Hi Folks. So, as you might have gathered from the title, and
from the hit-and-miss nature of my last few blogs, I’ve decided to take a
two-week hiatus.

However, if you’d still like your fix of a daily blog, please take a wander over to my friend Carmen’s blog, the one that inspired me to begin this one back in November. 

As always, thank you for reading.

Love,m. 

Please accept this potentially abbreviated blog due to my
irritating need for 8 hours of sleep coupled with evening reading past 10pm.

I’ve realized that I’m reading acres more prose than poetry,
now that I’m not in the poetry program. Mostly because poetry is slower to
read. You/I have to digest it in a different way than I typically dive-bomb
through my reading. They ask more, in some ways – it’s just different. A
different medium. Like a painting will ask more of your attention than a
billboard. I was reading in Jeanette Winterson’s ART OBJECTS: Essays on
ecstasy and effrontery how she was
enchanted and bewitched by one painting that she sat in front of it for an hour
almost daily. That this was the
way the painting necessitated your attention.

So, as it’s time for me to leave, I’ll leave you with two
poems from two of my favorite authors I was introduced to while in school. (My
thanks to Truong Tran.) Granted, these poems are part of a larger collection/book
of poems, and therefore don’t have the full sweep, like listening to track 7
off an album clearly meant to be experience from 1 – 12, but, here goes. (and I
hope I don’t get pinged for copyright infringement – luckily, I don’t think my
blog is that consequential.)

Sesshu Foster’s City Terrace Field Manual

I WAS the lion or you were the lion. Your hand bled and

mind held the blade or mine dripped, I stamped and

cursed, and you laughed. We stood on the grass after all

or we stood in the shade while our children played. And

our shadows either lengthened across the green or faded

from it, shadows covering us over. I knew or I did not

know that one of us was gonna make it. One of us, and

we held beer cans in our hands and watched the kids

play and talked about what it took to get this far, and

either we said enough or we did not say enough. Now

either the kids play up and down the street and across

the lawns or the lawns are empty of them, and that tree,

the one in front of your old house, it’s full of lemons.

**

I meant to include a 2^nd poem, by Roxanne Beth
Johnson, from Jubilee, but I ran out of
time. Enjoy your day, and the poem. It’s one of my favorites ever. M. 

Sadly, I did not have any blinding visions in the sweat
lodge. Surprisingly, I wasn’t as hungry or thirsty as I’d feared I’d be. And
naturally, I was really, really hot.

It was like a bikram yoga room, inside a tent – or a sauna
the size of an igloo. It was actually pretty cool – forgive the word in this
context. And the hardest part was just trying to suck some oxygen out of the
steamy air at a few moments when the water was poured heavily onto the 28
heated rocks in the center of the wooden, covered structure. So, you open your
mouth for a few moments, trying to gasp what you can, and then it settles.
Luckily the woman running it generously allowed us some “break” time between
the “prayer rounds” when the little hobbit door was opened (for more rocks to be
brought in).

All in all, it was both highly satisfying, and a little
anticlimactic, for all that I’d expected in my head. I loved the ritual of it –
I like rituals, I find them kind of calming and grounding – there wasn’t any
dancing or howling or anything. There was some singing, and a drum for that
part, and then there was us, 8 of us, going around in the lodge saying some
prayers outloud. And that was it. There was some tobacco burning, and some prayer ties – little bundles of tobacco we’d put our prayers in tied together with string which we later burned, and some
walking around the lodge 4 times to signify the 4 days following the lodge when
it’s still “working,” – so, I’m still secretly hoping for some baptism
experience in the next few days, sight given to the blind. But all in all, it
was generally pretty cool, interesting, fun, and I didn’t puke or cry the Ugly
Cries, yet. I cried a little bit as we went around in prayer, and so maybe some
things are released – maybe not. But, gosh darnit, I’m not a saint – have not
been gifted the blueprints for the Kremlin – nor the answer to where atoms go
in quantum physics when they disappear and reappear elsewhere.

But, I suppose that’s alright. This human experience is
alright as far as it goes. And it goes pretty well, I should say. We’ll see –
like my retreat in January, several things took a while to settle for months
after, still marinating into my bones and shifting me slowly – so I imagine
this may be the same. Who knows.

In other news.

Hm. Well, Oh! I could tell you about the Workshop I hosted
on Saturday at school!

7 – SEVEN – whole people showed up! It was a great size
group – a few people who’d only heard about it through the internet whom I’d
never met before, and a few good friends I did know.

It went really well. There were a few scrambling minutes
beforehand about a missing hot water dispenser for the tea, but it worked out
just fine.

I was surprised, but not shocked, to see some things that
came up and came out for me – for example, in response to the open ended
journal question at the beginning, “The last time I felt creative ____” … well,
I wrote about a time almost a year ago, when I was doing a painting in my
kitchen for the art show last June.

I was surprised that that’s what came up – obviously, I’ve
been doing hell of creative shit for the last year, with my thesis and
performance poetry stuff – and of course, with the acting and singing auditions
– I even took a singing class! But… that’s what came to mind.

Putzing with this painting. It took me a really long time –
or longer than others had – to do, because I was experimenting. Paint, wait a day,
wipe it off leaving a pigmented residue (it was oil), paint some more, wipe, mix more color, thin more color – it
was marvelous: frustrating and thrilling and open. It was a total experiment, but I knew where I wanted to go with
it – and I got there (or enough that no one else knew that I didn’t quite!).

I took painting a little bit earlier this year, in the
beginning of the semester, but dropped because it wasn’t fun – I wasn’t having
fun, I didn’t feel like I was being allowed to be explorative – that was my
interpretation, and it was good for me at the time to drop – I’m still glad I
didn’t have that on my plate along with everything else.

But I have a few paintings that have been in my mind’s eye
for a few months now, and I know they want out.

At the end of Saturday’s workshop, I asked each of us to light a
little tea light candle, and make a statement of commitment to one thing we can
do for our self-care, creativity, or grounding that week. … I said, “I commit
to painting in the studio for at least three hours.”

I still have keys to the painting studio at school, as unofficially
approved by the painting instructor, and I have about a week and a half before
I have to return them. I guess I have some experimenting to do. 

This morning I head to a magical mystical place. Fremont.

Just kidding. I will
head to Fremont, and from there, be driven by a woman I’ve never met to a place
I’ve never been to do a thing I’ve never done.

A friend of a friend is driving me to the Santa Cruz
mountains to participate in a sweat lodge this morning.

I’ve…never done this. I have very little knowledge of what
it’s about, what to expect, what I’ll experience – except for one story
reported from a friend of mine recently… that after the sweat lodge, a few
hours later, maybe a day?, she cried the Ugly Cries in a way that
sounded like it psychicly shattered her pelvis. She said that she
bawled, and had a near mental breakdown for about 24 hours or so. … So… Uh, why
am I going?

Well, I’m curious – and I think it’s good timing. The lure
of a ritual, of a symbolic cleansing, or renewal, or rebirth, sounds like its
just about right for where I am in a lot of aspects of my life. The end of school,
surely, but also more personal ways – an upcoming anniversary of sobriety, a
particular set of work that I’m on in my recovery, and the
anticipation of what may be the beginnings of my departure from the Bay back to
the East Coast.

To let go, to let go of things that aren’t working for me.
Patterns of beliefs or motivations or behaviors. I don’t anticipate that I’ll
be rendered white as snow – in fact, the only thing I really anticipate is that
I’ll be engorgedly thirsty.

I am naturally a water-toting animal. I am nearly always
thirsty. However, in the recent month or so, I’ve been doing a little more
reading and having more consideration of the planet’s fresh water supply, and
its dwindlingness, and I must admit – it’s made me thirstier than ever.

Or perhaps, I’m just more aware of how much water I do drink
and need. But, there’s nothing like watching a documentary on the water
shortage to make you imminently thirsty!

So, I anticipate that – though, who knows, maybe I’ll just
be thinking how freaking hot it is, I won’t even remember that water exists!
I’m curious, anticipatory, and open, most of all.

I’ve tried a lot of woo-woo spiritual nonsense and sense
since I’ve been in the Bay Area, so what’s a sweat lodge or two? Although, I
will admit that it would be grand to be rendered white as snow – or rather, to
be magically and majestically relieved of the blocks and fears and judgments
that I carry around with me. Maybe I’ll get movement on them. Maybe not. But,
it sure would be grand to be struck full with a divine vision, like Joseph
Smith, … only without all the wives.

Keep you posted. 

Can you guess which one?

Yep, Have a Little Faith in Me.

Damnit. I don’t want faith, I want answers. I want conclusions – something I can take to the
bank, oh yes most very literally.

But, what do I get instead? I get indicated to keep on doing
the footwork that I have planned to do for today, and to have a little faith.
Both are intrinsic to moving forward.

Today, by stroke of genius Universal camaraderie, I will be
using my friend’s rental car to post flyers for May 19^th’s workshop.
I had no idea even 48 hours ago that would happen that way. I texted my friend
to get tea on Wednesday night, and she said yes, we did, and then she said, oh,
by the way, she’s rented a car for this week, and we should plan an adventure.

I was thunderstruck. I just placed a reservation on a rental car I couldn’t afford so that I could
leaflet the town. And, so I asked if I could use her car today instead – she works
in SF, we’re driving in together very shortly, and I’ll have her car while
she’s at work, all for the price of a tank of gas – much cheaper than the rental car – and with the benefit
she gets of not having to move it every two hours for street parking in San
Francisco’s North Beach – a notorious place for parking nightmares.

Have faith yet? … oh, sure, that counts I guess, but…

Today, I’ll also put out a few more tendril emails to people
about work I might get for May, and I also got my confirmation phone call about
my modeling gig on Monday, for a drawing group in San Francisco. … ner–vous –
but I “worked out” a little last night to my exercise DVD, trying to get those
triceps contoured, seat lifted, and thighs capable of holding contraposstos for
20 minutes. Of course, of course,
I accomplished that ALL in one 45 minute DVD session. … but, it will have to
do, and I will be paid.

I got an email from my wonderful cat lady aunt last night
(I’m not ready to give up her “cat lady” handle, but I’ll add “wonderful” to
mitigate it – it used to be “crazy cat lady aunt,” so, that’s progress). She
asked, point blank, as is her wonderfully tactless style, You’re graduating – What Now?

… this is the point in the scene where crickets chirp, and
someone coughs uncomfortably and squirms a bit in their chair.

Uh … Question Mark?

Have a little faith, now?

I don’t know. It’s all ebb and flow. It’s contingent on my
doing the work I have set before me. It’s contingent on eating breakfast,
taking care of myself, asking for help, relying on help, being willing to accept help — which is the hardest for me. I’ll ask you for help
if I’m desperate, but then I’ll run away before you answer or most especially
if you say yes – NO!!! I’m not actually ready for help! Receiving help is unfamiliar
and doesn’t fit into my story that this life is solitary and aching and
grueling and asking for help is for wussies. Noo!! Don’t help me. … I
desperately need your help. … Don’t help me, I got it! … Wait!
Don’t go!! I need f’ing help!!

Oy.

Today I’m grateful I can see it – which means I can work to
change it – and today I am accepting
help, and Joe Cocker, may you light my way. 

they whispered. I followed the murmur through the stacks. Not
knowing what was there, where it would lead me, how my world might open when I
arrived.

No, it was not Jeanette
Winterson. It was the rows and rows of Public Library magazines – with a placard above them, “Magazines available for Check-Out.”

I have never heard of such a thing. Like reference books, I
assumed, and thought, and thought I knew that magazines stayed in the library,
confined to be read in a hard, wooden, straight back chair, in a few
captured minutes that aren’t enough to feed or satisfy.

Yesterday, I found out you could check magazines out from the library. I cannot tell you what alteration
this caused the entire rest of my day.

This discovery came about as I stood in another set of
stacks – the grocery store. In the cleaning supply aisle, comparing the truly
eco friendly ways of the eco friendly disinfectant wipes. Which were sold in
less plastic; which had the most wipes for the price; which stated they were
the happy product of happy plastic trees and happy compost fodder?

In my mildly manic musings, I got the return phone call from
a friend I’d called earlier that day. It was the timing of the gods.

I told her what I was doing; that I’d come into the grocery
store to buy apples and carrots, and am now contemplating buying something I
completely do not need.

I told her that with this month’s spending plan (aka budget), and knowing
– or vaguely knowing – that next month’s is the same, I felt pinched. I told her I felt like if I
couldn’t make the major purchase of a therapy session or a chiropractor’s
visit, I’m finding myself wanting to make these tiny little purchases for shit
I don’t need, just to set off some release.

I’m not a shopper. That’s not what sent me into financial
recovery. But, part of my pattern of behavior is that I live on such meager
means, that eventually I crack, and buy shit I only marginally need – or
perhaps do need, but not everything-all-at-once-right-now — in a fit of violent grabbing. Then I feel remorse, I constrict again, until the pattern cycles over again.

Because I have marginal income at the moment, as my student
loans dwindle to their last sputtering sips, I am having to live within my
means. And my means, are not generous at the moment. Though, for real, I’m glad
to have what I do. I am living with electricity and shelter. And that’s what I
can afford this month. Electricity, shelter, internet, cell phone, travel,
food. Period, end of sentence. There is no money for anything else, if I’m to
manage another month of any of those things.

So, no money for entertainment, or self care, or toiletries,
or hobby supplies. No money for biodegradable, eco-friendly, let’s feel good
about yourself disposable wipes.

But particularly, no money this month for the self care
categories of therapy and chiropractor. Each important. Each cut this month and
next.

So, I’d put out a phone call to my friend earlier in the day to ask if I could make an appointment with either next month. When she called me
back in the store, she asked me, so you’re asking my permission to spend money
you don’t have? Well… yes. [insert laughter…hers] And of course, I see the
insanity of that, but I really needed someone else to tell me.

Because I don’t want to be at the end of May without food.
And that’s what will always be cut, if I’m given my druthers. Not in an
anorexic way, just in a, I can survive on less way.

But, really, as I stand ready to buy things I can’t afford –
can I survive on less?

She said it sounded like I was feeling deprived. I agreed.
By this point I’d put back the wipes, and grabbed the apples and carrots I’d
come in for, and was on the check-out line. I said, I’m just feeling itchy to
just buy something, anything – if I
can’t have what I really need or want (therapy or chiro) – that now I’m staring at
these magazines living the check out aisle.

She said, and here’s where it all changed, that sometimes
she just goes to the library and reads the magazines there. That that feels
like a luxurious activity to her. That it sounds like I needed some luxury. I fully
agreed, and although I envisioned the hard straight wooden backed chairs, I
agreed inwardly that it was better than purchasing shit I don’t need to ease a
feeling of deprivation.

So, I went to the library. I asked where the magazine stacks
were. And above them, like the Burning Bush, was the sign, “Magazines Available
for Check Out.”

I. was elated. I’d never heard of such a thing. I yelped my
joy at a passing library patron who edged a little farther away from me. I
waddled up to the check-out counter with a stack of almost 10 magazines – current magazines. And I expressed my shock and joy to the
worker – who was none too keen to join in my elation, and sent me off with a
parting, dryly sarcastic, I’m glad we could be a part of that.

And I came home with my bounty. I fanned them out on my coffee
table, heated some tea, settled beneath my chenille blanket on my cozy couch,
and felt, honestly, for the first time in a long time, like myself.

This is a Molly
activity. This is something I do to feel pampered and cared for and more than a
bit indulgent. I felt like it would be alright. For two hours, I snuggled
deeper into the cushions and pages, with the covers of Dwell, and Scientific American, and Vanity Fair … and Martha Stewart Living circled around me like an offering of spring
blossoms.

I was being indulgent – and it didn’t cost me a dime. 

Today, I get my thesis signed by the third person I need,
and then uploaded to the library system for printing and binding. It’s another
way of saying, today, it’ll be really
done. Complete. Finit. C’est Complet. Au revior. Adios. Ciao. See you. Never to
be seen again.

Well, sort of. Not, “never to be seen again,” but, I’m
exhausted of it. It’s like saying the word zipper repeatedly until it loses all
its meaning. That’s the word “thesis” for me at the moment, and a lot of
others’ I assume as well.

On a fully unthoughtout fledgling tangent that may pan out
to a hill of beans, I’m applying to a job in Philadelphia today. It’s more of a
show of willingness I suppose, to move, to be employed, to take action so that
I am employed.

In several books I’ve read lately on maintaining solvency
and being financially self supporting, you won’t guess what the number one
advice is – get a job. Ha! Yes, it’s true.

So, in and amongst the other work I’m doing here, like the
workshop in SF next month, where I’ve rented a studio space, and am posting up
flyers and all, I’m also looking for work… sort of in a “finally” kind of way.
There feels to be a different tone emerging. I do not say fully emerged. But the tone is one that feels
less desperate.

Not that I’m less desperate for income, but that I’m less
desperate for “the answer,” or to “make it work,” or to “figure it out.” I
guess I just am beginning to feel more calm around it. Like this, job
searching, is not such a big deal anymore. I don’t know, it’s hard to explain,
but it’s beginning to feel like it’s not
the Herculean effort it’s been for me in the past.

Perhaps part of it is the stop-gaps I’ve created for myself
with my “R+D” hours; perhaps part of it is simply grace. Who knows, maybe even
part of it is more hours of sunlight, or I’m back to my morning practice, or
less caffeine to feed general anxiety.

But, it’s a strange new beginning development. And, I like
it. I’m not “secure” in it, I don’t feel some overwhelming sense of the order
of the Universe, and a divine calm or serenity. I feel like a more logical,
okay, let’s get ‘er done, sense of order. I guess I’m feeling more prepared.

That’s something that’s come up on some inventory I’ve been
doing around my patterns of secretary job / quit / secretary job / quit. …
school. 😉 The reality is that I’ve had good intentions, but I didn’t have the
information, research, foundation to make any kind of alternate job work. I had
great intentions – hang paintings, sell art, host gallery events – but no idea
who to talk to, where to start, or any real idea of the lay of the land.

I was doing what I sometimes do – take a developmentally
inappropriate step toward something; fall short, of course; then point and say,
see, I told you this path was closed to you.

Instead of simply recognizing that baby steps is where I am.
I really am. Teeny tiny little putterings in some direction or other. Write an
email, make a phone call, listen to others, reach out for help. Not, propose
some grand effort at which I’m marginally qualified.

I feel better coming to recognize where I really am – to
acknowledge that I want a creative arena to be my bread and butter – but I’m
more willing to be open to what that looks like. I’m more willing to “get a
job,” and let the rest fall into place. I don’t have to necessarily earn by
making art – not “right now,” that’s one of those “too big for my britches”
steps. But I can get myself, allow
myself to get to a stable financial place so I can begin making the babysteps
toward that. First things first as they say.

The Philly job is in a creative setting. It also includes
administrative tasks. But, from the description, it could be a great fit. I am
trying to hold the whole thing loosely. There’s a part of me that’s getting really
excited about it – and then there’s the part of me that’s like, dude, 10% of the population is looking for work, chill out, do what’s in front of you, and
be humble.

Yes, AND, it’s nice
to recognize that I’m becoming willing to really understand that school is over
in TWO WEEKS, and it really is time to get a job which affords me the luxury of
3 meals a day… I really like that luxury. Furthermore, on the Philly front, it’s close enough to the
family, without being in NY, where I don’t want to be. I’ve visited often
enough to know, that like here, there’s a variety of socio economic, cultural,
political pockets; the weather is similar to how I grew up – and last time I
was there about 2 or 3 years ago in an October, the leaves changing were like
magic.

Who knows. What I know is that I’m willing to broaden my
search, not run away, do the research, ask for mo-fo’in help, and, at the moment, eat breakfast and go see my
peeps. 

i have this habit after my poetry workshop of not reading
the feedback the other poets give me on whatever poem I handed in the week
before. it’s fear. i know. i spend a lot of time when I write feedback on their poems,
but, well, I sort of don’t want to hear what they have to say. I have this
ridiculous vision that my poems are like Athena, springing forth fully formed
from my head, and so they don’t need revision.

Which isn’t true. a good writer is/has a good editor. In
fact, these days, for poems to even get typed, they’ve already been worked over
by hand at least once and will likely undergo change several times more before print …
but,  … When I was home in NJ last
month, i found the short story from college on which my teacher had written
that it was … too purple, too poetic, too much. ~ less x, less y, less molly is
how I read it. Even though over these years I couldn’t remember precisely what
that teacher had written, I could still feel how stung I was by her critique.
Looking at it in hand last month, I was right to feel burned by it. It was
pretty much everything you don’t say to a budding writer, or a budding human
for that matter.

It has taken me years to show people my writing. I began to
post my poetry on facebook about three years ago, and it was a ‘safe’ forum for
me, as everyone reading it was a friend of some stripe. And I got some good
feedback, lots of love, and much indifference, but it was a heart-pounding moment everytime I
clicked “publish” ~ “will they/won’t they” … and eventually, much later, “does
it matter.” It did, and it didn’t – I am a sensitive person, and my ego
sometimes needs soothing, but much like with the painting project, I allowed
the poems to go “up” anyway, perfect or not. (though I would still, even after
several years, go back and tweak a word or title here and there)

About a month and a half ago I put up a poem on facebook about being institutionalized ~ and I took it down pretty quickly. About a
month ago, I put up a poem about rape ~ and I took it down after a few days of gnawing my lip.
Then ~ I took everything down. In a moment of extreme reaction/self-protection,
I wasn’t going to have that all public. I even got a “like” on the rape one
before I took it down.  But … things … my poems have recently been getting more
“real”, more graphic, more uncomfortable, ultimately more authentic, and
suddenly, facebook did not feel like the “safe” place for me to put these
anymore. I felt exposed, even though, yes, everyone was/is still a friend of
some stripe. But, over the years, my stripes have gotten wider, and my circle
of “friends” has expanded, and somehow, I don’t really want to expose some
truths about myself or my experiences to such a mass audience.

And so, everything came down. Even the “silly” stuff, even
the non-exposing stuff. It was the pendulum swing – everything up or everything
down. Do I regret it? Maybe a little. There were some wonderful and supportive
comments from people, friends. But I felt myself retracting, wanting to hide
it/me. So, *cue irony* here I am on a blog, a more visible, barely more anonymous
forum, and one of the first things I’ve tried to do now that I’m going to be
using it more often is to figure out how to get a page that will also publish my poetry. (I downloaded WordPress, and am way overwhelmed
with words like “code”!)

So, here’s the thing. The truth will out. It will out on
facebook, or blog, or classroom. People will write it’s melodramatic &
cliché (like a professor said last semester), or, more likely, they will write
supportive comments meant to help *improve* my work, not detract from it. They are
not ticking time-bombs, this stack of unassuming pages. Although I’m not sure I
feel ready to look, and sure I feel melodramatic saying it 😉 I’m warming up to
the idea that creating art implies and demands being vulnerable ~ and being teachable. If I want
people to read it, I have to let them have their ideas about it. And, but,
still, in the end, I have to follow my inner compass, because f*d if that’s not what
this is all about anyway.