My grandmother, what she said, she wrote it down, she said, a power of women.

Ok. Ok. Ok. Don't freak out.

See, here's the thing. You set this goal. You said, "Okay, here's the thing: we're going to live beautiful and we're going to live free and through this, we're going to fix things up." Because there's no reason to live in fear or famine or friendless. We just gotta fix it up, give it back better, not broken. Then later, you grew up a little and you thought, okay, well, okay, how? You said, I know! It's not just about building better communities, we gotta build better homes (we can't just fix broken systems, even, we have to fix broken hearts.) So, let's start square one, how'd we get here, then? Out of somebody's body, out of a tunnel of light, into hands and arms and breasts, into the infinite network of humanity and trees.

You said, so, who's catching babies, then?

And it wasn't new. No, it was old, so old, old even in your life. For that's who your mama was. Just as her mother had crafted poetry and her mother had crafted heartbreak, so your mother crafted babies (poetryheartbreak.) No, wait, that's not all I meant. Your mother crafted support. That's what she was making. Your mama taught support and solidarity the way some kids are taught their p's and q's. The buddy system, the golden rule, the ring of truth, and above all, keep your sense of humor. Your midwifery training started early.

And now?

And now you're counting down. June 20th means less than 2 months and you're on your way. Just had to go and put your money where your mouth is. That famed mother, well known from stories and songs, she said, "don't spin your wheels, keep your eyes on the prize, do your work." So you stayed up late, you got up early, put your hands right there, deep in the thick of it, thin layers of latex the only thing standing between you and new life. And slowly, steadily, moved closer to the ultimate goal, which unbeknownst to you had become

working deep magic, holding space for deep beauty
and joy and bliss.

A Blessing
James Wright

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,

Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.

And the eyes of those two Indian ponies

Darken with kindness.

They have come gladly out of the willows

To welcome my friend and me.

We step over the barbed wire into the pasture

Where they have been grazing all day, alone.

They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness

That we have come.

They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.

There is no loneliness like theirs.

At home once more,

They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.

I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,

For she has walked over to me

And nuzzled my left hand.

She is black and white,

Her mane falls wild on her forehead,

And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear

That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.

Suddenly I realize

That if I stepped out of my body I would break

Into blossom.

Everything but you is stale.

My heart was filled with too many questions--like are timelords born as babies and will we be in love forever--that I forgot to ask myself what it was I truly wanted. I had grown used to seeing myself like the seedlet of a milkweed pod, tossed to and fro between happy chance and miserable fate. I kept finding myself places, unsure of the reasoning that had led me there, and confused because I thought I had been meticulously matriculating. Sometimes you are meticulous and the results are still surprising.

I had this friend once who said that life is not about finding yourself, it's about creating yourself. I thought this meant destiny. But part of me always believed that destiny was something you picked up off the floor and took home with you. You didn't create a destiny, you just realized you had it. It is like blowing into a fan. You exhale and the world exhales right back at you and though you feel the force of it, you cannot see its projection and it is hard to catch your breath. We are created by what we decide to do.

So when I fell in love with you, I felt the thick stir pot of creation mixing everything up. When asked how I was doing, I said, "All the left heels of my shoes have fallen off and I've recently learned that I am held together by stars." I was drawn to you like a siren song and though I saw those rocks, I wouldn't have steered myself away even if I had wanted to. Can you imagine how confusing this was? I don't believe in starcrossed lovers. I don't believe in everlasting love. I believe in friendship and good sense. I believe in relativism and the unbridled beauty of resistive female friendships.

Cowgirl interlude:
We were those who wanted to hear our hoof beats pound familiar streets into wilderness and our shouts turn mist into cumulonimbi. We were taught that the buddy system would protect us from strangers and it was possible to know things by learning their names. They wouldn't teach us how to build fires, only how to ask for money. Sadness was something we understood, and passion, but not reproductive anatomy. Books were tailored to our exploration of both. As we grew, we came away from and into our own power. We began to see that our power lived in relation to other powers and began to take witness of the intersections in which we lived. We grew distrustful and we nurtured solidarity. Each of us, everyone of us, learned a new language.

It is with an unsure happiness that I have discovered you are a part of me. With you, I have drunk deep of beauty and of grief. I have been unmade by you and yet still I feel myself made more. With you, I feel the lick of oceans upon deserts and the echoes of some tolling bell. Together, we have tossed a coin and slowly does it somersault above us, not yet landed, not yet home.

safely through the trees.

When I was little I was fearless.
Now I know my fears.
They are smart, sensible fears that are surely only looking out for me.
But I often want to treat them like an unfortunate acquaintance.
I want to turn my back and pretend we've never met.

I don't know if I was always afraid of heights or if fear of heights just snuck up on me one day in the process of getting older. I'm not even sure what fuels it precisely. Maybe an acute realization that if I were to fall at such a height I would surely die. Maybe a lack of trust in my own capacity not to fall.

Today I hiked up a steep mountain. The view was so expansive it made my knees weak. I do not mean this figuratively. I mean that having the sight of cascading mountains and tiny trees blending into endless forest at my back made my legs feel like they might give out. I was not sure I wouldn't fall. The way grew steeper as I neared the top. There was a part of it that was bare of rocks and plants, mostly dirt with a few trees. It was maybe a 40 degree incline. Maybe more, I have no sense for inclines.

I became nervous that I might be not able to continue.
I thought maybe I could.

I knew that once I reached the top, there would be a gentler trail to lead me back down. As scared as I felt to keep climbing, I felt scarder of the hike back down this way, with the Cascades at my front and my feet speeding up. There was nothing for it but to keep hiking.

I'm not certain I'd ever before had the experience of doing something and thinking, don't look down, just don't look down. I tried not to look back at the progress I was making.

As the trees thinned out, the path became entirely rocky and I climbed up. The butte is at an elevation of 2,065'. Now all of that was all around me. I turned my eyes to my footing and where I was putting my hands. I felt like a bunny rabbit but I tried to think of mountain goats.

I came to the top. A few other people were there, standing sturdily at the very edge, flying kites. The sky was a strong, sure blue and all around me rested Oregon.
I tried to free my heart from my throat and let it be opened by everything I was seeing. My fear of heights does not diminish my appreciation of the beauty they possess. If anything that feeling of being close upon the precipice and the wide open everything makes me feel full and free. If only I am calm enough to notice those other feelings.

As though a gift, a friendly stranger struck up a conversation with me and we began a loose and comfortable conversation that chased away my anxiousness. We talked until the sun began to feel hotter and then hiked down the mountain together, taking the easier path, sharing stories.

your mind conceives, as your body does too, they are not so different after all.

two pieces of writing. one is a piece for college on my experiences working with Planned Parenthood analyzed through the lenses of reproductive justice that we have been crafting. the other is a poem written just for me and now shared with you.

I.
The Teen Awareness Group had been active for a year, the sister to an identical organization in a town 50 miles away from ours that had been around for nearly a decade. As a peer-led comprehensive sex education group, TAG facilitated workshops in public schools all over our community and surrounding areas. TAG was coordinated by one person, usually, a job which seemed to have a shelf-life of a year. I think a lot of the positivity and progressiveness that I encountered during my involvement was a direct result of the coordinators. Had the folks running it not had a radical resolve and a compassionate analysis, they very easily could have perpetuated the problematic history associated with reproductive politics. As it was, though that history was apparent at points, TAG managed to be an organization dedicated to giving youth all the information needed to make empowered decisions. However, we often felt the limitations of the social structure we were working in that kept us from progressing with this goal and restricting us to doing the best that we could.
Societal constraints were often felt in the divide between what we wanted to accomplish and what we could. Our desire was to see a world in which everyone was safe and free and able to have the relationships they needed. We strove to understand the differences between peoples' desires and needs without valued judgment or our own moral compasses. We were dedicated to respecting people and encouraging people to respect each other. Above all else, our belief was that people provided with comprehensive information will make the decisions that are best for them. We were operating in schools largely without comprehensive sex education curriculum and often in schools that had instituted abstinence only policies. Yet still, we had to work in this environment. We had to craft workshops that fit with the regulations of the schools and with our beliefs. We had to try and create the capacity for empowered choice in situations that wanted to grant teens only one right, the right to say no.
Reflecting now, I can see the complexities of the politics of choice that we were working with. Pro-choice as defined by the mainstream was not really the framework we worked under. In fact, despite being affiliated with Planned Parenthood, we rarely discussed abortion at all. Afraid that a conversation around abortion would make schools less inclined to allow us into the classroom, we held back. At the time, I remember feeling conflicted, like abortion was being treated like a taboo subject even in the midst of the movement that fought to provide it. Today, I recognize this an act of compromise in an effort to survive and a sacrifice of abortion for the myriad of other issues of sexuality.
TAG's progressive values around choice were internally limited as well. Part of our goal was to prevent unplanned teen pregnancy. However underlying this was a framework of the ideal pregnancy. The vision of ideal pregnancy that a lot of the administration held and which was somewhat reflected in policy was an economically stable person, years past their teens, in a committed relationship. Anything which deviated from this was regarded with a slight sadness and the assumption that this was proof that the system was failing girls. When it came to teen pregnancy, the goal was prevention and if prevention failed, abortion. We were imbued with an understanding of every woman's right to choose, but not an understanding of every woman's right to mother.

II.
When I walk, my earrings shiver
with noises just as grand as my ears require
chiming like three ice cubes in one glass
tinking, like the feather beat of fairy wings

When it's quiet all around, with just one lonesome heart, my own
I have a steady tick tick tick
that marches from my pocket to ear drums
with half second clicks
the paces of my heart

The moments that live in between the other moments
like pathways between close houses
where you forget that silence is a concept, not a fact
and your thoughts bounce loudly around in your head.
Now I share those moments with tiny noises
that no one else can hear unless they know to listen.

And my quiet breath is held
shared by something other than myself.


The days have gotten warm warm warm and I've been preparing during these first days of summer for the rest of my life. I feel like I'm nearly always in a constant state of planning. What's the deal, I ask myself frequently.

homesickness

Homesickness rolls over you in waves. Past the point where you're starting to find real friends. Past the point where you're starting to share yourself in big, deep breaths and huge chunks. Past the point where you can lean comfortably against someone without being conscious of their newness. Past those points, your desire for home is renewed, recreated. It's not debilitating, just aching. It's something you walk around with, carried in your arms, while your heart grows thick with new loves. What I miss, what's missing from me. When things get hard, I will always find myself returning to nights in that kitchen, leaning against the counter while the smell of soy sauce and nutritional yeast, curry powder, filled the room. The feel of your arms around me, your lips on my cheek. And sharing everything: food, periods, dishes, worries. I will always keep remembering home, everywhere home has been.

In the midst of these strangers, their knees against my back, I glance across the room and I see you and I feel reassured and I feel like you could be family. And if not family, then at least you'll be who I go to when I feel scared. And you know I've never really done this from scratch before and you know this was what I was thinking of that day in the car with Kristy and Lindsey when we talked about strangers.
Because I never really thought that this home feeling lived anywhere else but near my mom and a few blocks away from 405 W. Green.

How do you get lucked with all these people?
How can you love so many people?
What if I explode?

There's power in love too. Talking with Charlie about why all the raves got shut down and we both know that there's danger in massive amounts of people getting together to love each other and feel good; dancing. The drugs are just the excuse given.

Our love for each other is dangerous, we can make too many beautiful things with it.
This is a love letter.
This is a love letter to Urbana, town filled with people filled with ideas filled with so much possibility.
I keep telling stories about home.
All my stories are love letters.

Last night I dreamt we had a reading of a Dr. Bronner's bottle.

I'm not so certain why it works across state lines, how our plans are made and our ideas born with only our voices. How I lay those cards flat and guess at what you've been feeling. We sculpt glitter out of disembodiment.

It was probably reading Francesca Lia Block when I was younger that had a lot to do with it. I glanced at one of her books today, she uses phrases like awe-weaving and soul-unraveling. Her stories are like the kind of dreams we wish we had more. She gives tribute to beauty, poetry and whimsy and this influenced me a lot. Not so much in writing, although probably, but in lifestyle decisions.

I can't grasp the sync of our lives. It feels unlikely. There are these things which I feel semi-singular in (though of course I'm not singular in them, they are common common common, but they are mine). There's the mom part, the baby part, the glitter part, the nice part, the doing-good-and-making-magic-happen-for-other-people part, the plant part, some other parts. How come you get to have those parts too?

Even when I feel frustrated that all her stories take place in LA almost and are almost always heterosexual, I'd still just really like to hang out with her and occupy her world which sounds great.

I don't know which explanation I like more:
The one where we are soulmates
or The one where we are cookies who baked together, so we taste the same.
I just think that we are puzzle pieces from wholly different puzzles who happen to fit together perfectly. Right now you're moss, growing close and comfortable roots. In the future, you'll be the tree, stretching down down down and changing the pavement forever. Right now, I'm a moth, just for a little while, leaving dust everywhere. In the future, I'd like to be a wave.

In her books, all the girl characters are strong and sad at the same time, shook by love and their desire for freedom and beauty. They nearly all wear antique slips. Their friendships with each other are as intense as their romances.

I hope our dedication to make/believe our dreams stays strong.
From our hands, all things are possible.

you said: sometimes i think that telling you i love you isn't enough and doesn't fully express what i mean. i'm going to brainstorm new words.

Wouldn't that be strong, if we created new words just to describe it?

you said: can we do a ritual for our bodies - a reclaiming - while we're on the road?

yesyesyes.

the only thing I ask is that we reclaim our hearts too, which are, after all, a part of our bodies.

re: Brussels Sprouts! from my mother

okay, first of all, they are named after an imaginary place - cf. http://zapatopi.net/belgium/

second, there is nothing sproutlike about them. they are harvested from the stem of a monstrous alien-looking plant.

third, they taste like brimstone. my advice as a physician is to avoid brussels sprouts at all costs.

if you insist on using them for something or other, i'd refer you to my mother, who has in the past been obliged, for the sake of connubial harmony, to make them for my father; or to jacqueline, who has mentioned them on livejournal in the past.

good luck, citizen.

ps. what do you want for your birthday? i regret i am unable to make anything or go "shopping" at this time, due to unusually long work days this month. i was thinking of buying you various items from the internet and having them sent to your residence. what would you think of that? not clothes. you have enough clothes. clearly you need more books. tell me your thoughts on this. xxx