"...because we don't change because we want to, do we? We change because we have to. Because there's enough pain."

Richard Panek

Feral Ghazal

Lichen thrives in adverse environments, mountaintops and ice.
A feral animal is one that has escaped domestication.
St. Augustine's definition of God was a being whose center is everywhere, borders nowhere.
The process by which any technology disembodies us is called angelization.*
In a basement in California, a woman sleeps cradling a phone.
The heightening of one sense necessitates diminution of the others.
All change begins with disruption.
The process of one animal taming another is both violent and loving.
And you, Caitlin, what will it take to hold you still,
pockets filled with sea-swept stones.



*This line is borrowed from Nick Flynn.

Moment

This year is more outside myself than any so far, there has been little time for reflection. I feel like I am learning more than I can keep up with. Often about things I thought I knew, like the importance of living in the present. Drove out to the end of the spiral peninsula this week to find a moment...this sun disappeared with the final note of Brahms Violin Concerto No. 1...

Oh, Me, Oh My Oh

My friend Sarah Kramer just sent me this picture of Obama from the night she and I worked at the benefit in New York last summer...this is his face right after shaking her hand. I feel like it embodies something of his charisma/cockiness/authenticity. I still didn't know who I was going to vote for that night, and talked to lots of people all evening about the choice. For some reason, the conversation that stayed with me the most wasn't about his politics. I sat at a table next to a woman who is close friends with Barack's sister. She was telling me how thoughtful he is, how he always remembers details about peoples' lives so he can refer to them...(like any politician). But she told me about seeing him at a wedding, and how he brought up the movie "Maria, Full of Grace." (She's a filmmaker, and her husband is Colombian.) He had seen the film and really liked it, wanted to know what she thought. Something about that really struck me...that a presidential candidate would actually have seen this independent film about international drug trafficking and teen pregnancy...and liked it enough to want to talk about it. I think I dated somebody who dated somebody who dated somebody who made that movie. I guess it was the moment for me, when he started to seem like "my people." I told my Dad (who has sometimes voted Republican but is now volunteering for the Obama campaign) this story and he compared it to some comment Kennedy made about Norman Mailer...

First Poem

some california morning spiritual wisdom from rumi

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning is a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.