Tag Archives: love

I want more than survival for you

It’s a stunningly beautiful day outside, the first day this year I’ve been able to go out and sit in the sun and not have to dry condensation off the chair or table on the back deck, or wait for the morning light to warm up the cool that the night brought to the city. I just spent about an hour with the garden: first, reading about all the edibles/vegetables that we planted (cucumber, herbs, zucchini, tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, spinach, cabbage, broccoli, strawberries); then I went down and examined all the new growth, hunted around the yard for sticks and tall things that could be appropriated and used as stakes for pole beans and snow peas, which need to get planted right now. I could spend all day there, but I’m pretending that I’m a writer, that writing is my work, and so I’m inside at the computer — with the door open, I can still hang out with the spring morning sounds: the bird trills and the rush of crow’s wings, hummingbird shuzhes, bees and flies and the hush of breeze through the new spring leaves (those lovely leaves that are now shading my what-was-once-full-sun garden plot).

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So, here you are, Jen, at the computer, fingers at the ready. You’ve left the deeply human work of physically tending to food that will nourish people you adore so that you can play with words. And what is it that you want to say? What was so important that you needed to bring your skin in from the sun, your ears in from the airplay of birds, your eyes in from watching the puppy watching the squirrel in those newly-leafed trees? What brought you back to the cave? What kept you from travel today?

(Who’s asking those questions anyway?)

I set my timer for twenty minutes and go. I want to write about gender and costuming, I want to think about the uses and message of this blog, I want to talk about worry for my friends who are sick and struggling, I want to write to you something exquisite about the kind of love that can blossom when you thought you had used up all your chances — body love, self love, love for another. Love from another for you. Continue reading

what do we deserve?

This morning I am all soft song and heartbeat. How do we reckon with all the love we are offered? How do we hold our bodies open into that warm and sticky possibility that not only did we always deserve love, but that we are surrounded every minute by more love than it’s possible for us to hold — we have to let it flow over and through us instead. We have to trust that the flow will continue. There’s nothing to grab onto anyway.

I know, all the poets have already said this. But today I am astonished again. Today I can’t believe that I am still worth loving — when I have forced those who love me to prove their love over and over again. Of course, that’s not what happened. I didn’t force anything. They choose to remain steadfast. Still: more than I believe I deserve.Who teaches us these things? Continue reading

putting what you love at the center of your life

blue-and-green graffiti moths painted on an orange metal bracingGood morning! I’m sorry I missed you yesterday — I was up the coast, hanging out with sea lions and redwoods, with no internet connection. It was bliss, all that sound and space: not just outside, but inside, too, how it opens and grows when you lift off the pressure a little bit.

I want to tell you about the couple of monarch butterflies, about how abalone shells fragment and turn sand iridescent, about seals making a striated rock look more beautiful (thanks, Alice Walker), about hearing sea lion talk from the bedroom, about Halloween shooting stars just when you ask for them, about a red-tailed hawk pushing through the air just when you’re walking through a once cow-pasture to the water, next to the lighthouse compound that you decided not to pay $14 to get into. About the brown-and-black fuzzy caterpillars, about a hot tub in a secluded spot on the deck, about an anniversary picnic at the living room table.

I want to tellĀ  you all about it, more, and today I’m diving back into the very-busy that this weekend was a break from. Today, this week, I’m back to trading writing time for sleep, or, as was the case this morning, vice versa.

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not of the carnal kind, but of the cardiac

graffiti -- sacred heart: stylized heart, wrapped up and burning...

(check out more of Marshall Astor's photography by clicking on the photo!)

Good morning! It’s a Monday — how’d that get here so fast? I’ve got decaf espresso on the stovetop (and yes still the magnet on my fridge, bought long longĀ  before I stopped drinking caffeinated coffee, that says, “Decaf Espresso? What’s the Point?”). Mmm — espresso w/ cardamom and lemon zest, and a bit of sugar.

In a couple hours, I’ll be heading out to the airport, getting on a plane, flying East, for the Power of Words conference. First I get a day in Boston, with the Lady Miz M & her Lady, and then an early morning drive up through NH and VT to a day-long conversation about what Transformative Language Arts is and could be. Then, on Thurs, the Transformative Language Arts Network Council has its annual meeting. Then the Power of Words conference starts Friday — I get to talk about the liberatory power of our erotic story. I get to introduce Kim Rosen‘s keynote, and then, too, I get to facilitate a panel discussion about the ways that transformative language arts work can be social change work.

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