falafel and my mind

sitting at the gypsy cafe my dear friend works at I ponder these things:

living out of my car could be worse and getting things stolen are just things, i can't take them with me when my body exhausts itself and my soul is left to leaving this place. i'm tempted to leave bags of things outside my car for ppl's taking...

my heart could burst from the people that have come alongside me to love on me in a simple question of whether or not i need anything or to give me a hug in this time.

i wish my stomach were a little smaller. or maybe i wish it were bigger so it could handle all the food i eat. !

"little singer".
what did THAT mean...?

my old friend that has moved on in this season...thankful to have been able to love him well and hope i have the energy to continue to. wish i could talk to that girl he adores and let her know how stupid she's being, that she should give him a chance as i just want him to be happy.

janet.
healing. seeking. may she find God as i feel that i have.

where might my brother and i end up inhabiting and will we in fact make the music i've longed to make together? will ppl come see us and clap?

"broad clearing", and whether or not i made a mistake...

laughter...i hope it comes again and hard.

friendship...how complicated it is but worth each complication (i hope and need to be vulnerable to discover).

my grandma and how i wish i could call her right now, explain life and feel that soothing scratchy tone she had with me every time i was upset.

whether or not to order more falafel.

twenty6

i had to calculate my age the other day because i forgot how old i was going to be. i started with 1985 and worked my way up. just as i suspected, i am twenty six.

it always looked a lot more magical and somewhat figured out in my mind, the one that i saw. maybe it was someone else's twenty six i was seeing and waiting for. as if i psychically envisioned it. whoever saw mine must be pretty relieved...it looks like the sxity dollars i get for the four year-old's bed i sleep in while looking after a rescued boxer for two days, a car with a rack of clothing keeping the back seat company until it finds a more permanent residence and pockets that keep opening up and betraying the coins they allowed occupancy to. quiet. silent. distilled. twenty six.

but the one that i saw still had her in it. Ruth. my grandmother. and their house. 214 East North street. and he still lived there with her, my grandfather Robert. the one that i saw still had the partnership between Robert and a particular tree in order to build a small house for our summers there. this twenty-six had me coming home for the holidays hand in hand with him, the one who fights me for me and wins. we walk up those four front steps i befriended for a whole summer in 1993, our mouths like tiny fog machines in the winter air.

laughing we enter the room Ruth stenciled all her own on a ladder who took up residency in that front foyer for what i think was over a year. first, the aroma of a marriage greets us: ham becoming one with coca cola, pineapple, cherries and brown sugar. my grandmother's recipe. then, my grandmother: large glasses from 1981 framing her eyes that by now would be seemingly smaller. maybe more rectangular. a half a moon at a one hundred eighty degree angle worn on her face with just a speck of silver peeking out-lines surrounding the outter limit. wrinkles. like a stone tossed into a pond- proof of joyful moments. rings on a tree. she grabs me first holding me the way that by now my heart has ached 13 years to be held. then she pulls him into the both of us, the laughter catches and we don't pull away because we realize how special it is. she makes one of those comments about how handsome he is as if i've told her a hundred times (because i have) and i blush while he takes his thumb and rubs one of my cherry-colored cheeks. a couple of uncles and an aunt stand beyond the foyer to the right of us on orange carpet that now is no longer there. we wave and then meet the rest of everyone in the kitchen.

he holds his own as i move towards the estrogen in the room, catching up with my sisters and my mother who in this version are content and satisfied with their lives. glasses of wine in hand symbolic of celebratory means only. the four of us stand and watch him talk to my grandpa, my dad, my disapproving brother who appears to be approving and the estranged uncle who isn't so estranged in this particular twenty-six. we throw and catch smiles in between our separate conversations, the smiles act as rainbows to our words. then i decide it's time to "save him" and as i approach i take his hand saying something clever to the testosterone in my family. something like "sorry to interrupt but we really should finish that important conversation we were discussing in the car ride here". i barely get it out through laughter. we smile at the men of my family and exit out the back door just off the kitchen towards the small house resting in the tree.

we stand on the deck my grandfather built for my grandmother in 1995, just a few years before she left us.

i'm looking up at the stars, silently uttering the most grateful prayer for this day, this moment, this feeling, the peace and harmony that has introduced itself. he's looking at me looking at the stars. i look at him. "i want to get closer to them" i whisper. so i lead him to a small ladder that takes us up the tree. we stand in this summer home of mine smiling, happy. resting my head on his chest he whispers "hi". as i look at him he leans in and kisses my forehead, his hand holding the back of my head.

it always looked magical in my mind. as it is, i'll let the dog out, brush my teeth and curl up under the spongebob blanket hoping that somewhere it was or will be somebody's twenty-six.

they say when it rains

it pours...





i'm scared that while i feel twirled up into a monsoon the pouring hasn't even begun yet.
i pray i'm wrong.