It’s spring, and I’m always slow to awaken. I’m not ready to unthaw, I resist. I need a little space, a little perspective, a little less time spent waiting by the phone. I need to figure out how to be less and more and just right. How to expect, but not expect so much.

But you know me. Save this space, I’m sure I’ll see you again.

The Layers
by Stanley Kunitz

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.

I’m generally in favor of the shiny and the new, but I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about The Clash of the Titans remake, seeing as how the original constituted a pretty significant pinnacle in my geeky childhood.

But this is totally my new boyfriend.

Isn’t he just precious?

I’m fighting my way back from February, aggressively pounding my brain awake with German language lessons, chess games and photography. I am trying not to take the sunshine as judgment against my dusty and neglected soul. I am spring cleaning my heart and mind.

I am in on the joke.

I disabled comments if you were wondering. Not because I don’t care what you have to say, but because I care too much. This might just be temporary, I don’t know, we’ll see. Until my skin is thicker, or maybe my heart less open.

My Heart
by Frank O’Hara

I’m not going to cry all the time

nor shall I laugh all the time,

I don’t prefer one “strain” to another.

I’d have the immediacy of a bad movie,

not just a sleeper, but also the big,

overproduced first-run kind. I want to be

at least as alive as the vulgar. And if

some aficionado of my mess says “That’s

not like Frank!”, all to the good! I

don’t wear brown and grey suits all the time,

do I? No. I wear workshirts to the opera,

often. I want my feet to be bare,

I want my face to be shaven, and my heart–

you can’t plan on the heart, but

the better part of it, my poetry, is open.

Shame on you.

Read in February:

Listened in February:

Just a Little Bit – Maria Mena

just a little bit stronger
just a little bit wiser
just a little less needy
and maybe i’d get there

just a little bit pretty
just a little more aware
just a little bit thinner
and maybe i’d get there

Next Best Western – Lucy Wainwright Roche

At four a.m. on 80 East
It’s in the nature of the beast
To wonder if there’s something missing
I am wretched, I am tired
But the preacher is on fire
And I wish I could believe

Simple Joys (piano mix) – Beautiful Small Machines

Keep me far away from all the noise
I just caught the last boat out of Hell.
I don’t know the joys of simple joys
I’m not feeling well
But I’ll sit real still
If you don’t tell.

Speechless – Lady Gaga

I can’t believe how you looked at me
With your James Dean glossy eyes
In your tight jeans with your long hair
And your cigarette stained lies

Could we fix you if you broke?
And is your punch line just a joke?

Or at least this is Sunday and I’m posting a poem today. I don’t know that this will become a thing or anything. We’ll see.

I blame my teachers, of course, or the system that made them force feed me years of dry and crumbly poetry, the kind that didn’t drip heart’s blood or the kind that burst with stanzas too grand and ornate for my little head to comprehend beyond a surface understanding of vocabulary; things that spoke to me not at all, sucked dry pretty words and patterns that didn’t touch my experience or call my name. Eventually this succeeded in beating the love of poetry right out of me. Now I’m finding my way back, and today I’m sharing one that I like.

Emptying Town
by Nick Flynn

I have a friend who everyone warns me
is dangerous, he hides
bloody images of Jesus
around my house, for me to find

when I come home; Jesus
behind the cupboard door, Jesus tucked

into the mirror. He wants to save me
but we disagree from what. My version of hell
is someone ripping open his shirt

and saying, Look what I did for you.

I learn a little bit more about my new camera each time that I use it. For instance, today I discovered a new and strangely little advertised function. Turns out if you point it at something…

and keep pushing the shutter button…

eventually the object will reveal its true nature.

It’s getting harder to get out of bed in the morning. I stay up later and later at night, brain over full and creaking, I force feed it television, movies and books – other people’s stories, to avoid my own.

I can feel the voice in my head that is my mother – I would say she is reincarnated special to be with me always, but the truth is she’s lived there all along – she doesn’t talk in this moment but she sits there in the back of my head, radiating disapproval at my late night antics. This is not the way a grown up should behave – or more importantly, what would people think?

It’s no use telling her I don’t care what people think because she knows that I do. And while I could tell her a few things about what grown ups shouldn’t do, I don’t have the energy for it just now and she wouldn’t be listening anyway. The voices in our heads are called voices for a reason, they aren’t there to lend an ear or change their minds about us.

To bed late, I wake up equally late and without purpose. My brain clicks on, begins the work of easing me into the day. Or so it claims. When my eldest son was 4 he hated sleep and I discovered that the only way to get him to bed at night was if I sat with him and told him what to expect from the next day. He needed a shape, a plan, solid pieces to hold on to against the unknown and unknowable. I am so like this. But the voice in charge of giving my day form and content just now – this one, I think, a former friend who still drops into my head from time to time to pass judgment when I’m feeling low – is overzealous. She doesn’t just try to give shape to my day but to the week, the month, the next ten years.

I groan and roll over, my legs seeking cool from a new part of the sheets, my eyes closing in protest against the tiny bit of sunlight leaking in through the curtains. Encouraged by my dejection, the voice moves on to an assessment of past actions, a list of what should be done and what should be done over and the possible fallout from the things done badly. There are many. Soon it seems more like I’m talking myself not out of bed but back in. My bladder rides to the rescue.

February: doesn’t matter if it’s sunny or grim, it always kicks my ass. I used to think it was only the endlessness of winter that was the problem, but the truth is that a Pacific Northwest winter is gray and soggy like my soul, I am attuned to it. An early spring is worse for me, like a too early wake up call just when the dream was getting good. The sunshine doesn’t warm my spirit, it just shows me all of the dust that’s accumulated from my neglect.

“Do your work for six years; but in the seventh, go into solitude or among strangers, so that the memory of your friends does not hinder you from being what you have become.”
- Leo Szilard

2009 was a time of deep reflection for me, a year of turning inward. My winter blues lasted a very long time, but when I emerged from it I was looking at the seven year anniversary of my Dad’s death, planting flowers and feeling a deeper peace with that loss than I’d ever known. Which was lucky timing, because after a very sunny and enlightening summer with my husband and kids that included an amazing 37th birthday, a new understanding of family, and an even deeper commitment to our radical unschooling path and pursuing a better relationship with my children, my mother died. Beginning the work of coming to terms with that and struggling through those first months of grief took up the rest of the year pretty completely.

January

November Was White, December Was Grey – Say Hi to Your Mom
“Well, someday soon
When the spring brings the sun
I’ll finally sleep, I’ll finally
feel better when the winter’s gone”

Your Ex-Lover is Dead – Stars
“I’m not sorry I met you
I’m not sorry it’s over
I’m not sorry there’s nothing to say”

February

Après Moi – Regina Spektor
“Fevral dostat chernil i plakat,
Pisat o Fevrale navzryd,
Poka grohochushaya slyakot
Vesnoyu chornoyu gorit.”

From a poem by Boris Pasternak, a rough translation:
“February. Get ink, shed tears.
Write of it, sob your heart out, sing,
While torrential slush that roars
Burns in the blackness of the spring.”

March

Dear Prudence – The Beatles
“Dear Prudence open up your eyes
Dear Prudence see the sunny skies”

April

Daddy’s Gone – Glasvegas
“I won’t be the lonely one
sitting on my own and sad
forget your Da, he’s gone”

The Big Bang Theory – Barenaked Ladies
“Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries,
That all started with the big bang!”

May

Fake It – Seether
“And just fake it, if you’re out of direction.
Fake it, if you don’t belong here.”

Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2 – Pink Floyd
“We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it’s just another brick in the wall.”

June

Be OK – Ingrid Michaelson
“Open me up and you will see
I’m a gallery of broken hearts
I’m beyond repair, let me be
And give me back my broken parts”

July

Birthday – The Beatles
“You say it’s your birthday
Well it’s my birthday too, yeah
You say it’s your birthday
We’re gonna have a good time”

C is for Cookie – The Cookie Monster
“Cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C.”

August

Bad Things – Jace Everett
“I don’t know what you’ve done to me,
But I know this much is true:
I wanna do bad things with you.”

Teeth – Lady Gaga
“The truth is sexy.”

The Flowers – Regina Spektor
“The flowers you gave me are rotting and still I refuse to throw them away.
Some of the bulbs never opened quite fully
They might so I’m waiting and staying awake.
Things I have loved I’m allowed to keep
I’ll never know if I go to sleep.”

September

Mamma Mia – Meryl Streep
“Mamma Mia
Here I go again
My, my, how can I resist ya?”

No Surprises – Radiohead
“No alarms and no surprises,
Silent”

October

Never is a Promise – Fiona Apple
“You’ll say you understand
You’ll never understand
I’ll say I’ll never wake up knowing how or why
I don’t know what
To believe in
You won’t know who I am
You’ll say I need appeasing when I start to cry
But never is a promise
And I’ll never need a lie”

Circle of Friends – Edie Brickell
“And being alone
is the best way to be.
When I’m by myself it’s
the best way to be.
When I’m all alone it’s
the best way to be.
When I’m by myself
nobody else can say goodbye.”

November

Why Do They Leave? – Ryan Adams
“Oh, why do they leave?
On the day that you needed them the most”

(Don’t Fear) The Reaper – Alana Davis
“We’ll be able to fly…don’t fear the reaper
Baby I’m your man…
Valentine is done”

December

Breathe Me – Sia
“I have lost myself again
Lost myself and I am nowhere to be found,
Yeah I think that I might break
Lost myself again and I feel unsafe
Be my friend
Hold me, wrap me up
Unfold me
I am small
and needy
Warm me up
And breathe me”

Grey Room – Damien Rice
“Because nothing is lost
It’s just frozen in frost.”

Cover design by Kelly Buchholz. Photographs also by Kelly: spiderweb outside the front door and random house from the window of the car passing by on I-5. Title “Searching for Spock” is a play off of the third Star Trek movie as a celebration of spirituality, science and long term geekdom. “You know I live to be seen through” is a lyric from the song “Here is a Heart” by Jenny Owen Youngs. “Live through this and you won’t look back” is a lyric from the song “Your Ex-Lover is Dead” by Stars.