I’m sitting on my kitchen floor in the dark at midnight with my back door open feeling the cool breeze of a summer night softly linger across my skin. This is a night of dreams. The night air smells of rain. I asked Jesus yesterday for ten days of rain this month of June. When I randomly mentioned it to my neighbor today, she made a half-smile and said to let her know if it happens. I will. And I’m counting. Today was day one. Miracles are missed by those who never ask for them.
I don’t want to live by the expected. Why can’t the unexpected be expected? Why can’t I eat popsicles in the morning and cheerios at night? Why can’t I let my hair grow all the way past my lovely dairy air? Why can’t I sit on dirty floors or collect leaves to write poems on only to send them floating away in the wind? Why can’t I take pictures of people and clouds and stones and pin them to public cork boards? Why can’t I write letters to old and new friends and send them with a real postage stamp? Why can’t I keep my windows rolled down in my old truck all summer long, with my music turned up real loud and my head bobbing this way and that? Why can’t I wear a skirt while I’m throwing clay on my wheel? When I ask for rain, why can’t I expect for rain to come?
I want to dream as if this was the first time I’ve ever thought of a real dream. As if I’ve never been broken. Broken people who stay broken always live in pieces. They have two and three and more worlds they straddle between. They use words like, back then, or someday, or maybe, or we’ll see, or I don’t know…
I want to live in one world. I want to live now.
Friday, June 09, 2006
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Swimming in Lakes
There are many things to take into consideration before running full-speed into a lake of shining waters. First, the temperature of the water is key to a pleasurable swim. There’s nothing as thrilling as feeling your skin peel away along with your breath as you fly into the icy, glistening pools below.
Second, just where does the ground disappear to once you've comitted yourself to it's goopy, tangled, or rocky surface? What wonderful surprises must live below the mud, just inches from the only two feet and ten toes ever received in this life? I mean, surely I’ve heard somewhere of inland sharks loving the low life of underground living in lakes and ponds, and burried snakes and poisoness toads. Really, I know these things.
Thirdly, just how many birds and geese and people like to use these waters as their hidden sewage system? The only reason why I even know about this part is because I have four younger brothers whom I know have let it loose in a lake or two or three. Many times have I experienced the sudden balmy tingling around my legs, a sudden warm current, disappearing as quickly as it appeared. One must keep their core body temperature regulated during times like these.
Fourthly, these waters can't be empty and hallow, it's just not that simple. Something, and possibly many somethings must inhabit the quiet murkiness underneath it's sparkling surface. I’ve seen them and their dark, darting forms out of the corner of my eye while innocently stroking along.
And fithly, one must know the etiquitte of keeping ones own bulk on top of the water, rather than below. This is the tricky one. It’s a difficult thing to keep oneself from swallowing so much pond water that you end up weighing at least twice as much as you did before entering the water.
After all has been weighed and considered, only then can one dare to wade themselves into a lake brimming with uncertainties. But, you ask, how could one know any of the answers to any of the considerations above unless tested first by the one doing the considering?
The answer? Well, I pause, the answer is just that. How can one possibly know unless one first tries? And why would one be so afraid to try? Pain and fear have kept far too many a' soul from accomplishing couragious feats as fighting for black freedom and the right to vote, as adopting a child with AIDS, as bearing a child as a single mother, to ones as simple as telling someone close to your heart, “I love you,” or deciding whether or not to jump into a nebulous lake.
Second, just where does the ground disappear to once you've comitted yourself to it's goopy, tangled, or rocky surface? What wonderful surprises must live below the mud, just inches from the only two feet and ten toes ever received in this life? I mean, surely I’ve heard somewhere of inland sharks loving the low life of underground living in lakes and ponds, and burried snakes and poisoness toads. Really, I know these things.
Thirdly, just how many birds and geese and people like to use these waters as their hidden sewage system? The only reason why I even know about this part is because I have four younger brothers whom I know have let it loose in a lake or two or three. Many times have I experienced the sudden balmy tingling around my legs, a sudden warm current, disappearing as quickly as it appeared. One must keep their core body temperature regulated during times like these.
Fourthly, these waters can't be empty and hallow, it's just not that simple. Something, and possibly many somethings must inhabit the quiet murkiness underneath it's sparkling surface. I’ve seen them and their dark, darting forms out of the corner of my eye while innocently stroking along.
And fithly, one must know the etiquitte of keeping ones own bulk on top of the water, rather than below. This is the tricky one. It’s a difficult thing to keep oneself from swallowing so much pond water that you end up weighing at least twice as much as you did before entering the water.
After all has been weighed and considered, only then can one dare to wade themselves into a lake brimming with uncertainties. But, you ask, how could one know any of the answers to any of the considerations above unless tested first by the one doing the considering?
The answer? Well, I pause, the answer is just that. How can one possibly know unless one first tries? And why would one be so afraid to try? Pain and fear have kept far too many a' soul from accomplishing couragious feats as fighting for black freedom and the right to vote, as adopting a child with AIDS, as bearing a child as a single mother, to ones as simple as telling someone close to your heart, “I love you,” or deciding whether or not to jump into a nebulous lake.
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