“I really think I write about everyday life. I don’t think I’m quite as odd as others say I am. Life is intrinsically, well, boring and dangerous at the same time. At any given moment the floor may open up. Of course, it almost never does; that’s what makes it so boring.” ~ Edward Gorey

Paris in the Fog
by Bruno Monginoux (cc)

                   

“I mused for a few moments on the question of which was worse, to lead a life so boring that you are easily enchanted, or a life so full of stimulus that you are easily bored.” ~ Bill Bryson, from Lost Continent: Travels In Small-Town America

Saturday, late afternoon. Overcast and 50 degrees.

Well, guess what. No, really. Go on. Guess who has come to visit me again . . . My old friend Insomnia. Got to sleep somewhere around 5:30 this morning only to be awakened a few minutes later by Tillie the Lab who deemed it time to go out. When I was finally able to roll out of bed, my head felt as it if was contained in a vise. Still sitting here squinting, so I’m not sure how far I’ll actually get today.

Hot shower and lots of steam loosened the tightness a bit, but not enough for full relief.

Early Morning Fog, Audubon Park
by Paul Couroux (cc)

So I’ve been pondering some odd things lately, like life, in general and my life here, specifically. Quality of life, as in how would I describe the quality of my life. And more specifically, temperament of life, as in how would I define the essence of my life.

For one thing, Corey asked me how I can stand it not to have left the house in weeks, and I really had to think about that. On the one hand, it bothers me a great deal, much more than it did say two years ago. I miss getting in the Rodeo and driving. I miss seeing Olivia on a regular basis, but do I miss those things enough to cross the threshold to venture into the open air, the wide world beyond my doors?

I’m not sure. I know that’s a cop-out answer, but for now, it will have to do.

“Fear is a manipulative emotion that can trick us into living a boring life.” ~ Donald Miller, from A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life

Two days ago I had big plans to take Tillie for a walk, only to find it raining when I looked outside. I’m not made of the kind of stuff to begin a regimen in the rain, at least not a walking regimen. So that’s on hold, and unfortunately, I may have already lost the momentum. Sad, really.

But these things lead me to my real question: Am I a boring person? I know that I certainly wasn’t boring when I was younger. And I also know that growing older does not necessitate a move into boring land. So what gives?

Chicago Fog at Night
by Emily Barney (FCC)

Have I lost that ineffable spark, that je ne sais quoi that made me the kind of person around whom people gathered. I’m not talking about popularity, the kind that makes everyone want to be your friend, as I was never that person. But I remember those days during which I always had a circle of friends, and we were doing—talking, arguing, laughing, pontificating, whatever. And we seemed to end up in my car or in my office or at my table.

I’m not sure if I am describing this accurately, so let me back up here. I was never ever mainstream, never ever the girl who attracted all the boys because I was pretty and sweet, never ever the Homecoming Queen. Instead, I was interesting, which is such a nothing vapid word, really. Mysterious, maybe? One of my former teachers wrote something about me being the woman of mystery. I liked that. It fit.

So where has that woman gone?

“Life is like topography, Hobbes. There are summits of happiness and success, flat stretches of boring routine and valleys of frustration and failure.” ~ Bill Watterson, “Calvin and Hobbes”

Has that woman become so sedentary, so sedate, so tedious? Am I now just humdrum?

It pains me even to consider this, but I think that I must. And if the answer is yes, what do I do? Do I do anything? Do I simply keep this to myself and hope that no one else notices? Surely other people have noticed, say, my family, my spouse? Am I the last to know?

Manhattan Bridge in Fog
by merlune (FCC)

Is this just a phase?

Or, and she pauses here for dramatic effect, is it life that’s boring and not me? Are we both boring? Am I bored with life? Is life bored with me?

I have to tell you that until a couple of days ago, I really didn’t think of myself as boring, nor did I believe that I lead a boring life, but now, I have to admit that perhaps both are true: I am boring, and my life is boring. Of course, I must also admit that this is how a racing mind works, tricking itself into believing things that may or may not be true.

Let’s back up, once again. I know that there are many things that I want to do; many, many things that I want to see; many, many, many places that I want to experience. The bucket list, remember? I also know that on any given day, I have many, many things to say, to share, to impart. So perhaps I now find myself in one of those valleys, one of those expected but unwelcome forays into—shudder—normalcy, and because it is normalcy, I am thoroughly at sea . . .

“There are a lot of things I wish I would have done, instead of just sitting around and complaining about having a boring life.” ~ Kurt Cobain

I know that my children must find me boring. After all, what do I do, really? Do I go out and greet the day with a smile and open arms? Hardly. Do I saunter about, full of self-assurance and charisma? Once upon a time maybe. Do I sit around in black yoga pants and white cotton sweaters and pour my life out onto a screen for anyone to see?

Yep. That would be me. Is this boring? Admittedly, some days it really is, but more days than not, it isn’t.

Flight in Fog
by Christmatos (FCC)

I think we get bored with life when we are hating life, and there were many times in the past when I hated life, hated my life, but this isn’t one of those time. I do not hate life. I do wish that some things were different, that, for instance, I were sitting in my office pretending to work but instead writing this blog, that I had on real clothes, that I had people in the offices next to me, some of whom I liked and others of whom I detested. You know, real life.

If I could change just one thing, just one, it would be that I still had a career. But wait. If I were smart (and we know that there are many times in which I am not), should I not embrace the freedom of not having a career and all that is entailed by the supposed free time? Of course I should. But one thing they don’t tell you is that freedom is so much more interesting when you have money.

“We must never, ever be boring.” ~ Chuck Palahniuk, from Invisible Monsters

By money, I don’t mean rich. I just mean enough money to go places, see things. Enough money to sit in a coffee shop and read a book.

So I suppose what this lull boils down to is the essence of my life at present: Our income has been cut quite a bit, we are in the post-holiday monetary slump, Corey is between hitches, our utilities are in jeopardy. Oh, and add one other thing: I’ve been stretching out my anti-depressant to make it last until payday. That little detail there.

Bodiam Castle (UK) in the Fog
by Dean Thorpe (FCC)
*replaced to include watermark on original

But all of that aside, one thing I have never ever wanted to be is boring. I have never wanted to bore those around me, but I think that I am, and this concerns me. How do I fix this? I’m going to have to ponder this whole thing a bit more, preferably once the headache is gone, and I’m not squinting, and my serotonin levels are back to what they need to be.

Perhaps I should just trash this entire post, but because I like to keep just about everything, I’m not going to. Instead I’m going to put it out there so that I can share my boringness with the world.

I think that I need some dragons to slay. Heh.

More later. Peace.

Music by Ane Brun, “The Light From One”

                   

Walking North

No matter how I turn
the magnificent light follows.
Background to my sadness.

No matter how I lift my heart
my shadow creeps in wait behind.
Background to my joy.

No matter how fast I run
a stillness without thought is where I end.

No matter how long I sit
there is a river of motion I must rejoin.

And when I can’t hold my head up
it always falls in the lap of one
who has just opened.

When I finally free myself of burden
there is always someone’s heavy head
landing in my arms.

The reasons of the heart
are leaves in wind.
Stand up tall and everything
will nest in you.

We all lose and we all gain.
Dark crowds the light.
Light fills the pain.

It is a conversation with no end
a dance with no steps
a song with no words
a reason too big for any mind.

No matter how I turn
the magnificence follows.

~ Mark Nepo

“The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.” ~ Barbara Kingsolver, from Animal Dreams

Gulfoss Waterfall, Reykjavik, Iceland by m'sieur rico* (FCC)

                   

“—O remember
In your narrowing dark hours
That more things move
Than blood in the heart.” ~ Louise Bogan, from “Night”

Wednesday evening. Cloudy and much cooler, low 60’s.

Not sure how far I’ll get with this particular post. I’ve been fighting this headache for days, and today seems to be the worst yet. I thought I’d try to write in between waves of pain. Pictures are of Iceland, which is actually very green, so why is Greenland so not green?

Reykjavik, Iceland by m'sieur rico (FCC)

I have laundry going (Alexis’s), and I’ve already taken Tillie outside for her daily playtime. Brett is at school, and Eamonn is on his way out of the house. I’m supposed to be finding a link to a diaper bag for Alexis, but just not in the mood to look at diaper bags. Maybe tomorrow. I finally did the FAFSAs for Brett and Corey. I had completely forgotten about doing those, which is a shame because the earlier they are completed, the better the chance for grant money. It’s my fault, but what can you do?

I also noticed that I made a mistake on our federal tax returns when I was looking at them to complete the FAFSAs. Great. Just what we need, undue attention from the IRS; although, I have the past ten years of tax returns and receipts all sorted neatly into expanding folders in the top of the living room closet. I’m not saying this to be smug; rather, they are there solely because to get rid of five years worth requires an indecent amount of shredding, and again, I don’t want to do it.

We haven’t heard anything back from the IRS, and I have no idea how long this will take as we had to submit by mail this year instead of online—too many supplemental forms or something like that. And I just realized that we need to submit our state taxes by the end of this month. We owe a little over $100, so I’m waiting until the last possible minute on those.

“Sometimes the drawers of the earth close;
Sometimes our stories keep on and on. So listen—” ~ David St. John, from “Elegy”

I’m working on Brett’s computer today, but I’m counting the days until I can take my CPU in to have the new hard drive installed. Oh happy day . . . simply agog with anticipation.

Waterfall, Reykjavik, Iceland by m'sieur rico (FCC)

Agog is a good word, sounds like what it is. I love words like that.

I have no idea as to where in the Atlantic Corey is at the moment, but maybe he’s made it into somewhat warmer climes. Well, I suppose that anything is better than northern Europe as far as being warmer.

I hope that if you get a chance, you’ll click on the First Books link that I provided in the post a few days ago. They are a great organization, and their goal is to provide books for children who otherwise would have no books in their house, which, unfortunately, is so much of the population. As for me, I cannot wait to start reading books to the coming addition to our family. It’s never too early to begin reading.

As for First Books, I really like what they are doing, and I’m trying to support them however I can.

“Maybe the only thing each of us can see is our own shadow.” ~ Chuck Palahniuk, from Diary

Last night I woke up facing the opposite direction in my bed, as in my head was at the footboard, and my feet were at the headboard. I’m fairly certain that I moved around in an attempt to gain more room. It’s odd how a queen-sized bed still isn’t enough for one human and three dogs, two of which are Jack Russells. How does that happen?

Iceland by m'sieur rico (FCC)

Then I woke up with a really bad migraine, but didn’t feel well enough to make it to the kitchen to fill a bag with crushed ice. That just sucks, you know? I really like how it was on the Star Trek shows—a little portal that you just speak to, and voila—whatever you desired, Earl Grey tea with lemon (Capt. Picard), a bag of ice for my head . . . why isn’t the 21st century like all the movies said it would be? You know, flying cars, personalized robots, all of the technological accoutrements?

Actually, I should hush my mouth as I’m always the one complaining about how we rely too much on technology. Okay, so I’m a selective technophile—I like it and want it when it can help to make me feel better. I don’t know what made me think of those little portals, let alone remember that Captain Jean-Luc Picard liked Earl Grey tea.

“It’s too late
to be unwritten,
and I’m much too scrawled
to ever be erased.” ~ Mark Doty, from “My Tattoo”

Brett has signed up for a poetry workshop in the fall, and I have to admit that I am more than a little envious of him. Wouldn’t it be grand (in my world) to be in a poetry workshop, feeding off that collective energy, the kind of energy that you can only find in a workshop. It’s impossible to find that kind of energy anywhere else. It doesn’t matter how varied the talent level is in a writing workshop as long as the person conducting it knows what he or she is doing. Being around like-minded people who are in the process of creating is a guaranteed way to creative inspiration.

Gulfoss, Reykjavik, Iceland by m'sieur rico (FCC)

Brett has had a great introduction to creative writing workshop this semester, and I’m really impressed with the caliber of assignments that his professor has given them.

Mari and I always said that we were going to go away to a workshop, but we never did. It’s an idea that I haven’t let go of, though. I still want to go to a five-day (seven days? ten?) retreat somewhere, work on my craft, get feedback from peers and professionals. I also haven’t given up on the idea of the Warren Wilson low-residency MFA. It’s one of the most acclaimed MFAs in the country, and its faculty has included Raymond Carver, Louise Glück, Stephen Dobyns, Marie Howe, and Gregory Orr, to name only a few.

I know, I know. I need another degree like I need another physical disorder, but you have to understand: I have wanted to get that WW MFA for over 20 years. My ex had said that I should go for it, but when I looked into it seriously, I got the usual spiel about not being able to afford it, and ya da ya da ya da. It’s not a cheap degree, but the people who run it are phenomenal, and they always have a staff that is noteworthy.

More pipe dreams, I suppose.

“Words say simultaneously too much and too little. This is why they are perfect for communication, most people’s lives operating in the uncomfortable balance between too much and too little. Nothing more precise.” ~ B.K. Loren, from “Word Hoard” in Parabola, v.28, no.3, August 2003

I looked for the Loren essay (quote above) online as it seemed like it would be quite interesting, but I couldn’t find it unless I order a back issues of Parabola, which I’m not opposed to doing, but getting the essay for free is far more appealing. But I think that anything that’s titled “Word Hoard” would probably be a good read.

Reyjavik, Iceland by m'sieur rico (FCC)

But getting back to the idea of school, more school for me, my loans will be discharged as of October of this year due to my disability. It’s the one good thing to come of being disabled, having my school loans forgiven.

Frankly, I’m all for forgiveness of school loans. I don’t believe that people should have to decide between rent and paying back their school loans. I’m not saying that people should default on loans; rather I’m saying that there are definite situations in which individuals who have taken out school loans find themselves in positions in which they are unable to repay those loans upon completion of their educations.

How does one repay a school loan if one doesn’t have a job? Another Sisyphean challenge.

Oh don’t even get me started on the whole idea of political hot buttons (school loans being one of them). I’m quite sick of politics at the moment, quite sick of all of the crap from the right about women’s health and women in the workplace. A rich woman who stay home to take care of her children is doing the hardest job in the world, but a poor one who stays home to take care of her children is living off the system, is abusing the welfare system. Geez. Not going to go there, refuse to go there, well, perhaps a post at a later date.

“Literature, the most seductive, the most deceiving, the most dangerous of professions.” ~ John Morley

Let’s see, in other aspects of my mundane life . . .

I watched the first part of Titanic (yet another one) on ABC the other night. Didn’t bother watching the second part. I watched because of some of the people who were featured in it, like Linus Roache, but even he couldn’t save the overblown script. Titanic has been written about by so many people in so many ways. There have been movies, documentaries, conspiracy-theory driven stories. The whole gamut.

Vík í Mýrdal, Iceland Reykjavik Iceland by m'sieur rico (FCC)
I could live on this green patch of land...

I watched “Real Housewives of Orange County” last night, and I have to tell you, I am really sick of those women. A group of them went glamping, which is supposedly camping for the pampered without the camping stuff, like tents, sleeping bags, etc. They ordered their food and found out that they would have to cook it themselves over a fire pit, and you would have thought that someone had told them that they had to give back their fake boobs and hair extensions. Pul-eez. Definitely over the whole Real Housewives franchise.

I also watched “Fashion Star” last night, and thought that I had found a bathing suit that I really liked. It looked good on the runway, but when I looked at it later online, not so much. That show isn’t “Project Runway,” but it will do until the real thing comes back on. So sue me, I like fashion even though it’s not really a part of my real world.

Wow. I’m even boring myself with this blathering about nothing. Time to stop.

More later. Peace.

*All images of Iceland taken from m’sieur rico’s photostream on Flickr.

Music by Royal Wood, “In the Garden”

                   

Come Trembling

In the country where believers eat the bodies
of the gods, we meet a priest who pulls a rope
of thorns through his tongue to make his mind

pure enough for a vision. He dances to music
we can’t hear and waits to come trembling
into knowledge. We don’t recognize ourselves

in his radiance, but we do in his suffering.
He passes through pain and into healing
without seeing the holy rendered visible.

He tells us the oracle died when she refused
to divine the future, but we find her tangled
in her own hair wearing a garland of burrs,

manacled to the bed. We ask for a better world
to die in, but she says, Submit to your freedom.
We tie new knots in her hair and swim

into the belly of a shark to retrieve the book
of signs. Rumors say the secret of life is sewn
into a dead man’s coat, but when we unearth him,

all we find in his sleeves are his fractured arms.
We want to believe, to split open the myth
and lie in it, return to original dark and be changed,

but the bones won’t yield to us, pages are missing
from the book, the gods remain so quiet
we hear water speaking between the stones.

~ Traci Brimhall

“People fall so in love with their pain, they can’t leave it behind. The same as the stories they tell. We trap ourselves.” ~ Chuck Palahniuk, Haunted

Medieval City of Albarracín, Spain, by Jose Luis Mieza (Wikimedia Commons)

                   

“Nouns, verbs do not exist for what I feel.” ~ John Berryman, from “Epilogue”

Sunday afternoon. Blue skies, moderate temperatures, mid 70’s.

Medieval City of Albarracín, Spain, by Jose Luis Mieza (WC)

Corey is coming off three shifts, each with less than eight hours in between, which means that he’s exhausted. But he can’t complain. At least he might actually get 40 hours this week, a rarity lately.

I’m still on the residual effects of this last headache. I’ve tried not to take anything for the last day and a half as sometimes a migraine can actually be caused by pain medicine. Go figure. Logical, huh?

But because I haven’t taken anything, I’m sitting here, with these beautiful blue skies outside, squinting my eyes at the daylight. Perhaps I was a vampire bat in another life. I won’t even go into the throbbing in my temples. What’s the point?

Since I was home alone last night, I spent hours catching up on my “Law & Order Criminal Intent” backlog on the DVR. I’ve seen all of these episodes before, but they’re the good ones with either Goren or Logan, two of my favorite detectives, Lenny Briscoe being the all-time best, of course. Corey and I need to catch up on our backlog of “Luther,” which I’ve been taping off BBC America, another really great show. Perhaps we’ll be able to watch tonight.

I know, sad commentary on my life that the thing that I’m currently looking forward to is watching more crime dramas . . .

“We live in a system that espouses merit, equality, and a level playing field, but exalts those with wealth, power, and celebrity, however gained.” ~ Derrick Bell

Medieval City of Albarracín, Spain, by Jose Luis Mieza (WC)

So, my last post was a bit of a downer, eh? Sorry about that, but that’s just how I roll . . . as in not too well or too lightly.

I’ve started to follow a blog on tumblr called “We are the 99 percent” (I’ve added the link to my blogroll on the right if you’re interested). Talk about depressing. The stories on there are so heart-wrenching, and completely relatable—people who were laid off in 2008 who still haven’t found jobs, people who have lost their homes, people who were living on their savings that has long since run out, and on and on.

It actually makes me ashamed to complain. As I’ve said, I know that while we are definitely within that 99 percent, we are still lucky. We haven’t lost our house, and we manage to keep food in the house and the utilities on. And while I’m on disability, at least it’s more than a few hundred dollars a month.

So many of these stories involve people who have worked hard all of their lives only to now find themselves without anything, and then there are the young adults who pursued the so-called American Dream: went to college only now to find that there are no jobs or that jobs in their fields pay the bare minimum and don’t offer any benefits.

What kills me are the people who comment about how the Wall Street protestors and others are whiners. I mean, come on. This country bailed out Wall Street when it could ill afford to do so, and how much of that money has been paid back? How many on Wall Street still receive multimillion dollar bonuses? How many of those large corporations are paying taxes at unbelievably low rates while so many of us pay at 25 percent or more? If this is whining, then hell yes, I’m whining.

“I lie in the dark
wondering if this quiet in me now
is a beginning or an end.” ~ Jack Gilbert

Medieval City of Albarracín, Spain, by Jose Luis Mieza (WC)

What kind of brings me up short is the realization that even if I had applied for that job, the chances of my getting hired, even with my experience and background, were slim at best.

Hmm . . . things that make you go hmm . . .

Almost every job I’ve ever had I kind of fell into, wasn’t necessarily looking, or only submitted an application on an off-chance. I guess that kind of thing doesn’t happen any more. I mean, my first real job after graduate school I had applied for an admin job, but the guy who interviewed me said, hey, we’re going to be needing an editor soon. Wouldn’t you rather have that? Bingo.

I went to work at the museum part time, and within three months it had turned into a full-time writing position. I took the retail job as a fill-in to get me back on my feet, and within three months I had been promoted to manager. After my dad died, I was so depressed and out of work. I applied for the marketing director’s job with the realtor never even thinking I’d get an interview, and I got hired. I applied to GW on day because I happened to be cruising the want ads on a slow day at work. Bingo again.

That’s not to say that it’s always been that easy, as I’ve lost a few jobs, for reasons I never really understood, within that probationary period, two back-to-back. Losing a job sucks, big time. The crushing blow to the self-esteem, the complete loss of faith in your own abilities, and then the running commentary from my mother about how this will go on my permanent record . . .

“Natures of your kind, with strong, delicate senses, the soul-oriented, the dreamers, poets, lovers are always superior to us creatures of the mind. You take your being from your mothers. You live fully . . . Whereas we creatures of reason, we don’t live fully; we live in an arid land, even though we often seem to guide and rule you. Yours is the plentitude of life, the sap of the fruit, the garden of passion, the beautiful landscape of art. Your home is the earth; ours is the world of ideas. You are in danger of drowning in the world of the senses; ours is the danger of suffocating in an airless void . . . You sleep at your mother’s breast; I wake in the desert. For me the sun shines; for you the moon and the stars.” ~ Hermann Hesse

Medieval City of Albarracín, Spain, by Jose Luis Mieza (WC)

Anyway, moving along . . .

Van Morrison is singing “Into the Mystic,” one of my favorite songs. Such a wonderful singer and songwriter, and his voice has only gotten better with age.

So an acquaintance, if that even, referred to me as “that fat woman.” Whoa. Talk about being brought up short. I mean, I know that I’m carrying extra pounds, and I would certainly not describe myself as svelte, but fat?

This from a man with a terrible short-man’s complex. I know. Consider the source . . . but how many of us can really do that, put something into perspective to see it for what it really means or reflects?

Not me. I’ll admit it. It’s easy enough to say, consider the source, but sheesh. So I dreamed that I was getting liposuction on my belly, which is pillowy. And in my dream, the doctor told me that I would only lost 15 pounds with the procedure. So I had to think about that. Was it worth it to undergo this surgery only to lose 15 pounds?

The reality is no. But would I like to get rid of my pillowy belly? You bet. Do sit-ups, right? Negits. Can’t do them any more. Used to do 100 crunches every morning of my life. That was when I had a waist. That ice pick that I have stuck in the base of my spine kind of prevents crunches. But I have do to something because I know that I can’t just take that remark in passing and not do anything about it no matter what I think of the source, so I’m going to try to give up my daily can of caffeine-free Pepsi.

We don’t really keep cookies or ice cream in the house, and there is my emergency stash of chocolate, of which I have not even finished the first bar. But it’s not enough.

That fat woman. Wow. No matter how much I try to negate it, the first time someone actually refers to you as being fat is painful.

“Even as you lean over this page,
late and alone, it shines: even now
in the moment before it disappears.” ~ Mark Strand, from “The Garden”

So here I am, bemoaning my fate once again. Sometimes I really get so sick of myself. Sometimes I feel as if this page, these words are not doing me any favors. I mean, what am I doing here really?

Medieval City of Albarracín, Spain, by Jose Luis Mieza (WC)

Bitch, bitch, bitch.

Poor pitiful me.

I need to get over myself . . . if I only knew how. Solitude is both wonderful and awful. It allows time for reflection, introspection, deep thought, but does it not also engender a sense of belly-button gazing? Yet I love my solitude, my self-imposed isolation, love it until I don’t.

People who knew me in that time period after my ex and I split would not recognize the person I have become. Not because of physical changes, but more because of my complete lack of involvement in most things. I mean, how does a person go from working 12 to 16 hours a day, exercising every day, to doing nothing physical, nothing more physical than laundry?

Okay, if I were going to cut myself a break, which I am loathe to do, those 16 hour days? That constant movement that involved using my entire body to haul and move things (while in heels)? That’s probably what finally killed my back. I know that, deep inside. And yet again, I need to consider the source, the source of where I am now as opposed to where I was then.

As a single mother of three, I had to be on the go all of the time. That was my life. Humans are incredibly adaptable, whether it’s to activity or inactivity. I just know that no one ever referred to that fat woman.

Whatever.

More later. Peace.

Music by Van Morrison, “Sometimes We Cry”

                   

Letter from a Mental Hospital

From the heart of an old box of letters
I lift a small water-stained envelope.
Inside, a note card as thin and brittle as a frozen leaf
bears a message written fifty years ago
by a woman who shares my name.

She delivers no greeting, no sorry to have been away so long.
She leaves no record of visitors, rationed cigarettes,
group art, or the barren iceberg of treatment.

I imagine her listening to the ping of the radiator
on a snowy morning, seated in her nightgown and socks
by an open window. A bell rings in the hallway
but she doesn’t move toward her robe or her slippers or her brush.

I see myself sitting beside her, reaching
toward her dull pencil to place my fingers over hers,
hand on hand, gliding over the words, moving
like two skaters on a lake tracing the solitary line—
Please come get me.

~ Kim Lozano