Artful Erosion

My dear queen, Oleander, said today, Well. You learn everything the hard way.

Holy Novel

“Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead.” Isaiah 26:19 ESV

There is a silence inside. A darkened temple. The church I never go to. The none.

Writing is a sort of faith. That the haunting would be complete. That you would understand. That I am able.

The novel is a rough draft. Now waiting to do. I took a break inside but I did take hikes, rode my bike. I kept my job. But the writing is dead. The writing will rise again.

Will I write a book? The novel will be a book. You will understand.

My temple is allergic to eggs. That is ironic in light of my work. I didn’t make it up. I didn’t have to. The tragedies became elegant cakes. I wasn’t writing it. I was typing.

Now all is born again. 

The Heart is a Chakra

Oh these days they get me. Had a twinkle of a love affair with some prince who moved to the coast, a sibling reunion for the first time in six years over turkey and I was downright flabbergasted to witness everyone gobbling pig. I partook.

I have a swiss cheese novel. This means there are still holes in it. My love life is rather swiss cheese as well. Rather cheese cubes boys with fast metabolisms want to nibble at the pre-party then let go the leftovers.

The novel is aging well. It never leaves me.

The sky is striking blue between snow fall. I can't stop looking.

Sheer faith girl-

I like these towers better

Ten years later I go to Yahoo and Yahoo is featuring tiny images of the Twin Towers over the count of my inbox every day of September until the Eleventh, maybe? Maybe then it will stop. Or perhaps Yahoo would like to accompany me through that entire year. A difficult year. Here now, I am not the person I was. I would simply stop using the Internet.

Every year I feel this day. Not the days I checked into or out of treatment centers or the days I graduated or moved or broke-up. Not days my dogs died. Always birthdays. But everybody will remember September 11th. Talk about where they were. Give everything this, this hissssstory. These markers, and so, I will remember too. I will write about it and share with others and sometimes feel so dramatic like I was there, I was there, I was there.

Though, at some less expected point throughout the day, I will lose myself in a memory of that day and days following, before we called it 9/11. (Though, we did that quickly. September Eleventh is so poetic.) I will completely regress to an otherworldly scar inside myself where a different human being was terrified. Inside that memory, I will shatter like the towers and stop existing for less than a second and there is nothing. Always, I am alone when this commemorative terror strikes. It is not something I can capture for you.

oh men

Printed on a post card:

Among life's Josephines there is the Josephine who Napoleon divorced out of a desperate need to produce blood offspring. Then she turned to gardening & botany while Napoleon died saying Josephine with his last breath.

Inspired by a print shop project: Naropa Open Post, Summer Writing Program 2011

Sent to ridiculous governors signing anti-abortion bills into law. Dear Governor, please stop the madness. Sincerely.

Abortion is Pro-Life

“Pro-life” is not a neutral, descriptive term. It is a dagger of psychological warfare that is backed by hate and terror…a profound libel and insult to those who help women. Words kill, and the phrase “pro-life” is an obscene and grotesque sophistry.

–Dr. Warren Hern’s response to the murder of Dr. George Tiller, 2009

We didn’t want to make Dr. Tiller’s death a political occasion, but beginning on the afternoon of May thirty-first we felt that his life should be honored, all of it, not just his work. His life as a husband of forty-five years, a father of four, a grandfather of ten, a navy flight surgeon, a man with great sense of humor, and an individual committed to his church, his community, and the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. It was our job to let the public know that he wasn’t just a human being, but a heroic human being, because we knew that other people were going to be saying a lot of terrible things about him.

–Dan Monnat, recounted in The Wichita Divide.


Often, I struggle with how often I dwell over terrorism in my writing. Still, the implications of such experiences remain unfathomable children I ghost-raise. Their memories run circles around me unpredictably.

An otherwise seasonal, holiday stroll through the Boulder Creek Festival renders a fire truck raising a ladder to the sky for goo-goo-eyed spectators as I count fire trucks and ambulances flying down West Side Highway turning the corner of Canyon Boulevard. Everything gray concrete and rushed and I have the re-epiphany that my memorialized count of dead rescue workers is measly compared to the actual count I knew rather desperately that day. Ten years later, my terror evolves.

In reading The Wichita Divide, I became curious of the Reformation Lutheran Church survivors—the baby scheduled to be baptized, the new folks bound for confirmation. The ushers. Someone’s daughter who reached his gunshot face first. The veterinarian who gave mouth to mouth with the blood on his face. I wonder how their flashbacks and memories unravel.

Not everything—almost nothing— I memorialize of Dr. Tiller is terrible. Indisputably prophetic and deeply skilled, he was a genuinely kind and authentic man with an abiding sense of humor and purpose. Every single thing he did for his community was necessary and good.

On my thirtieth birthday, I drove home via the heartland of the United States for the holidays. I stopped in Wichita for a few things: to memorialize my father’s alma mater and my parents’ first home as newlyweds. And, to see Dr. Tiller’s church. I don’t know exactly why I didn’t desire to visit the now-closed clinic. But I knew in my heart I was supposed to pray in his once-sanctuary.

Last night, as a part of my ongoing search for an abiding sense of balance, I sought my own Sabbath ceremony at Boulder Kirtan, a chanting assembly, and met a sage, great-grandfather, astronomer/astrologer about the size of Dr. Tiller, with similarly warm hands. Gentle being.

Though, aged as Dr. Tiller never will be—white beard, wood cane, and stories of wisdom in rocks. His mission: To cultivate joy in every molecule. At first sight, he claimed to see Kirtan inside me and gave me a peace blessing from my skull to my feet—gave me peace behind, below, above, and before me.

Yes. Please...

Born again and again and again

Pining always, not always certain what it is I miss, I acquired a free bike from Naropa’s Bike Fleet.

First, Antonio’s gears cracked in motion and the tire flattened over night, then the bike master popped the rear tire on rosy Her-cules—my single-shift, age-old, second choice. Out of the misfit bike rubble, beamed sturdy and shock-absorbent, Mushroom Stew, aka. my new, best friend.

Yesterday was deemed a holy Judgment Day by some, and as the entire world baited breath for a final fulfillment of Christian prophesy, I worked until mid-day.

Recently, certain lifelong friendships have teetered. I’ve witnessed them sign their lives away and devote their entire psyche to the literature of The Bible (perhaps they feel they’ve watched the same in me wanting to provide every kind of health care for women).

I know full well that there are millions of good-hearted Christians all over the world, but my heart is crippled to honor a however-multi-branched religion aligned with stripping Americans of their religious freedom. Believe what you will, I know no prophet who is not pro-choice. Either way, my line of work is the least of sins. I know this in the valves of my heart.

I was young once before helmets. Rode a bike down Ohio riverbed, dead ends, under Pennsylvania evergreens, along rolling hills, got my driver’s license and rarely looked back.

I am certain what it is that I’ve been missing.

Yesterday was deemed a rapturous day, so I worshiped Mushroom Stew toward the flat iron backdrop—praising aquamarine skies, praying to a dedicated wind. I paused along the creek for the singing water to spread my flat, skin back over boulders. A purple butterfly the size of my pinky nail landed on my hip. I cycled my wheels along the creek and was born again.

Who needs heaven in a state ripe with open spaces laws?