The Walking Wounded

We are all so fragile: little feathers floating in the breeze, coasting in any direction the wind chooses, stopping, going, fluttering every which way. Some might say aimlessly, while others say purposefully.

But whose purpose is it?

Have you ever had the sudden urge to open a car door as it speeds down a freeway? Or to not take that step to solid ground as the escalator reaches the top? Sometimes I stare off the edge of a cliff or over the railing of a balcony and wonder what would happen if I took a step over, if I tumbled down from safety to something else entirely.

I am not crazy. In fact, I think I'm more sane than ever.

But sometimes ghosts make their way back. Sometimes people you thought you put to rest find you again, haunting your dreams. With an innocent song or smell. A picture. A flower. The sound of his voice. A car that reminds you of his. Any one of those things can steal the air from your lungs, stop the beats in your heart, and bring you back to a place you thought you left long ago. And there you are, in a pool on the floor, a puddle of your old weakness.

I think every human has those moments, and is susceptible to them every day of his or her life.

Every day, we walk the line, tightroping our way through our lives, following a path either precarious or predestined. We gamble with ourselves about the decisions and the actions and the questions of our lives: one more look and I will never look back, one last kiss, one last call and then I'll let it go.

We wonder what it would be like to jump out of a plane, to sabotage our safety, when we really should question the importance of intact limbs and unbroken hearts.

I am not crazy. But every once in a while, I wonder. Is staying on the rope the best thing for me? Is walking that wobbly safety-line really worth it? Or should I take that temptation, and leap away from the known path, the expected path, and finally let myself live?

Well. I took one step off, and his face flickered back into focus. He is back in my mind. My heart flutters through the memories of our fiction, that feather resting for a moment in possibility and quickly flying away for good. I know it was not real. But then why am I still shattered apart at the thought of him?

Nearly two years ago, I said goodbye and meant it. Sometimes, though, I picture that path--in that tenuous moment of what-might-have-been, I see a whole world, a life we will never live. It is a glimpse, a flash imagined on a movie screen, a whim there briefly and then gone.

I still gamble with myself. I still look over the edge, flirting with disaster. Maybe next time I jump out of a high-speed vehicle, the flesh wounds will be more than the illusion I suffered with him.

Again

Amiga, amiga.

Good price for you.

Almost free today.

Bonita.  Guapa.  

Whistles.  Kiss faces.

Honking.  Waving.

But then there is 

The poor woman, 

sitting demurely

outside the church.

Skin dark, wrinkled,

like leather,

curled into the rough, rocky wall, 

her hand quietly cupped,

silently asking for help.  

Can this be called begging?

She utters not one word.

Not one sound escapes her lips.

She never raises her eyes to meet ours.

But, then again,

mine never stooped to meet hers.

We were both there, 

in that moment,

quietly avoiding 

the other's

eyes.

Both

crying inside.

Wondering why Fate

placed us together in 

this moment

on opposite sides.

I am haunted by these images,

by the outstretched hands, 

the crumbled humanity that

surrounds us all.

I am paralyzed by my brain.

By the thinking-too-much-

syndrome.

Will they use this money for food? 

For drugs?

Are they truly poor?

Is this just a front for greed?

For laziness?

I hate that I dare to think these things.

How dare I assume anything about 

anyone. else.

We all have our own issues, 

our own challenges,

our own demons.  

Here I stand, again.

Plagued with guilt, again,

Because I turned a blind eye.

I looked away.  

Walked away.

I kept my bleary eyes up, again, 

when Need sat quietly below.  

Tiny little microcosms of life hide around every corner, alley way, side street, around every nook and cranny.  

Textures and patterns scrape across Mexican landscapes, engraving the story of her legends, life and love stories.  

...Souls soaring...

Flocks are flying overhead, 

little pockets of collective consciousness,

floating and flipping,

flip-floating,

fly-flying,

effortlessly.  beautifully.

They know nothing of the murky, madness

down here.

They cluster together 

with ease,

by necessity.  

They are free from 

the plague of adolescence

raging rampant

in and among our supposed

adult democracy.

Who are we anyway,

but a synchronized group 

of kindred spirits

screaming our way through 

the middle of it all?

Daily haze.

Mist.haze.humidity.moisture.molecules.

nestle into the sometimes cozy,

sometimes rocky

curves and crevices of 

Mexico's landscape.

Daily this haze

comes and goes,

hiding sometimes,

and revealing sometimes

the beauties,

the maladies,

always the realities

of the land.

In one look it is there,

and the next,

it is gone.

What is writing to you?

The physical manifestation of my inner voice.  It is the questions, the taboos, the mistakes, the discoveries that happen all the time, all at once, in my mind.  It is the deafening white-noise that needs silencing.  It is the phantom pain that needs treating.  

It is the hunting and gathering, the trapping and holding of these ideas.  

It is also the planting, nurturing of a beginning, of an itch, and the watching it, helping it, encouraging it to grow into a developed and complex being, ready for harvest, for consumption. And then it is ready to compost and begin again.  

Writing is a way to make real, to make tangible, the invisible--but paradoxically, more real--existence that is all around and within me.  

Culture

I am worried that this is lacking, in this country, but more importantly, in me.  So many times I find myself and those around me looking to OTHER cultures to identify with.  We are fascinated by THE OTHER. 

Latino cultures seem to have such vibrant color, such spice, and that steaming hot salsa running through their veins.  Black cultures--African Americans, people from the Caribbean, and sundry other places--have blues, jazz, and hip-hop; slavery and repression fueling them, pulsing through them.  The gay culture has banded together under a flag filled with rainbow colors and togetherness.  Some bigot calls them a fag, and the community owns it, turning that defamation into an affirmation.  

I am white, really white, blue-eyed, upper-middle class, and I grew up in Small Town, CT.  

Boring.

I long for a culture to call my own.  Culture, which seems, in so many ways, synonymous with color.  Flavor.  The spice of life.

Judging by my hometown and my skin, I am the nutrition-less, flavorless, over-produced and empty slice of white Wonder-bread.  

But if I identify with my italian culture, my irish culture, I can be feisty, worldly, culturally rich.  It doesn't matter that, in truth, I am mostly English--and my blaring, white skin shows it--I want to be more like my spicy side.  

It has more depth.  More flavor.  More color than the bland little ol' white girl from Little Town, New England.  

When I can't see myself sitting down to write a real, written-just-for-this-purpose, post, I look through random notebooks and scrap papers to find some snippet of my thoughts.  Here are a few recent ones, until I can get my act together.  For real, for real.