“you can return to the scenes of a love, of a crime, of happiness, and of a fatal decision; the places are what remain, are what you can possess, are what is immortal. They become the tangible landscape of memory, the places that made you, and in some way you too become them. They are what you can possess and in the end what possesses you.” ~ Rebecca Solnit, from A Field Guide to Getting Lost

“Two Red Fish” (nd)
by Emil Nolde

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Two for Tuesday: Fate

Tuesday, early evening. Sunny, 50’s.

I’ve managed to pick up several new followers in the past few weeks, which made me comment to Corey that perhaps I should just leave this site alone and let it gather followers on its own . . . Anyway, welcome to all of the new people. I’m so glad that you’ve decided to visit. I hope I can find interesting things to offer you.

Well, I actually slept last night, real sleep, for the first time in five nights. Between the akathisia, the restless legs, and the switch-up on my meds, I’ve been a wreck.

I actually had some energy, so of course, I buzzed through the house cleaning everything I could before exhaustion took over. I just hate it when I sit in the rocking chair and see a layer of dust. Anyway, cleaner house, but still so much more to do, but as usual, I did too much my first day out of bed, so we’ll see how well I’m moving tomorrow. Pain sucks, can I just say?

Hope your Tuesday is going well.

More later. Peace.

Music by Other Lives, “Dust Bowl III”

                   

“Naked Woman and Red Flowers (semi-nude)(1938-45)
by Emil Nolde

Each Sound

Beginnings are brutal, like this accident
of stars colliding, mute explosions
of colorful gases, the mist and dust
that would become our bodies
hurling through black holes, rising,
muck ridden, from pits of tar and clay.
Back then it was easy to have teeth,
claw our way into the trees–it was
accepted, the monkeys loved us, sat
on their red asses clapping and laughing.
We’ve forgotten the luxury of dumbness,
how once we crouched naked on an outcrop
of rock, the moon huge and untouched
above us, speechless. Now we talk
about everything, incessantly,
our moans and grunts turned on a spit
into warm vowels and elegant consonants.
We say plethora, demitasse, ozone and love.
We think we know what each sound means.
There are times when something so joyous
or so horrible happens our only response
is an intake of breath, and then
we’re back at the truth of it,
that ball of life expanding
and exploding on impact, our heads,
our chests, filled with that first
unspeakable light.

~ Dorianne Laux

                   

“Saint in the Desert” (1911)
by Emil NOlde

 

Pandora

September.
Second-year medical student.
An early patient interview
at the Massachusetts General Hospital
Routine hernia repair planned, not done.
Abdomen opened and closed.
Filled with disease, cancer.

The patient is fifty-six,
a workingman, Irish
I sit with him, notice
the St. Christopher medal
around his neck.
Can’t hurt, can it? he laughs.
I have become his friend.

I bring him a coloring book picture
that shows this thing, this unfamiliar
organ that melted beneath our hands
at dissection:
Pancreas.

Leaving his room, crying,
avoiding classmates,
I take the back stairs.
I find myself locked,
coatless in the courtyard outside.

~ Kelley Jean White