speaking of serendipity...

speaking of serendipity
it's nearly labor day
and i feel as if i am actually
laboring
this year
just to make it to friday.

perhaps it's not serendipity
perhaps it's just ironic
a weekend reserved for picnics and gatherings
is the three days that i would like to hole up
and be
alone

this week has been rough
serendipity played its little games
filtering emotions like coffee--
dark, rich, moist.
i want to curl up in the loveliness of the word
but i'm reminded again and again
that it can go
either way.

the olive branch of peice of my mind.

so you know those emails that get forwarded all the time, about politics or religion or whatever the flavor of the week has been? last week on thursday i got an email forward from one of my aunts. it was labeled: Allah or Jesus?

the email went on about a christian minister who was privy to a talk from a muslim imam. the imam, when questioned, apparently said that muslims view americans as infidels.

it's an email that i usually would just go for the Delete key on, as quickly as possible. but this time i read it, and a growing intolerance blossomed.

so instead of deleting it, i replied.

my argument was first that you cannot generalize all muslims, just as you cannot generalize all christians. labelling and generalizing are sad paths to destruction.

my second argument was that the lines that separate are far fewer than the ones that unite. the god of abraham is the christian God. the god of abraham is yaweh, jehovah, eloh, allah.

he's the same entity. and i'm sure he's laughing his ass off somewhere at this entire debate. or at least smirking. i know i wouldn't be able to help it.

anyway, my email was countered with an email that stated that in her neighborhood, my aunt has three (yes a whole THREE) muslim families, and they believe that my aunt and the neighborhood at large are infidels. they apparently look down their noses in scorn at the christians.

personally, i have a difficult time believing that these parents would willingly raise their children in an area peopled with the Bad Guys if they believed such.

but that might just be me.

***

at the end of her email, my aunt said: "Allah or Jesus, Kim? I know my choice is simple."

it comes down to faith, dan said, and you can't argue with faith.

and that part at least is true. part of my argument was based on discussions i'd had with my muslim coworker, dilshad, who was frankly appalled that the american public grouped all muslims in the same terrorist family, despite the fact that the Qur'an does not support or encourage such activity. in fact, the actual dictate in their holy book is that to kill one human is to kill all humans, and to help one is to help all.

the thing that got me, that i keep going back to, is when my aunt said in the same email that perhaps the dilshads of the world would be able to educate the muslims about american culture.

i so badly wanted to return fire: dilshad IS american. perhaps you ought to take a lesson from her, instead.

***

when i was a kid i was always afraid of the monster under the bed. it wasn't even so much the monster; it was the shadow, the idea of lurking darkness, the unknown. for the same reason i never jumped off a boat and swam in the middle of lakes--the murky bottom was reaching up, in my imagination, to grasp a toe and gently drag me under dim weeds.

i see my aunt in this same way. i see her lack of compassion, fueled by imagination and lack of understanding, stretching forth a hand and tugging her away. i see that the monster under the bed, the one that switches our "terror alert" from level to another is that self same monster.

i think of my own family tree, stretching back across the ocean. my family is here, i am an american, because somewhere back in time, some little genetic coding urged my family west. i think of the irish in history, the oppression and the derision. the slurs for my italian grandfathers.

in my aunt i see hypocracy--the fact that she is a child of immigrants who themselves had to stand up to the accusations she spews.

you would think, in a country based on cultural differences and the freedom of religion, that there would be more compassion for your neighbor, who has climbed the same ladder.

meditations on polyester fiber

o, soft as astroturf beneath my toes
i'd like to know where the softness goes
is it swept away in the rush of feet
or deposited via cat-parcel so neat?

when does malleable concrete emerge from plush,
the seemingly indestructible foot-cradling lush
of fibers woven like a beige throw of grass
capable of cradling both heel and ass--

can it be proven, that optimum time
when everything falls away from sublime
and becomes spotty, blotched and stained
over and over and over and once more again?

i suppose it's just fate. the way you rake leaves.
the way farmers bushel autumn barley in sheaves.
so seasons, they pass, and i hope beyond hope
that the steam cleaner will create miracles with soap.

***

darin and cathy were kind enough to offer use of their really nifty steam cleaner so that i could steam clean the carpets tomorrow. it's not that i figure it'll last a long time; not by a long shot. i'm certain that just like washing your car brings certain rain showers, cleaning my carpet will mean that the cats will find new levels of regurgitation, never before seen in the feline realm.

anyway, i'll be glad when it's done. tomorrow is my day off for the month, and i'm looking forward to it. i do realize that this steam cleaning is going to take longer than i figure. most things happen that way when your mind skips around like mine does--time folds in on itself. i am a black hole in motion.

so yeah. that's my Big Day Off. i know, keep the excitement to yourself. (; i also need to run some errands, so i'm hoping to get on the bandwagon early and get this done so that i can move on from cleaning the house and into something else.

like ironing.

i suddenly feel like i'm channelling doris day. *sigh* must be middle age, settling in for the long haul.

in place of a witty title...

i'm feeling a bit out of steam. perhaps that's because it's been a long week again, already. i'm ready for the weekend and it's only midweek. well, past midweek, at this point, being wednesday night and all.

still struggling with a sinus infection, still trying to sleep for more than 6 hours a night. still tired during the day and still worshipping at the altar of Coffeemate Fat Free Hazelnut Creamer. it honestly is why i get up some mornings.

okay, not the whole reason. but part of it.

i'm just feeling...mired again. when i was a kid i remember my mom gave us some old containers to play with--peanut butter tubs, these metal Schwans ice cream tins, and the gallon size plastic ice cream containers. i remember trotting around the basement, one foot in an empty Blue Moon flavor and one in Fudge Ripple.

which is where i feel i'm at, right now. skidding about on the carpeting in the basement, 8 years old and unaware of the world at large.

my friend rene was down on monday; i met her and her daughter at the moa and we romped around until we were tired and kendall was still trucking. back to my house, where henry was horrified to realize that there was indeed someone on the planet with more energy than him. he spent most of the night slinking around, trying to avoid being scooped up by tiny arms and a roar of blonde energy.

i suppose that's what it's like, to be seven.

i often wish i could go back to being a kid; i think that's the trope i loop through, every once in a while. the mobius strip of memory and future, rolling around and around. i would only want to be a kid in the summer, at home, with my mom and siblings--i was quite bullied as a kid, and hated school for the most part.

that is when i liked being a kid--roaming around the park, building forts underneath giant pines, climbing up the crab apple trees, gathering acorns and trying to put robin eggs back in their nest.

those are the glossy pages of my memory. i'm sure if i went back and relived those days now it would seem tedious, and i'd refresh the memory of longing for adulthood.

i've been thinking alot about kids lately. perhaps it's the ol' biological ticker. but thinking about kids makes me remember being a kid. perhaps that's from where my lagging attitude springs--i'm in a holding pattern, reliving and letting go.

i'm not going to get to go back, not going to be that young again.

when we met in the mall, kendall threw herself--literally threw her little body--into my arms. i caught her and hugged her close, remembering that i met her while she was in utero. i remembered that childhood indestructibility--the knowledge that if you tossed yourself at someone, they would catch you.

when does that flee? that sensation of just living life to live, with no thought of tomorrow. is it when you get your first invoice for electric heat? is it when you realize that a lot of the time, no one is there to catch you? is there a day, or an hour, a second when i could pinpoint my innocence falling to earth?

or is it a slow loss, this gradual slope to middle age, when you realize that there is no going back, when that finally sinks in. i'm sure i've considered that before--my own mortality--but something about friends having babies and children growing like crabgrass has a few cells in the noggin fixated on where i'm at, and what i'm doing.

i am the hamster on the wheel, running. the wheel squeaks and i continue. the wheel groans and i dash onward. where am i going? when will i arrive? am i running for a reason, or just running to fill my time?

i'm not feeling particularly depressed right now. just out of sorts, not quite in place. i've come un-moored. i think the reality for me is in remembering that childhood--where it is fine and dandy to drift about from time to time, to lose yourself and toss your self to the winds, regardless of if there is someone there to catch you.

it's like fat has momentum.

i've been overweight most of my life. i can't remember a time anymore when i was happy with my body. there are times that i'm glad of my eye color, or my hair color, or the shape of my feet. but for the most part, my body is just terrain that's difficult to camoflauge.

i don't write about this...well, ever. for the most part i live in blissful ignorance--i'm so used to the body that i don't notice any more. it's like walking with a limp, and after time wondering why you are limping, and not remembering...but still limping anyway.

i've tried watching what i eat--which does help. and exercise--which helps a lot, both physically and mentally. i just have such a difficult time sticking to any kind of regimen.

a few years ago i started taking vitamins, every morning. a nice centrum way to start the day, just in case i was eating for shit. (which happens often in kimland, where you get distracted before you can eat, and then realize later you're so hungry that you'll eat anything) they say that after 21 days, if you do something the same every day, you develop a habit.

for a while i thought this was true. and then one morning i missed taking my vitamin. and after that i didn't take one again.

i thought about it months and months later, when i was talking to my sister. we figured out that we'd both done the same thing, around the same time: put the vitamin bottle next to our clock, so that when we sat up and turned off the alarm, we would just take the pill. however we both did the same thing--after a few months, missed and just never picked it up again.

is it my memory, losing the middle parts of the bridge, unable to continue in a straight line?

yesterday i took a walk, before movie night with dan. i walked until i was sweaty and red-faced. as i walked it came to me that there were many things that i could say that i didn't remember when it started, or i couldn't remember a day when... (for example, i can't remember a day that i haven't eaten one piece of chocolate) i realized that i cannot say that i can't remember a day on which i was healthy.

which is scary. i don't want to have a zipper scar on my chest, between breasts, like my father's bypass scar. i don't want to always take a hypertension pill. but then why is it so hard to change?

i think part of it is comfort.

when i feel sad, i sink into those things i know will bring me comfort--my pillow, a familiar book, a movie, curling up with my cats, cleaning something. i hide in those things.

if i apply this thought to my body, suddenly it becomes clear--i am hiding. behind one gigantic fat cell.

when i think of it like that, it seems silly. beyond silly. well into ridiculous. i see me, the fat me, hiding behind that one tiny cell. which in my mind i can see as huge. it's the size of the world. i've hidden behind it for years. for most of my life.

but the cell isn't opaque. it isn't solid. it's clear. you can see me, behind it, looking out at the world.

i wouldn't know how to clothe a thin body, my subconcious shouts. what kind of bra would i wear, if i didn't have the boobs i do? what if i go too far, what if i get too thin? what if i try and nothing happens? what if i just stay fat?

years ago i was really, really healthy for a good stretch of time. i lost weight. i felt better. i wasn't depressed as often, and i wanted to do things.

thus my conclusion: the more baggage i schlep around in the form of extra weight, the less i feel like moving. it's like fat has momentum.

anyway, when i was eating better and exercising more, i used to visualize this body as if it were a candle. the longer i burned, the more wax poured off of me. i pictured the weight sliding off my bones, pooling on the ground. i pictured walking away from that weight, leaving behind something the size of michelle pfeiffer, a pile of liquid that i no longer needed.

***

i see this shield that's sheltered
my soul, the comfort
the knowledge of
being
solid.

i relate to earth in a way
you can never imagine--dense,
molten core, compressed and bright,
it's burning inside me, somewhere
you can't see
i've hidden it so successfully
that stephen hawking would need
another lifetime to create
that equation and that theory.

i know the edges of this self
this body that i propel
and fuel, this flesh i wash
and perfume.

it is simpler to hide
than it is to peer over the counter
and into the mirror
and know
know to your very cells
that the body looking back
is your own

for so long it's been missing
a lost dog, reclaimed, the watch found
under the bed
i don't have to sit and affirm--
"I love my arms. I love my calves. I love my ass."
in the end, i just have to
accept that all these bits
are
mine