10 Minutes Anywhere.

Sometimes better than anything, better than moving around, is just sitting in a place. One place. The world is always moving and sometimes when you are moving too you can’t see all it's motion and all it's glory. It is all just a blur.
The activity of a single pigeon is not enticing or consequential, nor is the pigeon noticing when you are darting pell-mell, helter-skelter. But when you are stationary and the pigeon's movement is a critical note in a symphony of activity before you the little things that escape your notice otherwise attain the utmost importance. The cacophony of one intersection, the raucous tempo of one street, the hollers and chants from passing vendors, teenage boys taunting each other and soliciting beautiful women, taxis and repairmen, drill bits against cement, squealing brakes and failing transmissions, daily chatter on Calle Media Luna, slightly removed by the anonymity provided by the bougainvillea-dripping balcony, hidden from the world bustling at a casual pace below me. The world which fascinates me, entices me and goes on with no notice of me. I feel a part of it while remaining distant, separate, silent and invisible. The pigeon comes back for another twig, building a nest beyond the crest of the rooftop. With a damaged wing he hops. A man pushes a cart with 3 enormous slabs of ice along the street in the mid morning heat. Passing him on the sidewalk a man heads inland with a catch of small fish draped over his shoulder fresh from the sea.
10 minutes in Cartagena, from any balcony, park or plaza, presents a similar menagerie of creatures and a feast of sights and sounds.
The taxis instead of horns emit a series of beeps that can only remind of one thing R2-d2. I look around and await the reply of C3po. 10 minutes anywhere if taken in quietly can present a world of observations.

Wandering Cartagena

What is it they say about the best intentions or the laid plans? Well, when I woke this morning I was getting ready to spend the week on the beach – a deserted paradise of jungle preserve that butts up against the crashing blue Caribbean coast. All went smoothly. There was just one snag at the gate. I had bought tickets, or so I thought, for Santa Marta and at the crucial moment I discover that in fact the plane was going to Cartagena, fortunately, also on the coast and a welcome destination. I suppose it could have been a human error, this mix up… I mean it could have been my fault … but that would certainly be a first – and fortunately a pretty funny mix up, one, which seems to be working for the best so far. Upon arrival mom and I sorted out her departure flight and found a hot, dingy, little place to stay. But the price was right; we spent more on a gin and tonic so life is good. We slept- crashed really, then emerged to explore the city in midday heat. To the old city, along the wall, through one plaza to another, past the church to the cathedral and into the park, down the road lined with blossoming vines and brightly colored houses to the wall again. The ocean breeze sent whips of salt water up to our faces on the edge of where the world meets the water, under the scalding sun where the air tastes hot in your mouth and where the heat rises through your shoes to cook the soles of your feet. Back to the cool of the city grid, shade entrenched allies, more color, more balconies with dripping vines blossom. When walking North-South the wind tunnels, lifting skirts, billowing flags and cooling street vendors. But East-West is stagnant as the armpit of death, but hot death. More color, more balconies, more vines. There must be a cult of complicity for there to be so many doors, enormous ancient wooden doors, large enough for horse and carriage. There are door-knockers, large metallic green animals: fish, iguanas and old faced men. Only a cult could explain such an orgy of old knockers. Each carriage gate has several smaller doors, a person door (mighty small person or a door that requires stooping) and an eye level – identity confirmation window with decorative iron grating.
This is the most memorable accident I can remember.

Dog-Tired

Down for the count: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7pm. Walked, fed, pooped-like a dog. Panting and ready to flop on a cold floor, wag a tail in contentment, but only once or twice for lack of energy or necessity otherwise. I am a golden retriever (as if there were any other dog I could be.) My strawberry-blonde fir and wisps of my hair wave in the artificial breeze of the ceiling fan. Drifting off into doggy dreams, maybe twitching while chasing a rabbit, sniffing at lampposts or my personal favorite – dreaming about sleeping. My tongue lounges out of my mouth, my breath unforgivable, dead to the world except for my eyeballs darting behind closed lids. Something very interesting must be going on behind those eyes. This is what it looks like to be dog-tired.

On the road...

On the road, on the beach rather. Off-line, out of line, too.
down time.
one week. ( I don't even have to capitalize anything.)

Operator's Manual

How to write an operator's manual: a “ME” handbook
This is a concept I have played with for several years. It has occurred to me that we should each come with some sort of user’s guide, manual or handbook. It might eliminate some of the romantic tensions, as well as any other social mishaps. I live with two women, purely by chance, because we each got a job at the same international school. We have gotten to know each other through experience but might have faired better with some sort of introduction.
The same approach could be applied to potential friends or lovers. Especially lovers and partners need to know what they are getting and sometimes our packaging or sales pitches can be deceiving. Maybe the entire fun is discovering the surprises, but I have never been big on surprises. To come with a operator’s manual might increase the rate of success. Since I know I don’t come with a money back guarantee I have begun to compose the first draft of such a document. Writing it may too present some interesting realizations as well.
I think I might borrow some ideas from Ikea. In simple pictures without the complication of language, check to make sure you have all the right parts. Then for easy assembling start at one end and put things together, a little bit at a time. But I am afraid I can’t be explained entirely in pictures. So sadly, there will also have to be a section of instructions spelled out… and also a few warnings. Keep in a cool dry place, (where the sun shines regularly). Do not operate under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Everything in moderation… including moderation. Risk of shock if plugged in while wet. Handle with care. This side up.
This, as I said, is just a first draft. Unfortunately, it is not possible to write it all; at this point there is so much undiscovered territory, and I suppose that is the best part… it is building a machine and assembling it, without knowing exactly what it will become or what it can do, but this is how to put it together and here are some suggestions to get things started, from there you are on your own to discover how and what, where and when, because even all that can’t be guaranteed.

Dawn comes early these days.

Dawn comes early these days. With the cool breeze that is more delicious than grandma’s brownies and the sweetest caviar, the birds sing in the morning as if with their voices they literally carry the light into the valley, pulling it up over the hill.
It is the slow mornings that are the most delectable. Savoring each change of light, each breath of day and letting the dancing sounds sweep into the valley.

It is when there are many things happening that there is no time to write of them. But when little is happening that there is time to see all the movement of the world. His morning little is happening. The people are not yet awake. Only the light and the birds know the day has begun and together they are ushering in the dawn. Together they will wake up the world until this valley is humming with the voices and movement of a generation.

It is the one voice I treasure which I long to hear, but I fear that voice is lost, out in the long grass, beyond the fences of down over the cliff. Deep in the riverbed or beyond. Or what if that voice has found more comfort in the house of a neighbor. How can so much comfort reside in a tale. Where a reality is realigned and all woes are wiped away replaced by the simple sensation of a tender tail on the back of my leg. Here, kitty, kitty.

Slowly morning sets in. the changes were subtle and without warning the dawn turned into day. One more opportunity to live this day, drink it in, savor the flavor, sweet and sour, bitter and juicy, with tang and zest. The cool air of night is already slinking off to hide under the trees and in the dark places be avoid being scorched by the sun.

Can't write today...

What is happening to me...? It is the allotted time and I am in the regular place, but What I want to do more than write is (oh no, can it really be true) grade papers... well that is not really what I want to do... since I have been doing it for two days. I must take a break my brain is all mushy with the repetition of information. But equally scary is what I REALLY DO WANT TO DO; I want to study comparative Government and politics texts, I want to investigate on-line macroeconomics courses and plan AP history lessons. Is it sick and wrong that when I am going to sleep I envision word games and activities to help my students become better writers? As a 31 year-old single woman, shouldn't I have slightly different (dare I not say, BETTER) things on my mind in my last moments of consciousness? Is that what I dream about? Word games to expand their vocabulary and practice quizzes to build up their content recall... wow, what an exciting life I do lead!
All for the love of the game. My, my. Well, I had better get back to it. The tide and grammatically challenged eleventh graders wait for no man.

But with the keys flying below my fingers now, I find it equally difficult to pull away. It is like my breath is integrally rooted to the keys themselves. Almost like my breath comes in through my fingers more than my nose and the oxygen is within the keys themselves. I wonder what else is in the keys.
They will to be touched, plucked like ripe fruit. The story, the message, comes from behind the keys. It is they who speak and yearn to be heard. The order in which they are hit is irrelevant, like an Ouija board spelling it all out for me, the message comes through me; the keys tell their story and give me the breath that my fingers crave.

With each pause I am left breathless, gasping like in thin air on some mountain peak. My lungs willing me to push on, while my head and my heart pull away. But without air my head and heart are useless. Click, click, click. respirando. The keys are the air I breathe. Click, click. The keys tell their story and give me the breath that my fingers crave.

The Pits

How do you get out from the bottom of a pit?
The pit of DESPAIR… oh no that is from the Princess Bride
The pit in my stomach… no that is from the frozen coffee this afternoon
The peach pit, it is not yet summer, peaches aren’t in season for a few more months.
Pit one against another, but that needs at least too and I am only one.
I guess this is just the pits…
That is one way to get out.

Dusk

Geckos chirping on the wall, birds squawking as they dive and dart through the swarm of bugs recently born from the river’s edge, the distant chorus of voices in a valley church usher in the sunset. The sky, like a canvas under a master’s brush constantly changes as the sun slinks off behind the hill, taking the light and the heat of the day with it. In the coming dusk, prattle erupts from the soccer pitch down below, voices an erratic procession chase a ball in the yellow rising dust of a dying afternoon. Life creeps back with the cooling of the air. The staggering heat of the day is disappearing over the hillside. That which kept people in is fading and the sounds of evening dance between the trees to echo off the buildings that line the river valley. The rushing water, remnants of yesterday’s storm, purrs like a generator cutting deeper into the rock chasm that marks the edges of life that spills down the mountainside and towards the sea. Lights glitter in the distance mark the villages yet unexplored and trace the roads. They invite the stars to soon mirror them in the cool darkness of sky.
This sunset, both in sight and sound, was delicious enough to be the last.

Three for the Price of one.

1.Spring has sprung.
Even on the equator the birds are flying in pairs, the iguanas have come out of the trees in hordes, the breeze is blowing fresh seasons north and the earth is quiet (at least at Latitude, 7°08′0 N. • Longitude, 73°08′ W) on a Monday holiday afternoon.
2.Listen to me
Listen to me like you are hungry
Like the words I say can fill you
Nourish and sustain you.
3.I have been away too long and with each seed I planted
I grew further
It is neither the seeds nor the plants that they will become
or the fruit they will bear
That keeps me searching for new soil.
It is the running from as much as running toward that has kept my wheels spinning
And like a locomotive I keep burning through my fuel
Speeding toward a destination just to chase my tracks back again with the same feverish desperation.
Once the tracks are laid the train never goes anywhere
Not anywhere that hasn’t already been laid out.
Will I forever be racing to get to some place else?
Whether on the same tracks or not, never really being anywhere
Always trapped by the rails
With the illusion of travel
And the illusion of distance
But ignorant of the fact that my wheels are still spinning the same track again and again.

Will there a time when I hill hope off at a station? Take my luggage off the rack or will I let it speed away behind me.
Will I settle for a little village built around a crumbling railroad station?
Will I eat crepes and escargot?
Drink wine and succulent mussels?
Or will I forever wave from the back of the caboose at all the places I could have called home while I hungrily feed coal on the fire propelling me forward
into the future.
Can I derail the train or hop off?
Are these truly the same tracks I have ridden before or is there another direction.
Where is my station call and my welcoming committee?

in rough weather

an alien in my own skin under thunderous skies.
Adrift
Lost in my own body as if it were the open sea.
In a craft unable to steer
Wind flapping at my sails, the rigging loose,
Taking on water in rougher weather
And sinking.

Pregnant.

Every body is pregnant,
or everybody seems pregnant, either they are, which in many cases is true. More friends are "pregers" at this moment than ever before in history, “my History”.

The ones who are pregnant are bursting, all due around the same time. Three weeks and counting. The rest are just pregnant with ideas, plans, faith and frustration.
What am I pregnant with? What am I carrying? Tuvo dolor en mi estomago, pero no estoy embarazada.
I gave up drinking, but for my own reasons. Maybe it gave up me. I was dumped by wine and beer broke my heart, but I’m better off sola. Especially when I am down I don’t need to be hanging with depressants. Besides it is bad for pregnancy. It is bad for birthing of new ideas, hopes, plans or even new days.
And I prefer days I have had enough of the old daze.
I am pregnant with potential. I even have a little morning sickness. The kinds that warns you of your latent promise and scares you simultaneously.
Going through all the mismo emocionas de an expectant mother: fear, dread, excitement, hope, anxiety. Budding, growing inside changing your shape and temperament, that glow obvious to all. I am hungry all the time and quick to snap.
I am pregnant with possibility.

The impatient gardener

The impatient gardener,
Meticulously tending her crops,
Picking at the weeds, which are constantly sprouting.
But from a mixed bag how to know which are weeds and which are crops.

The impatient gardener is plotting,
Making a plan, and laying it out,
Designing a future and the fruits of her labor.

But the rain doesn’t fall and her plants, as well as her plans seem to wither.

Now the impatient gardener is laughing at the weeds,
Laughing at the clouds that block the sun,
Laughing at the rain as it falls, or doesn’t
Laughing at the soil and its reluctance to push forth a sprout,
Laughing at the seasons themselves.
Laugh at the garden;
Laugh at the gardener.

It is better than beating the soil with your fists,
Demanding that the seeds grow.
The sprouts I could see weren’t growing fast enough.
The flowers weren’t budding or smelling sweet enough.
The bees weren’t pollinating or suckling enough,
And the fruit wasn’t ripening.

Laugh at the progressing shadows creep
moving across the land.
Laugh while the flowers track the sun
across the sky to the horizon.
Laugh at the garden; laugh at the gardener;
it is better than beating the soil with your fists.
In my passion I bent and broke the fragile stems.

Forgetting what a gardener does:
You clear the land and prepare the soil.
Trace out your rows and stake your claim.
On hands and knees you dig your trough
And one by one or in handfuls you cast your seed.
Cover them over, water and wait.

That is the most important step,
And one I always forget,
Because I am in impatient gardener.


…And then wait.


And wait.
Weed, water and
Wait.


Laugh at the garden; laugh at the gardener,
It is better than beating the soil with your fists.
In my passion I bent and broke the fragile stems.

Like an herb garden they are fine and delicate.
They need the most sensitive of care.
Like a vegetable garden, each will bear fruit and nourish another.
Like a flower garden, they will bloom and smell sweetly,
Making the world a more beautiful place.
But like a forest, each one starts small and fragile.
An oak cannot be trampled,
But, if nibbled as a bud or a sapling it can be damaged.

Laugh at the garden; laugh at the gardener,
It is better than beating the soil with your fists.
In my passion I bent and broke the fragile stems.
Demanding that the seeds grow faster.

I thought I planted herbs, but maybe I am growing oaks.

I’m waiting.

Someday they may replace the sky.

Taking a break from writing to grade plagiarized essays

Donde esta la lluvia?

Donde esta la lluvia?
Asi un hombre, la lluvia él me dejó. Me amo’ y me salio’.
Sola y seco
El odor de fuego en mi nariz
Quemando todas cosas cerca de mi.
Detras de la nueblas el sol se rei.
Bromeando.
Seco y sola

El aire esta fresca.
El viento esto suave
La tarde este sosegado

Pero, la lluvia corte un agujero en mi Corazon.
Asi un Cráter o la boca de volcán
Listo a entrar en erupción.
Seco y sola.

Fuego es mi socio de la danza
Se lamando a mis pies.
Bailando asi con nadie y con fuego

La lluvia él me dejó.
A me consumo.

Valentine’s Day

Happy Saint Valentine’s Day
Where is my green?
All the little kids in the pre-kindergarten were donning green and all morning long I wondered the occasion.
But completely unaware.
My first outfit this morning was green, but in an early morning haze I changed three times settling for orange or some salmon equivalent.
Sorry valentine. Oh, well. We can see how long my haze lasted today. It is after 4pm and I meant Saint Patrick. It is a shame I don’t have an allegiance to either.

People are dying, slowly or all at once.
Strangers and friends, family …
And some day me too.
But neither that nor the irrelevant holiday occupies my thoughts.
I wish a mad love affair or even just a love distraction were the resident of my mind,
But not even that today.

I am tired, lonely (by self-imposed sanctions) hungry for nothing in particular and concerned, deeply concerned for the future of my students.
Not for their safety or comfort in their future lives
Those students have graduated in one way or another already
Either from school, into adulthood or parenthood depending.
No, I worry about the quality of my students.
In the practical sense, I worry about their ability to continue to learn (or start learning what they want) once they are out of school.
In a larger sense, I fear that they will not learn the lessons that are so vital:
Compassion, self-reliance, and responsibility.

I try, in moments like these, to remember myself at this age. I think I may have been an equally hopeless case and for my part may have kept many a teacher up at night (if not just my parents). And I have turned out decent enough, with a few dents and scratches for sure but better for it. And despite all my self-pity and doubt, I am a decent human being. That is all I want for my students.
NO THAT IS NOT TRUE. I want them to be so much more than that. More than decent, better than I am and can be. I want them to discover their capabilities, their best, and effect change in the world. We need people doing their best. Giving their all and caring for each other.
I work with these kids, even though I swore I would never work in a private school… I said I would always work with kids who need it the most. And for what ever reasons I am here, I tell myself that they need it too: my time, my energy, my love and my pushing. And I do it because I believed that these kids would make the difference- that these kids will make the policies to right the wrongs and protect the disenfranchised.
That is why I am here and why I push and assign “too much work”. That is why I work too much and ware myself out.
What do I do if, they don’t? If they don’t care, aren’t compassionate, responsible or self-reliant? If they just get a job, have a baby and worry about getting a little something better for themselves…

I worried like this in college and a wise man (my father) told me that the best way to make the world a better place is simply by being nice to another person… and as much as he was right, and I allowed that to become my philosophy, and relieve the pressure of the world from my bones, I am not sure that is enough…
Doing anything without the basic kindness is not worth doing, but I am not sure it is enough just to be nice to a stranger. I expect more of myself. And in turn, I expect more from my students. I hope that is not unfair, but I am not sure what place “Fair” has in the world anyway… so that is what I expect. Be nice to strangers and expect that you can change the world.

Until my kitchen matches my heart.

For nearly two years I have been repeatedly stuck with an intense urge to through and break every dish in my surroundings. I want to hear china shatter, I want to watch glasses splinter, mugs crumble, my favorite blue bowls explode into unrecognizable pieces, my favorite glass jars erupt into dangerous shards.
But not once, not even the time most appropriate and deserving of such a reaction, did I unleash on my crockery. Teapots and saucers, sushi plates and condiment dishes, noodle bowls and cereal bowl, shot glasses and wine glasses, tea cups and coffee mugs, collectors steins and tart pans. All safe forever guarded by the invisible umbrella of propriety. Never to meet their untimely end against a wall or to leap to their deaths only to know the existence of God upon contact with the heinous brown tile of my Shanghai apartment. Neatly wrapped up, sold for a song, or given to neighbors and friends. Alive and well to live another day and serve another meal, quench another's thirst and satiate another's craving. Beautiful, elegant, practical and fun, personal, historical, ancestral and bright. Alighting on new shelves among new family and none the wiser; how close had you just come to a premature doom, victim to my pent-up rage, frustration and guilt? Too close I fancy. And yet, never close enough. For more than two years later the urge still floods me from time to time, while walking under leaning oaks, climbing the stairs or gazing off into the distance. It takes the strength I possess to clasp what ever is in my hand and not dash it against the sidewalk. Just to hear it tinkle and glisten into a hundred little pieces. Is that so bad, just to want to destroy something to watch it take shape again as something else. To see my own strength exhibited before me and not always be on the proper side of things.

I have seen it in movies and on T.V., when either out of rage, celebration or bliss a dish or wine class is tossed into the fireplace with so much emotion and relief; ecstatic. Yet all mine is pent-up. Fenced off. Neglected. Hedged-in. abandoned. Redirected. Ignored or covered-over.

It is like I have been pretending since that moment, when I first felt the eruption and quieted the fumes. I wonder if I will ever be right until my kitchen matches my heart.

La Comida de mi Vida.

*Lo siento estoy matandolo (I am sorry for butchering everything in Spanish)*

?cuantos vezes nececito tedigo? Mi vida es mi propio vida. Tengo que tomar los decisions y pagar por los errores. Elijo esta vida con los exitos y fracasos, con los triunfos y los decepciones, con los amigos y soledad. Intercambie’ algo por eso. Vivi’ mi vida asi por mis propios razones. Y, ahora mi soledad es mi propio tambien. No soy muerto y puedo hacer mi vida otra vez. Puedo vivir en otra realidad.

Otra vez, voy a regresar al campo. Voy a plantar uno otro jardin. Y este vez voy a quedar y comer la comida de mi trabajo. Eso es la metafora de mi vida. Siempre plantando(plantacion), pero nunca quedando suficiente a comer lo. I run away before it has matured. Antes lo ha madura. Eso es la razon de mi hambre constante. Siempre estoy mi jardin abandono.

Tengo semillas; tengo tierra fertile, fecundo; tengo agua y sol del mi alma. Tengo afecto y paciencia (en situaciones unicos). Pero no tengo mi propio jardin. No tengo alimento suficiente, propio. I let the land slip through my fingers. Y con esta la hogar, la comida y la familia esta alimentacion tambien. I pour water on dry soil until it sprouts y con las senales primeros de vida salgo. A empazar en una tierra nueva, pero yo salgo con hambre, habia crecido mi proxima alimento esta esperame en el proximo lugar. No es. Siempre esta aqui con mi trabajo, en el lugar donde trabaje’, donde estoy. Movimineto no es la comida ansio’. Quedando es la unica forma de obtenerlo.

Plantar un jardin es una comprometerse a lo lugar. Hacer la miso compromiso a mi propio persona. Quedar y agosto el fruta del trabajo, el jardin; comelo su comida, su trabajo y su vida. La comida de mi vida esta quedando en el mismo lugar.

Snow and goats

I miss the snow and my goats.
I want it to be so cold that I have to snuggle up next to the fire.
These hypocritical words fall like lies from my lips, yet I speak the truth.
I am seasonally affected.
I need the sun to be happy and so I flee the gloomy interminable winter ridden lands of the north the lands of my birth.
No longer clutching the tea mug, desperate for its warmth
Rather sticky and hot under sunny skies or haze, but consistently warm.
Celebrating the one-day when long sleeves were preferred.
It is a unique occasion.
No one understands me.
And what I crave the most, from my sun-soaked morning porch, over looking the valley of tropical bamboo, is a cold wet morning where the ground is melting outside, morning chores in knee high rubber boots and a wool plaid coat with wooden buttons and a long scarf… all of this just so I can come back in to the smell of the wood burning stove and its dry heat, the mug of tea and a warm embrace under a blanket on the couch and being rubbed until the chill retreats from my bones and the tea bag hangs alone plastered to the bottom of the cup.
These are my winter morning fantasies. The spring brings life when there has been none for so long. The sap starts to flow again in the trees, igniting a chain reaction in the people as well. They stir and erupt with life as well. The trees bud and the sun creeps up over the hilltops. The snow on distant mountains melts and the streams fill again to caress my feet on summer’s riverbanks.

I miss the snow and I miss my goats. I miss the cold because of what it provides in return. Too much tropical sunshine denies me the tender touch, the comfort of covers and the slumber of hibernation. There is some monotony in all this lush jungle life. The rebirth of spring is an alien concept here, it is always halter-tops, high heals and sun. The condors circle searching for death because there is consistency here, no cyclical pattern of rest and rejuvenation.

Is it if not

What do you do when you no longer recognize yourself? How long does it take… how much time until you disavow? When do you stop responding to your name? Who is it that you become if not yourself?

Life seems so interminable while it is so painfully temporary, even the stages and the moments are terribly fleeting. The hard parts seem to lag while the ecstasy is gone almost as soon as you recognize it. Meanwhile everything is changing as the earth rotates below the heavens slowly making imprints on our faces and souls. Rotating us around our own axis so that we see the world from a completely different angle. Sometimes this change of perspective, coupled with rigid definitions of self, creates the illusion that we have changed, that we are unrecognizable. But in truth we are merely looking out a new window, looking in a new direction, and looking back with fresh eyes. It is the combination or all the paths our feet and our hearts take multiplied by all the flights our minds take that makes us who we are in any one moment and it is also the journeys that leave us so dizzy at times.

Like with exercise and travel it is the movement that can bring clarity and calmness of thought. Sometimes sitting still wraps and twists so much that with my own mind I have concocted a net, a prison, a guard and a gate; One move and the string tightens restricting me all together. But it is all in my head. Again it is all in my head. It is time to let time move my perspective. It is time to take a walk. Or begin a journey.

Sop it all up

I like to cook more than I like to eat, but there are not nearly enough people in my family (or my immediate life) to satisfy this desire to feed. I used to have dinner parties: 13 in 14 days once; I made stew, every day stew. It was cold in Shanghai in February and my friends were leaving, each on e a few days after the other. They were my family and they were leaving. They were the once who showed me my place in the world and they were going to go find their places in the world. So I cooked. I cooked to show them how much I cared about them, how much I loved them and would miss them. Somehow it is clear to me that stew, wine, cheese and chocolate means “I love you.” I communicate affection through food; I recognize that now. I learned for sure in college, but can readily admit it now.

I once was attracted to a colleague in grad school, but I knew it would not work out when he came over to eat but only wanted naked pasta and water. I knew I could never love him. Cause I could never share my affection with him. He would not eat my food.

I cooked every day for two weeks and we cozied together in my steamy kitchen sipping, guzzling wine and sopping up stew and the last moments together with our bread. They were my family and I loved them. I have not lost them but now we are on four different continents and it is just not the same. One is married. One bought a house, one is still in China and I am teaching in Colombia. I have not found a new family to replace them and that place is still open in my heart ready to be filled. I want to feed people. I want to have a family to love, nurture and feed.
For now I just feed myself. Where is my family? Who will I feed?

Standardization.

Standardization.
Will be the death of us all.
Literally, metaphorically and emotionally.
It is not the life I want to live.
So much dies when we try to mechanize life. Work. Love. Education.
For the sake of efficiency.
Since when is efficiency good? We take it for granted, put our heads down and try to be more efficient.
Screw efficient
I struggle and strive to be inefficient.

From who and where did we get our priorities?
Do I ever get to create my own priorities?
Who knows what I could achieve through inefficiency:
I could discover a change, I could discover the ultimate power, the truest gift of all; to change.
To make a change in oneself, or effect and influence a change in another is the ultimate and often overlooked power we all have.
I forget how significant every last one of my actions can be.
a kind word, a tender touch, a supportive glance, an affirmation, or the truth.
This power is within us if we recognize it.
If we nurture it and if we have the time, space and energy to develop it.
Inefficiency yields greater returns, not higher ones.
But what is it that is more valuable to you?

Love Resume Part II (Semi-Private)

COLOMBIA • VERMONT • THE WORLD
YEAR OF THE HORSE• Aquarius
SIERRA MELCHER
SUMMARY OF QUALIFICATIONS
Master of Love: Compassion and Tenderness 2011*
• Great cook & love feeding people- it gives me pleasure
• Passionate gardener
• Hips for birthing/desire for children
• Faithful, Healthy and Affectionate
• Independent & Self-sufficient
• In need of love and affection.
• Skilled Communicator
• Adventurer
• Financially responsible
EDUCATION
Master of Compassion
1979 - 2010* Buddhist Parents Shambala, Tibet
Doctor of Independence
1982 - 2010* Only child of separated Parents
BA. Intimacy 2006 - 2009* Online
BA. Self- Awareness 1984 - 2010* Self-Taught
BS. Self-Doubt with a minor in Fear 1984 - 2010* Self-Taught
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
1st Crush: 1981 ******
1st Kiss: 1993 8th grade ***** during a movie
1st Long-term relationship: 1998-2000
College – 2 years *****
1st real love: 2007-2009
Long-distance +/-2 years *******
**Countless crushes, numerous infatuations, several close calls with love.
REFERENCES AVAILABLE ON REQUEST
Note* Not yet complete

tempted by the forbidden
and not just because it is forbidden.
Tempted by the safe and volatile
Tempted and silenced by the same force.
Erupting into my shell.
With each drop of passion the more withdrawn

King-sized contradictions delicately wrapped in a pretty ribbon with sharp edges.
Passionate.
Stunted
Brave and hiding.

Overflowing with tenderness to give and share, eager to learn and be cared for. To practice loving and to find myself in a new definition, explore other parts of myself.
I have been living in the public sphere; I want a private sphere.

Attentive, sensitive, self-critical and patient with everyone but myself.
Highly qualified, but with little experience in the field.

A new experiment- a Spanish experiment

*Note: If you can understand this please forgive spelling and grammar tragedies.

Como a Alimentar mi Alma

Esta lluviendo durante un dia linda.
mi vida lo siente asi.
Un dia linda verdad:
Aire fresca,
Brisa pequeno y luz solar;
Besos de naturaleza
Suenos de amor y tardes tranquilas.

Siempre asi musica, besos de agua lluviendo sobre a mi
Y mi vida es asi eso.
Mi vida es un dia linda, un dia perfecta.

Ahora yo vi las nueblas, pero no puedo sentir los besos.
Solo ver cosas obscura,
No hay luz;
No hay besos, de la naturaleza o algo, o algien

Puedo recordar un tiempo diferente
Pero no puedo ver a las cosas linda verdad afernte de mi.

Y cuando le veo a mi vida, no siento nada.
No conosco el sabor de mi vida.

Yo veo como mi vida corto y sola:
Mi trabajo esta comiendo mi vida,
Mi tristeza y miedo estan comiendo mi amor, mi alma.
Mi estomago esta defectuoso a ser llena;
Mi corazon esta necesitado a ser llena,
Pero solo conosco como alimentar mi cuerpo.
Puedo hacer llena mi estomago.
En el mismo tiempo mi vida tiene hambre, mucho hambre.

Pero no conosco como hacer llena mi vida.

?Como hago alimentar mi alma?

La musica es la comida de mi vida.
Los contactos personales son la comida de mi vida.
Tengo hambre.

Las palabras suave mi alimentar.
Los abrazos son delicioso, pero no puedo recordar mi ultima.
?Como triste es eso?
Sabo cuando fue mi ultimo beso, pero no puedo sentir lo.
Y vida es demasiado precioso a desperdiciar lo.
Dos meses sin besos es ilegal.
Solo los besos de la lluvia yo recibiendo.
Flirting with the sun while taking rain kisses on the side.
No hay fiar/fiel
No hay confianza
No hay respecto.

?Donde esta la comida de mi vida?
Mi vida esta hambre.
Mi vida siente sola y vacio

Como puedo hacer lo llena?
La azucar no es la solucion.
Los Besos son la comida mi vida desear:
Un mano en mi mano,
Una ojeada,
Un contacto,
Su mano a mi espalda.
A breath on my neck.
Un dedo en mi cabello.

Mi vida es una dia linda, pero lo siente oscuro y nublado
Even when the sun bakes my skin and licks the hair from my face.
Mi senti asi esta siempre lluviendo sobre mi vida

I am having an affair with my porch
I am in a committed relationship with my laptop and seeing another partner on the side. Celibate tramp. Cloistered whore.

No hay comida suficiente en el mundo a allimentar mi vida.
La comida no estoy deseando.
Esto es un sensacion totalmente diferente.
Mi alma tiene hambre.

love resume. (Part I- Public)

a creature of habit above all else
easy to laugh
and in a committed relationship with my computer and my job.
Like an iceberg mostly under the surface and misunderstood

Finding strength when unexpected and passionate power from the most unlikely places. Competent and brave in certain circles; a bit of a mess and a total wimp in others. I am good at what I do and I know who I am.
Mastering the planet and defying gravity while making a home and a life for myself here. Surrounded by beauty in its various forms and empowered by difficulty. Strengthened by adversity and honed to a delicate, dedicated machine… if not a finely tuned one.

Like a turtle withdrawing into its shell at the slightest sign of danger and then being afraid of the dark, I create my own darkness and my own danger. But I always come out again. And somehow I have become highly self-aware. Perhaps from all the hours of quiet contemplation.

I forget my capacity and my influence, my power and my gifts. Today was a day of monumental growth. It happened without even knowing it. I just walked up and opened my mouth. Without even knowing what to say or how to say it and the lights all came on at once. Like it was coming through me. I spoke with honest respect, with sharp honesty and with tender compassion. It is so rare and so critical that we do this. There are so many other things that get wrapped up in our words; frustration, exhaustion, cynicism, yearning, disappointment and fear. The meaning and the blessedness gets lost in the words and the intended significance is lost forever, wrapped and tangled in something else entirely.

When meaning is lost, so is connection. When connection is lost we are all alone. And in a world full of people, where contact is so vital and so thwarted there is nothing sadder than love lost in words, strangled in communication – gone wrong.

Words are not the only threat to meaning and communication.
It is with our words, our eyes and our touch. We have to form our words with intention and simultaneously our bodies and lives have to translate that sentiment and communicate the same thing- or else our intention gets lost in the contradictions.

I am good at loving.
I need to get better at receiving, but I can give love with the best of them.
I did my part today even without meaning to. I gave three true gifts today, speaking honestly and clearly to people who are important to me.
It is the honesty, even when it is not pretty, that is the most critical.
They need to know I care about them. That is what it means to care.

One hundred

It is like I don’t want to be happy.
Happy with the sadness.
Without the eeking misery, what else is there to say?
There is nothing as delicious or accessible as the gloom

But unfortunately, after a few hours of moping in public and staying in the corner, it is not possible to shut myself away…
With over one hundred interactions a day, how can I shut myself away.

I think I must love my job because of those interactions. The very same I was dreading this morning.
They don’t let me fake, or hide. One hundred kids per day. One hundred questions. One hundred looks, giggles, sneers, smiles: smiles and glares.
Twenty annoyed. Four sleepers. Several inquisitive. A handful of disengaged, three confused and the rest just sort of sliding along.
One hundred reasons to get up in the morning.
Ten concepts taught, eight terms and two grammar rules; one exception.
Fifteen minutes wasted waiting for focus and attention.
Two toys destroyed by thousands of hands.
And even one moment of laughter makes it all worthwhile.

A coffee and a kitten at the end of the day are just the family I go home to, but not the reward for the day. The day is the reward.
One hundred reasons to get up in the morning.

12:33am

I am scared.
I am scared of so many things.
I have neglected my body for 18 years
since it started showing signs of development.
I am scared of being appreciated
Honked at on the street by taxi drivers and motorcycles
All going too fast to care
While I am offended and complimented in a bipolar orgy of contradictions
I am more scared than anything.
I am scared that I won't ever be appreciated more than that
More than the passing glance
The hoot
The slap on the ass
Or the eye caress

I am so scared that for years I have made it impossible to get any closer than that.

And still, for all my bravery, exploration and adventuring, for all that I have seen of the world and myself, for all the observation I have done of humanity, I am still scared and in this moment scared more than ever before.
I am witnessing the beginning of my own deterioration.
I picked my mortality from my teeth tonight and saw it in the mirror for the first time.
I have neglected my body in hopes that it would protect my heart.
Now neither is thriving
Both are decaying.

And the distractions are no longer enough.
The late night chorus from the river and the glow of my screen are all that keep me company on these interminable nights.
Beautiful, tender, generous, bright amazing women should not spend these nights alone.
Passing their sexual peak.
Watching their youth if not their beauty fade.
Each day a little bit
Being replaced by a creeping sadness
That no surgery can repair.
There is no facial, no masque, no spa treatment for that kind of damage.
Benign or malignant, some sadness, if left untreated becomes inoperable and spreads.
...
I have squandered my life. I have missed so many opportunities and squashed so many more all out of fear. A fear that I can’t seem to control.
A fear that keeps me in bed all day, that feeds me, rather feeds on me.
And a fear that allows for me to turn to recklessness as its only escape.

So controlled, barricaded and safe in my cage that to open the door for air means letting it all come crashing in and breaking the key in the lock. Tearing pictures from walls and smashing china.
"It's a prison of my own making.
I am the guard, the gate and the key." but too afraid to use it. and jamming the lock a bit more with each day.
What kind of life is that?
A place barren of opportunity, hope or faith.
I can’t bring myself to begin. Even when I am feeling on top of the world I am still broken, hiding and scared numb.

3.7.10 Greasing the wheels

drunk on my own stink and tears.
bedsores
hives
sinking and savoring it.
Greasing the wheels

Grounded

insomniatic
catatonic
denying the paralytic

Breathing but lost
alive, but barely.
Living but missing so much

Having stepped, fallen, slipped off the edge on which I was riding so high, aware of the precipice, but unaware of the decent, until below the horizon,

And when circling the drain, dizzy and nauseous
Only in the last moments
Gasping for air
No longer basking in the sun, like a condor on a rock
Oblivious of the sky or wind between my feathers

Getting to eat but never to fly…
Of forever flying in search of food to never be found.
Or writing my own death warrant and authorizing the execution order
Then writing my own obituary.
While my beating heart lies open in my chest.

Rigor-mortis sets in and fluids seep, decay and time undo what fear and self-doubt hid in stone.
It is never too late to die, and never to early, but how long can an empty life and a lonely heart keep beating?

Abandoned and beating away closeness
Too afraid to ask for what you want, to ask for anything, because you know you won’t get it.

Born to fly but not having wings.
Brilliant and mute
a blind photographer
A paralyzed runner slowly tracing the steps of another.
Living but missing so much
alive, but barely
breathing but lost
catatonic
denying the paralytic force, ignoring it completely.
Insomniatic

12:58 am

What happens when you no longer identify with your identity?
Who do you become when you are no longer inspired to be the person you were? When the things that gave you so much joy don’t, or even worse, when they feel like obligations. You are who you are. I am who I am. I am what I do, where I go and how I treat people.
I want to be how I treat myself.
I am afraid I am not who I am- who people see me as. What do you do when your defining character no longer defines you? What do you do?

I hide. I write. I crawl into a quiet, private place under a rock in a cave and focus on very little. Sometimes I focus on work. Sometimes I anesthetize. But I don’t leap.

And I pretend.

I pretend to be over it.
I pretend to be strong.
I pretend to be worldly and independent.
Capable.
I pretend to be her… me…
But I am strong, …
Worldly
Independent
Capable.
I pretend to be more so.
How do I become something else? Someone else?

“No one will judge you.” And she was right, except for one. Me. I will judge me. I identify with my identity so much that it defines me, even now though I don’t recognize it, like I am wearing someone else’s clothes, like I am reading a book about somebody else. I want it to be mine. I want it to be me, like it once was, but it no longer fits and I don’t recognize the words.
And I don’t know what else to do, to be.

And in this moment I am afraid… afraid that what will define me, what will become my new identity my new definition is the walls I have built, I am building, the walls of the cave in which I am hiding. I am the rigid, exterior. I am becoming something else while waiting to mourn the loss of my identity. But she is not me and she is not who I want to become.
“No one will judge you” but me.

3.6.10

If you can't write the truth don't write at all.
metaphors are hiding.
silence is hiding too, but at least it is real.

the Idiot-wise

I am retarded in the strictest sense of the word.
Is it possible to be so impeded, so slowed that I could be actually devolving…

I feel that I am getting younger as time goes on. But the reality is that I think I prematurely matured and this resulting equalizing it causing my regression.
While I have recently realized that I am not the same age as my students, I spent the last 5 or 6 years feeling that I was very much in the midst of puberty, not feeling much more than 15; awkward and giggly, shy and at the same time feeling very much like an adult, but still with that sneaking feeling that I might not be.

It was a new sensation; I don’t remember having that feeling in high school. I was certainly a hormonal and social mess, but this was different, like I was finally old enough to be 15 (of course I was a decade older than that). While my students have stayed roughly the same age, I surprisingly, somehow have not… and I wonder how much I have matured in the past years. Is it possible that I am not (or is maturation, like the most potent of realizations, that true maturity is its own antonym)? Now that is sophomoric, the wise idiot… or is it more “moronsophoic”… the Idiot-wise?

Regardless of how I can bend words or ideas, I still feel lost in myself, my perception and how I am viewed. I wonder if somewhere in that mess of perceptions and misconceptions, I am hidden.

Realizing that whether intended or not, feeling asi or not, I am in fact an adult, 15 twice, (quite possibly, against my will). Sadly, now that I am ready to face all the teenage challenges that I was too scared or too wise and mature to fall, I fear that it is no longer appropriate. And the things that I should be doing at this stage of my life, I have no idea how to begin. I feel more like a weasely, awkward teenager than the independent woman others see. And in fact, my students are too sophisticated for their own good too. So maybe we start old, and growing up means realizing how to be the children we escaped from with all our maturity.

So I embrace my adolescence.
Better late than never. Cierto?

“If you liked it you should have put a ring on it”

Jealousy is a sharp knife

When she moves down the street, with her little sway and waddle there creates a commotion; the desired effect. Every wisp of hair, every adornment and effort made to create this ripple, while looking like no effort was taken at all. The park locals hush to a whisper; the boys look away from whomever else it is they are each nuzzling to keep an eye on her as she passes. The taxis make extra effort to make sure she isn’t in need of a lift. Every effort is made.

The exterior is worshiped, adorned and bedazzled. The exterior is praised. She does her work, and it does its work. Drawing attention as she walks, seemingly in complete oblivion. Just a girl, no effort what so ever. Just a woman on her way. Because it is all part of the dance, and when this part yields the next part the music stops and a new dance begins. The effort is made, but now with a different purpose. The effort is also now to protect what she now claims, her prize, won on the battlefields of beauty and charm. She protects her future, her security and her claim. She, like a lioness, protects with ferocity even if it is the subtle, and seemingly effortless kind. She will protect her den and her stake on this man with the same cunning that she employed to win him: dazzling beauty, effort disguised as nature and manipulation (with or without the negative connotations and overtones).

It is both a threat and a compliment for what she defends so ruthlessly; it is for her station and for her respect. It is with this devotion, demonstrated as viciousness, that she honors her man, shows him that he is valued, and that she will bare her teeth and claws to maintain her right to claim him.

And the dance goes on.

Some of this is cultural, and other women no longer stalk their prey in such manners, nor do they defend so fiercely. It is a delicate line to walk when do you hunt, when do you become the prey; when do you dig in and fight for what is yours and when you let this one go, catch and release?

Have women really changed that much? Has nature evolved at all or just been retarded by social trappings, things with fancy names like propriety, liberation, independence, education, property, civilization and formalities? How does a man know she cares unless she bares her teeth, defend what you love and fight to the death? How do women hang on to what they want while seeming so aloof? Is there a way to walk through the park and be seen for who you are, beyond your sway and waddle? Who are you beyond your sway and waddle?

The man is the hunter, or is so often said, but what if it isn’t that way? Not the way we have always thought, the way we have always said.

How come in nearly every species but our own, the males are the more decorative, the more bedazzled and with the most plumage? Is the plumage what makes the hunter? How else are women supposed to navigate this dance? Teeth and feathers, dancing, swaying with claws out.

So she moves through the park, head up, tail out, feathers glistening in the light and swaying in the wind, ready to be the hunter or the hunted, while looking like no effort was taken at all.

Full. still. hungry

Full and hungry

Resting and tired.
Content but melancholy

Bored and excited.
Hungry and full.

Lonely while occupied (surrounded) and engaged.

Hot and cold.
Wanting yesterday and tomorrow, but not today. Not now.
Half full -half empty? No overfull, bone dry and barren.
Gushing, bubbling and silent and cold. Withdrawn and warm.
Jubilant and sullen. Private and open.
Compassionate and unforgiving.
Patient, with so many things patient, but not the one that matters.
And still… Hungry and full.

a love affair with the rain.

The rain can’t deter me. The pit in my stomach neither. The glory of the familiar and the mundane is raining down on me, literally trickling, spitting, pattering and in the hot breeze battering me with reminders. Momentary awakenings and the physical properties of sunshine.

Tired. Still. Hungry, not really. Ready and not ready. Hiding and basking. Is it possible to have too many contradictions? Is it possible to ruin a computer in the rain.
Is it possible to fall in love with yourself? Or break-up for that matter?
Kiss me rain. Kiss me tender and caress my hair, my arms and ankles. My cheek.
The sun threatens to break through those clouds and break up this wonderful love affair of the afternoon. Your unrelenting passion of this afternoon torrent is now gone. More timid and gentle you fall as if for the first time, unaware of the power, force and romance you hold within each droplet of your being. You dance with the wind, but I feel as if you fall only upon my skin. Is it possible to love a force of nature?
And when the torrential afternoon passion is gone and the land is quiet and water seeps into the soil, once the birds have ruffled their feathers and the bamboo no longer drips, where will you be? Who will stay with me? You will go back to where you came from, no idea when you will return. Back to the river, back to the lake, back to the sky. Who am I to ask you to stay? What can I give you in return?
So I sit on the balcony railing and let you kiss me good-bye; the wind already pulling at my hair tearing you away. And when the sun breaks through the clouds and others sigh in relief, you are gone. And all I am left with is… a love affair with the rain.

Life as a Rocket Ship

Why anyone would want to and why nobody has is well beyond me.
Quick, now. Think of the thing you want most in the world. Ok now, DON’T concentrate on it. In fact now try not to think of it. I bet you can’t. Ha! Exactly. That is what I thought. Me either.

So how do I do it? They say that you can’t get what you want when you focus on it, and you can’t often get what you want if you don’t know what it is, and then others say that once you get what you want you may discover that you don’t want it after all… Sadly, at one time or another all those anonymous pseudo- sages have been correct. At least as far as my life is concerned.

So maybe it is not in my cards to have some of the most basic things in life; was I destined (or have I manifested a reality) to live alone. In my experience it seems so remote, so distant, impossible and unlikely. The few sparks that have lit up my life were short-lived, twinkling lights and seem more like glimmers from stars long dead than realities. And in fact that is what they are. The light that I see is just what is left. As it has traveled so far through time that the light is all that is left. But unlike the stars in the sky, there are only a spare few. Leaving the rest of the night sky dark, blank and dark. Far more comets than stars and certainly no planets. Ok, well one planet… the gravitational pull of that one still lingers and often operates more like a black hole sucking everything into its vacuous darkness.

I once said I wanted to be … I don’t want to be the sun in someone else's sky. Nor do I want to be a moon simply reflecting back on another, trapped in a monotonous orbital path forever circling. I want my light to shine and to be shone upon; I want my orbital path to be intertwined, but not dictated by another's.

As far back as 2006, when I first wrote about this concept I have felt drawn to this image of the “mutual orbit… the Binary star.”

“I want to find my celestial body a new relation. A mutual orbit. And form an ellipse. … I am concerned now both with metaphysics and my own ability to love and to be loved, to release and let the powers of nature work. I want to be a binary star, want to have and orbit around my companion star.
Interminable.
A sun burns brightly and shines on all it sees. It provides light, warmth and life. It is essential. A moon, as far as we know, is dark and lifeless. As far as a comparison, this is entirely unfair, because this is not in fact true about any man. …The moon provides no light. It only reflects the glory of the sun. The moon is miraculous… but I want a binary star.” The Orbit, Sierra Melcher. 8.27.06

And as I look around in the world on every continent across cultural and age boundaries, across religious and linguistic groups, people have managed to find their own celestial relationship… whether it be sun and moon, stars in the sky, comets passing or bodies united through space and time; they have each managed to find their orbit.

Yet, I remain without such consistency. I have been living my life more like a rocket ship darting to and from distant and remote regions of the universe seeing all the wonders of the world, bearing witness to the glories of God and space as they exist in people and nature. And I have docked several times to gather supplies, so to speak, but never have I rested long enough to develop a gravitational pull of any kind. And there has, up to this point, been no space in my ship for others. Will I be a rocket man, or is there a more intimate, less glorious path I can travel.
Will the allure of the distant reaches of the world lose their appeal, will the basic forces of nature ever catch up with me, or will I make them chase me into old age when the decisions I never made will be made for me?
Is it possible to be two people? Is it possible to live life to the fullest without giving up on something?