I'm No Good at Naming Anything but Animals and Essays:

This is a poem I wrote several years ago in September. I thought maybe I should let it out, let it have some air before this September passes us by again.


On these summer nights
perrywinkle, pink
construction paper cut outs of clouds clutter the sky and
ohhh it feels right
like the right song
at the right time
cascading up with the heat towards a shadow box
of dark on light, lavender at first sight
or glance, a confusion of colors, a trance
where it's hot, sticky sweet in the sand
cicadas or a mesquite.

An Open Love Letter to My Little Sister:

A few weeks ago I thought it would be nice to post my old journal entries from my time abroad in a series called "Destination." I failed miserably, I only posted a few entries and gave up. The nostalgia got to me. I decided that a better use of my time would be to compose open love letters to the people that matter most to me in the world. It is not often that we tell each other how much we truly care, how much we rely or depend on each other. I used to think that every man is an island but now I think that maybe we are more like a cluster of islands who long to reside near each other, who long to grow into bigger, interconnected islands.

 

Dear Silly,

Do you remember when we were little and you learned how to ride a bike before me or blow a bubble with your gum long before I could figure it out? One hot summer we were driving through the mountains up north with mom and dad, I’m sure sitting in the back seat alternating between torturing one another and laughing hysterically at dad doing one of his Rocky and Bullwinkle impersonations. I was feeling so frustrated that over and over again you’d chomp down on the pink bubble gum and puff your little cheeks together to make the perfect bubble and for some reason—I just couldn’t do it. But instead of teasing me you pursed your lips together and created a monster of a bubble and then whispered in my ear while you handed it to me. You said “Here, hold it up, show mom and dad and pretend that you made it.” You were my little sister and you were protecting me, lifting me up, making me a better person. And that’s how it’s always been. You’ve always been the quick learner, the first one to jump in, the trail blazer—while I chew on a problem and take my time to figure it out—you always seem to know instantly what to do. It’s almost as if you held out your arms and carved a path for us in this world, you pushed your way through the ups and downs, the hard stuff first and created a shadow that I could always follow. You are my little sister but to me you will always be bigger in heart, bigger in courage, bigger in your determination to take a hard knock and jump back up again.

I love you.

Xoxo

A Summer of Something New:

Over the years, summertime, much like everything in life, has taken on themes. Years of blazing heat grouped together by my innocence, or lack of innocence, or by desires or even by years of productivity. I remember as a child summertime meant spending the days with my grandparents, it meant blackened feet immune to the dark asphalt we would trampse across, 75 cents to the local Washington swimming pool for afternoons that would turn into evenings in the water. In college it meant falling in love, traveling to Europe and learning how to navigate the trains or road tripping to California with friends. As I've grown into a grounded woman summertime grew into a time to experience the little things for the first time. To try my hand at new activities, to discover new passions.

Eating rattle snake

Shooting ranges

Bikram yoga

Preparing for a 1/2 marathon

Playing tennis

Fly fishing

They are such small pleasures.

This summer has felt like a tiny scrapbook, a hodge podge of 'first times' woven together by the verb "to try." And now, it is almost over. I read the season in the sky, now when I leave for work in the morning it is less firey orange and more cotton candy pink. Fall and winter will arrive, sedentary, heavy and warm. It was best to end the summer as it began, with trying something new, with fly fishing in the mountains with my dad.

Ahhh Parigi:

Parigi, the city of lights. For years I have been playing this game where I keep a momento of a city I am longing to visit. I keep the momento close-by to remind myself every day that one day I will visit such city. In college it was a giant poster of Tuscany that I hung above my bed--I eventually lived in Italy twice. After college it was a few black and white framed stills of New York City--after college I made my way to the Big Apple. Now, it is a coffee mug with antique looking Parisian buildings on my desk at work. I am so restless. I am longing to smoke a cigarette and wear all black and sip red wine at a cafe outdoors. I am hoping to book a flight for Christmas Day, the only present I want for Christmas is the present I can give to myself.

Bukowski in Bed:

Everyday at work I feel a little bit out of place. Everyday I feel a little bit like I'm just biding my time but also like I really don't belong. I watch the men at work and they walk way around me, they think I am a tiny creature that will break if they come too close to me. They think I am fragile. The other night, getting drinks with friends one of them kept repeating "C'mon Driver, don't be so shy." I'm not shy. Shy and reserved are different. I only tell things to people who I want to tell things to. Maybe I didn't want to tell him anything. I was reading a lot of Bukowski in bed this week. I could lay in bed and read for forty years. The bed is an island. There is an old man at work named Gary. He works in shipping. He has a face that looks like it was molded out of red clay. It looks like you could push your fingers deep into the sides of his nose and reposition it like a Picasso painting. Upside down, a little thinner, a little to the left, to the right, angled toward his ear. He walks with a limp after having had a stroke and he makes spicy salsa. I like it. He has a girlfriend of twenty-six years who is battling cancer. He told me, "she will beat it." Every morning I ask him "how are you?" and he replies "I'm here, I don't know why." Today I said "maybe it's because you're not a millionaire yet" and he just said "humph." I walked away. Today is Sunday but tomorrow is Labor Day so I don't have to go back to work until Tuesday. So that's good.

Why Voting IS Important to Me:

Today at work, after I got back from voting, two of the men I work with began to complain that our voices don't matter. That all politicans are slimy. That we are wasting our time. I listened for a while but eventually I turned my chair around and began to tune them out. Their voices grew louder and soon it wasn't just complaints coming from their mouths but a full-on war against democracy. I quietly typed out emails as I caught bits and pieces of their arguement. The words I've never voted were followed immediately by rants about policy, law, political figures, and the economy.

I do not know every bill up for debate in the senate, or every character running for office, or understand all of the complexities of a struggling economy. But I do know that I am a smart human being who can think critically. I can look up information that I find pertinent. I can research individuals to get a clearer picture of their ideology. I understand that we all have a voice and the only thing stopping us from using it is ourselves.

Frustrations, exasperations, they exist. But the beautiful thing about living in America is that our worries and our concerns transform themselves into black lines on a ballot. Suddenly our abstract stresses are tangible pieces of paper that speak loudly for us.

Voting is important not because it makes you more superior, or smart, or particularly interesting. Voting is important because you make it mean something more. There is something lovely about human beings thinking for themselves. We should remember that we are not robots, not yet anyway.

So, I took my "I VOTED TODAY" sticker off my shirt and stuck it to my computer monitor so my coworkers can see how big my little voice is.

I Love You and Be Safe

Last night I said goodbye to my best friend. She is moving to Michigan where her fiancee is starting his residency at a hospital. I held it together very well, a part of me was worried I would burst into little tears around Gayle and her mother and her future in-laws. But I didn't. I said, I love you and be safe. I got into the car and drove away and I still didn't cry. I just felt very numb. It is not the friendship I am sad for. I know that we will continue to be close. I hope that one day when she and Raji have beautiful little cappuccino colored babies they will call me Auntie Jess. No, it's not the friendship that is gone, it is our childhood, our youth. We will never be 16 again, sitting in parking lots eating ice cream and complaining about life. We will never be 21 again and walking into weird bars in Tucson for the first time.

Saying goodbye made me realize very suddenly and abruptly that we are all moving apart from one another, apart and onto new paths, new journeys. This must be how parents feel when their children begin to grow beyond them. Such an odd mixture of happiness and joy and excitement for their new adventures coupled with a tiny nugget of sadness that is dull and lodges itself deep inside all that you thought was true about life.

But I am happy for her, no two people in love deserve this kind of happiness more than Gayle and Raji. They are like two old bookends that wound up next to one another in an attic somewhere, now that they are together, I cannot imagine them apart.

Life goes on, people move around, we are all only human.