friendly reminders

I love reading this morning's friendly e-mail reminder that "the class blog is still active, so post on it!" and then logging onto Blackboard to see that the majority of posts have appeared within the last twenty minutes. Oh, grad school and the habits we keep!

perhaps a fruit basket

(I am trying to write in this thing more often because eventually, something good will pop up.) (Just like the girls: front tucks on floor, back walkovers on high beam, spotted giants on low bar. They are getting better!) (Today is not anyone's finest day -- traffic stopped for hours by a highway collision near Exit 63, foiled for headlight by police on the bypass -- nor is it my finest day of athletic achievements, but I'm here accelerating back handsprings, swinging with almost exhiliaration on the single rail, hitting my ponytail to foot in switch ring leap like always.) (When will I see you again? Tomorrow my shoulders will sing but I'll be back, I always am.)

845, or Modern Mysteries:

1) Which Paul might be getting his head shaved completely or styled into a Mohawk?
Solution: The person from the 845 who texted me would know...except I don't know who he/she is and am now past the socially acceptable point of asking, since I followed up with "Lol what?" instead.

2) What exactly CAUSES the swine flu?
Solution: Just eat your daily falafel and nobody will get hurt.

3) What is Lauren doing at the end of this week?
Solution: Read Jason and Sean's Facebook walls to find out.

4) If it's not on Facebook, did it really happen?
Solution: SBS residents say NAY, but (some of) their RA's beg to differ.

5) Who took Tanya's clothes?
Solution: Get Ward Dukelow on the case.

6) Why am I about to jump in the shower at 1:10 am?
Solution: Why not?

Scenes from an Outdoor Volleyball Court

"Where's Florko?" Ama asks.

The ball comes whizzing over the net. I hold up my hand. The ball bounces off of my fingers and falls uselessly to the sand.

"We don't need Florko," Tony says. "We've got that."

and here it is--the dancing star

You could get this performed.

My writing makes me safe. How about that? My fictions flow and I run beside them, chasing water so it swirls and swirls and here it is--the dancing star. I love this spring. Love that you all believe in my words and walk up to me afterward to tell me so. Love this certain strangeness. Love my friends who played "man" and "woman" so convincingly. ;-) I find again and again that I have something to say, that they want to listen and question and make meaning. I am not treading, they suggest. I am real.

And as happy as this little boy:

city in sun

8:59 in Penn Station: I have not seen the city in morning light in a long time. Maybe never. I search my bag three times until my hand finds the pink sunglasses (thank you, Sarah!). Sun in my eyes, on long hair that swings behind me as we turn and squeeze through Indian festivals with voices calling and saris whispering. Sun settling as the sidewalks crack down East 28th and I think maybe I should turn now because I don't want my eyes to meet their eyes. They're settled against doors and sidewalks but I'm still walking, hair contained from the back handspring in class, little girl now at West 33rd and Broadway almost. there.

Dear Maya:

Unfortunately, nobody is saying "good morning" and everyone instead says "goodbye" or nothing at all. Abandon hope all ye who enter, Latinos from the border and anyone of Middle Eastern descent. They say the world's to be overtaken by Mandarin and the U.S. by Spanish but nobody is taking the time to say "buenos dias" or to stand by the river; they stand instead shoulder-to-shoulder but so very apart wih their digital devices to escape each other, to stand alone.

..

Place, five minutes:

Sometimes stragglers from the track team are finishing up their workouts, but the farther I go over the winding dirt that eventually opens into wide sandy fire breaks, the more I am alone. I smell pine. I smell wet dirt. I hear my footsteps and breathing and cars on William Floyd. Sometimes gunshots from the shooting range. There are always shadows here, and leaves, and roots that you leap over and the occasional fallen tree that must be scaled or sometimes the deer that looks at you and you look at it until it bolts away first.

!!!

Looks like the play is the thing and that the play is mine.

Certainly Avram has never experienced a production like this before!

I get the e-mail, I jump into a dance, I call my mom, and then I write again.

Is someone hammering downstairs?

No matter what they might say, I've picked the words that move me,
and I am glad.

rollin' in Wainscott

I am between the words that move me most and the ones that make me sweat, the ones that will bring you to your knees,

and so I'm writing here due to recent complaints. :-)

I feel centered. I hear thunder and no longer fear the end, no longer see chaos that breaks but beautiful danger, the kind that comes in the ghost stories we tell each other and my stories when it's very late and I'm very tired, an almost drunken tired that lets me whisper any truth and you listen, back to wall, face to me.

I am not as messy these days and neither are my girls; look at them, chins up, legs straight! They hug me when I walk in. You're all right, Coach, you're all right. They make me laugh. They want to know everything: Do you, like, shop at Abercrombie or do you only wear Cortland clothes? Do you have a boyfriend? What's a Masters? Does that mean you're NOT going back to Cortland? What level were you? Did you try out for the Olympics? You KNOW this song? Are you coming to lunch with us? Are you coming to IGC with us? You should!

And I like that you don't label me "Diana the nerd" or "Diana the gymnast" or "Diana + five or so descriptions" and decide that you know me entirely, seem shocked when I deviate and smug when I don't. I grin and say you weren't born yet but you know that I am not this this and that, I am everything. Right now I am not healed. But I am mending.

We're free before the thunderstorm

I feel disjointed when I wake up from dreams like that and remember that I have been removed from both syntax and context. It doesn't matter but it does. I remove too but I don't forget. There will be more to say, more that must be said.

But not today. Today is sunshine despite cool breezes, sunglasses and open windows this morning and (perhaps) dresses tonight. Last night was walking to soft ocean bay's foam and stars, climbing too-tall trees. That list of tasks? All of them complete. Nick and Pete look up as I sit down. There you are, they say. Today I miss Cortland and today I am imperfect, but I am here and I am happy.

renewed shall be blade that was broken

I relearn what it is to be desired in wholes, not in convenient parts. At dawn, in rain, under moon-stroked ocean, not in moods that sigh from one to the next. I try to remember what made me burn so brightly but can't.

So this is unlearning and I hope it lasts.

my turn to be moved

Dear teammate, thank you for holding my body ( and sometimes my life ) together, you so often found the words when there was none. For all of our joking about bad life decisions, I know if we could go back we would do virtually all of it the same. I hope you learn to put your happiness first, even if it means letting go of the only things you know.

--I think you've found the words for me.

catch the king

Spring Break, or How I Wrote Two One-Act Plays in Two Weeks (But Really One Week Because I Was Busy Going to Montauk and Getting Chai):

Play for Roger's class: up to page 12...13 if I count my notes-to-self.
Play for Jules's class: up to page 16 solidly!
Who will want to play the parts in these plays?: God knows.
Textbooks: ORDERED!
Unit plan: Underway! Makes me feel like a useful part of society
Lesson plan for Thursday: Uhh...
Entire body: very sore, but in a good way, much like life right now

..

A conversation with the Chalk Tamer, a 9-year-old after my own heart, when I noticed her red-and-black nail polish.
"That's some pretty crazy nail polish!" I say.
"I was feeling emo," she says with a perfectly straight face.

..

For a certain Seven,
You have turned out so wonderfully. And I'm so glad.
:-)

Hampton Bays pier on sunny afternoon

I want to walk out and fall into the bay. Arms stretched, chin up, eyes closed. Icarus without his melting wings. This is no death plunge. Not now. Just the simple fall into waves that whisper. So much water so close to home, you pull me in, you make me dance.

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio

Among everything we did, you saw me in Hamlet. And you stayed awake the whole time, along with a "pitstop" during intermission.

Do you remember
all of us together
as we grew up under the sun?

I drive home tonight and realize that it's me. Just me. You walked away without a toast to friendship, without a straight path in front of you. I would ask how you are but what does it matter? Ten years, five years, you don't seem to mind so I don't speak. You walk out and so many others run in and I love them, I hold them close -- but it's not the same, it will never be.

quoth the raven

I look into the windmill window reflection under afternoon sun and see the normal spikes of hair darting from my bun. Do I look okay? I ask.

Little girl ghost nods. Of course you do.

Thank you, I say, turning away.

Dear Emeline,

It's Palm Sunday, and I am blogging.

Happy now?

;-)

..

I think about this too much. But I think that if I think about it enough, it will fade. The way I did. Apparently. I'm very all right with the shake down but not with the silence. Not a bang but a whisper.

..

Windmill, window, what about Wainscott? I climb down the ladder first. Would you believe me? She will. Walking next to the waves at night. Walking over rocks at 5:45 Montauk morning. I want to close my eyes but the child in me watches sun slip into pink-orange sky, watches wave after wave crash and rebuild, crash and rebuild.

small-town girl, city lights

And I'm sincerely glad I've chosen this life.