (although typically, worse does not happen in Portland).

Also, sometimes lately, I look at planes in the sky and think I want to be on one of them. That happened yesterday. I’m not dreaming of vacation, either. It’s like all this open hearted work (and I hesitate to call it work) I’ve been doing is not just opening up my heart, but  it’s opening up all of my life, which wasn’t my plan. Well, plan is not the right word; it’s more like I just wasn’t thinking about what would happen. Or that anything would happen at all, except maybe deeper feelings and being more connected and authentic (which is a problematic word – authentic is). And even though I said earlier that I wasn’t jumping to conclusions, I can easily guess that what is happening is as I open up more, I am finding that the way I’m living my life, or I’ve set up my life, is not working for me. Probably in some fundamental way. And even though I know I should think of this as a good sign, because I am at a good place to make changes, sometimes I find it all kind of sad and scary. How many times in my life do I do this thing?  Thing = change big things in my life. And would it help to rephrase that as how many times in my life do I GET to do this thing? Also, is rephrasing really gonna trigger a shift in perspective that makes me feel better.

I am the one calling my blog “protean me.” I have named myself as “changeable.” And there’s a lot of great bonuses about being a pretty adaptable and versatile person. I am not the me I was at 20 or 30 or 40. I did not get stuck in a way that would make it impossible to change, which would suck, immeasurably. And I keep finding so many interesting things and people in the world to engage with. Both in heartfelt and intellectual ways. That’s lucky, right?! That’s being alive?! Or that’s my way of being alive. I feel like all my life, I’ve been making it up. I mean making up my life. Making up myself. Even though I am not all that radical and certainly radical people would never consider me radical. It’s just there’s never been a lot to go on. But don’t all queers feel that way to some degree or another?

I imagine that I am revealing way too much here, but also I think it is ok. It is all practice for being vulnerable, anyway. But I don’t want it to sound like I am falling apart, though, because I’m not and I’m not fishing for sympathy, either.  I think there is something fundamental that I am trying to figure out about being who I am and doing the things I love and putting the rest to the side. Life is so short. I mean that as the kindest reminder I can say to myself.

I feel like I’m trying to fit in as many late night bike rides as I possibly can before the rainy season hits. Because I know that I am going to miss doing this thing I love and I really fucking love it. Love it, like “secret joy,” except its not really a secret. Also, trying to ride as much as I can is a kind of great experiment with saying “yes” (love it and miss it deeply) instead of “no” (shut down to loving it and miss out on how amazing it it). Bike riding is a very low bar for that kind of experiment. Another foray into being more open hearted.

The whole “yes” idea reminds me of how when RU and I first got together, that was our thing, just saying “yes.”  “Our thing”  may not be the most accurate term, but it was how we approached the thing that was happening between us without over thinking too much, which is hard for over thinkers. I don’t save a lot of cards and ephemera like I used to when I was younger, but I do think I still have a small card that came with some  flowers that RU sent me the 2nd month we were dating on which she wrote “Yes!”

That’s funny that happened – that I wrote about that. It’s not what I set out to write about, but I’ve also been experimenting here with seeing where an idea or a thread leads. Its not unusual for it to be sentimental in some way.

I had meant to write about more about how much I love riding my bike and how I love how it makes makes me notice things around me and gets my brain working better. And how I really love feeling my body work, even when my legs feel like lead and its hard to breath. I’m not really the cheerleaderish type but some little voice inside is saying, “yay, your body works and yay, you’re working your body.”

It seems not right for me to say this, but this long stretch of sunshine is a little strange. And the forecast calls for something like 7 more days of it. I’m not praying for rain or anything like that, I’m just trying to figure out how to experience or conceive or take in all this sunshine. Not that it matters. It will be sunny with or without me. Plus, maybe I am looking a gift horse in the mouth. Where the hell did the phrase come from, anyway?

My yard is out of control. Again. It has been on the verge of being out of control all summer and even after countless hours of weeding in the spring and early summer, I’ve barely kept the overgrowness at bay and now the overgrowness is winning. Not that it’s a contest. It’s a yard and I get a lot of pleasure out of it, which seems remarkable to me, because I did not anticipate that pleasure, and feeling it has been revelation, in that maybe I harbor some secret inner gardner. Anyway, I can easily imagine the weeks ahead will include a new round of countless hours of pruning and clearing out beds, and then after that, moving some stuff around and cutting things back. And just like in spring, I will unintentionally  blow off social events because I will get totally absorbed by the task at hand.

My fingers are getting calloused again, which is an exciting and familiar by-product of regularly playing my guitar. I like running my thumb over my callouses, for lots of reasons, and I like that that the creative work and practice have an outside mark. In starting to think about how to go about finding some other people to play with, I’ve realized that I am kinda nervous about it. It can be an intense and vulnerable and insanely cool experience all at the same time. But there’s the whole getting to know each other and deciding if its going to work out and if so, how is it going to work. Gosh, as I write out this stuff I realize that bandmating has so many analogies to dating that it’s strange. I think I had this conversation with someone recently. Hmmm, who?  Anyway, I will say it here kinda quietly, I am seriously starting to look for folks to play with, so if you know anyone who’s looking to play some music, let me know.

That just seems too serious a note to end on and its not even that serious sooo . . . is there a problem. I don’t need to get a dead end loop about this with myself right? Ending the dead end loop is a good thing to practice with such low stakes.

Looking at the Cascade range silhouetted against the sunrise this morning made me think of looking at a picture in a book or a travel magazine. it was a very “this is the northwest – it is stunning” moment. It is amazing that sunrises on the tram, even with 70 people crowded in the cabin, can be so amazing to look at. I know I am repeating myself writing about this, but I can’t help it. How does one stop talking about an amazing thing?

Sometimes, during the thick of rainy season I will try to remind myself that all the amazing sunshine is still right there; it’s just behind the cloud cover. Occasionally, the trick works and this idea makes me feel less desperate for the sun. Other times it makes me feel all “dead duck,” inf act, I’d say almost wretched if I inclined to be dramatic about it, and I want jump on a plane as fast as I can and top the clouds so I can finally see the blue sky again.

There are still times I think of flying home after my dad died, leaving Portland early on a grey and cloudy February morning, falling asleep and then waking up somewhere over the upper midwest. The sky was so clear, which felt bittersweet, and I stared out of the window, looking down at the typical patchwork of farmland that makes up so much of the midwestern landscape. It was both a sad and comforting thing to look at because I had been ruminating on and writing about that landscape for many months before my dad’s death, re-remembering everything I loved about the Indiana as a place and how it was almost like this metaphor for who I am and how I go about being in the world. I had even gone that summer before my dad died, in large part, because I was worried I was just imagining that I loved the landscape and was kinda scared that I had fallen into a deep and delusional bout of nostalgia, as opposed to having real and true insight. And I’d felt so relieved and affirmed and so like, “yes, I do actually know myself,” to get home and discover that the all the places and things I had been re-remembering still did blow me away in my heart. And that quest, so to speak, was why I saw my dad alive for the last time, about 6 months before the fire.

I don’t know why stuff about my dad is coming up. I don’t feel sad and there’s nothing happening that would trigger it – no special dates, no dreams, no recent contacts with his friends or his other family. I’m not working on the his ww2 letter project. I don’t purposefully look at his photo every day. I even removed his dog tag from my key chain several months ago and as of right this second, I’m not even sure where I put it and strangely, I don’t feel panicked about that. So, I don’t know what’s going. Could it be as simple as the facts that 1) I am amazed that amazing things still happen, and 2) I am truely in my heart amazed by the amazing things? How long does grief last anyway? Do you know you’re done grieving because you cry at your desk over an email from another writer and you can’t stop talking on your blog about sunrises? I thought I was done grieving a year ago, but I can’t figure out why I’m talking about my dead dad now, in the same breath as wonderful stuff, like getting to see the sunrise.

Some songs kinda kill me. I’ll be sitting at work with my headphones on and be trying to get shit done and all of the sudden I have to stop because it feels like birds are flying away in my chest or my brain is going melt a little. It’s kind of magical but not always sparkly or fun. Still, music is my secret weapon to opening my heart and I’ve been listening to more and more of it on purpose, ever since I said to myself this summer that I wanted to be more open hearted.

Before this summer I had been in a long phase of not listening much to music, a sure sign that I am closed down. Sometimes, I wish one of my good friends would tap me on the shoulder during these turned off stretches and ask me to make them a music mix; it would shake things up a little for me and crack open whatever I’ve shut away. I need some help like that. Because even though I intellectually know what’s going on when I’m not listening very much to music, I can’t undo it by myself.

Here’s a poem I read today that I thought was pretty brilliant.

Stories Have No Manners

I’m listening to the words, but as usual,
watching something else. I hate myself for this,
but who could not watch as the tip of his cuff
nicks the top of the egg yolks smashed in the grits.
Some day next week he will take out the coat
and see the yellow scab and think how little
keeps us from drooling, even in a tie,
drooling when we should be driving, drooling
when we should be keeping the crazy bastard
at bay. It’s the crazy bastard story again.
He doesn’t want to tell it, but, like listeners,
stories have no manners. They track mud in
no matter how much you scrub, down on your knees,
and remind them, this is my tongue and groove,
my bunched little rug in front of the fire.
Is that running water, a bird up the flue?
You start making noises behind closed doors.
Friends think you probably ought to be watched
or at least let go. Though no one knows where.
There’s no pasture out here for horses who
break down and cry. Horses who say on the sly,
I’m expecting a call tomorrow.
Horses who just want to sit under a tree
and look at a cloud. Horses who think too much.
You’ve decided to eat your grits and not
smash up the eggs and leave them dead on the plate.
And you’re watching your cuff, for the first sign
that the story won’t lie down, won’t stay told.

-Roger Mitchell

Goodbye, September! I say that kind of wistfully, because it feels like it’s been a special one this year.

I recently wrote a poem titled, “I’m trying hard to be more open hearted, but its complicated and that’s not my fault.” I read it on Saturday at our Thank You Writers reading. It was meant to be both funny, in an absurd way, and also very real about how everyday, stupid things shut down our hearts. I love reading/performing and making people laugh (if I was actually into astrology, I would say that’s b/c my moon in Leo (also I just quickly read up on the moon in Leo and there was something about being tender hearted that almost made me tear up)), so it was an immense pleasure that I kinda knocked it outta the park with that poem, but I do hope that people also picked up on some of the real part too.

I have been writing more poetry lately, which is kind of unexpected. But unlike essays and stories, I am willing to write a shitty first draft of a poem and then edit it. When I write essays and stories, I write and edit at the same time and then write and edit some more, which I know is like a cardinal sin for prose writers. But fuck it I already know I am sinful and twisted. Oh well, right?! Also, the more I write poems, the more I think about how RU told me I should be a poet and I told her I thought that was just about one of the most masochist things I could do. Because you’re just kind of doomed to toil in obscurity. Sorry, to all the poets out there that I love and that I’ve had the pleasure of hearing read out loud or on the paper or both. You rock and I wish there was a NYT best seller list for poetry, so you all could rule. Anyway, maybe I will keep writing poems. Actually . . . well I’m not gonna say it out loud right now.

Also, I am having one of those unbelievable productive streaks of making music. Re-working melodies for bits and pieces of old lyrics. Last night, right after I ran through something new, I immediately got another idea for a tune for a different song. Luckily, I keep my little hand held digital recorder around all the time, so I can get that shit down before I lose the tune. I almost forgot how much I love writing melodies. That’s what worked soooo good for Matt and me with FIP. Matt gave me a big ass stack of lyrics, every couple months, and my job was to come up with the basic melodies. I loved, loved, loved doing that. I was good at doing that. It was challenging and gratifying and so satisfying and pleasurable. I’m kinda trying to set up a similar situation, except without Matt (if I did emoticons, I’d insert a sad face). I’m also thinking I wanna find someone or some people to play with – maybe a bass and/or violin and/or stripped down drum kit and who can harmonize.

I’m on a good creative streak here, and whatever muse or muses I have are being generous, but also I’m willing to put in the practice time. I’m thankful for the combination. Also, I’ve been opening up and sharing my enthusiasm and heart felt encouragement with anyone else I know who is undertaking similar creative endeavors. Keep at it, keep at it, keep at it and when you hit a good streak, capitalize on that mother fucker. Seriously, capitalize!