the end of a very long journey

And, of course, when she wasn’t looking for it anymore, she found it in the most peculiar spot. It didn’t look anything like she had imagined, but she recognized it immediately.

So the the ever-questing seabird went home—for the first, and the last, time.

change

I wish your burdens were coins
so you could empty them from
your pockets each day,
like your change.

Separate out the silver,
stack the quarters on the counter,
feel glad to have sufficient
laundry money
and think nothing more of them.

have you ever re-rented a movie that you just paid a late fee for?

I am so busy that I am paying late fees for movies I don’t have time to watch or return. But more distressing is that I most recently rented a movie that I don’t even want to see, which I decided after I brought it home, so I refuse to see it and now it’s late. And even more distressing is that I did want to see it when it came to the theaters but then I saw Once two weeks ago and I’ve been so depressed since then that I can’t stand the idea of watching any movie that has anything to do with love, so that pretty much rules out movies all together. Especially Waitress, which is still on my desk, never seen, and three days late.

smart girl

I have more wit
than I have tit.

I have more quip
than hip.

I have more crass
than I have ass,

and more blunt
than I have wunt
or need of.

penguin dreams

Because he wanted to fly, the little penguin fashioned himself some wings.

He gathered twigs, some downy moss, and string, and whatever else he saw that he thought might make a wing. That he had been cold for a very long time was enough to make him believe that a penguin could fly. He spent endless hours watching the way the wind moved the clouds across the sky and he thought, Why can’t I?

While the dawn was just beginning to loose fiery tendrils streaming through the air, the little penguin trekked up to the top of a snow peak, and stood there. He put his wings on, those made from the scantest of things, and he thought, I don’t’ know if they’ll work, but I’ll try.

Hope is the dream of a flightless bird whose only wish is to fly.

cookie poem

There is no thing
so painfully sweet
as the taste of a cookie
you cannot eat.

so, what am i going to do with my bachelor's degree in arts & letters? exactly what i should've done fourteen years ago

Dear Admissions Committee:


My life goals and career goals are intertwined: wake up on most days and create something (life), and get paid for my creation (career). Actually, I have to wake up and be creative or I devolve into a melancholic killjoy who doesn’t get invited to art openings or cocktail parties. I know this to be a fact of my existence and therefore am confident that my career must involve creative pursuit.

I need a job that allows me to reconcile my internal inclinations with the demands of living in reality, to any extent that this is possible, and I strongly believe that self-employment is the answer to this conundrum. Also, I am certain that I excel when I combine my analytical skills and artistic faculties to communicate abstract ideas. So, ideally, I would like to become a self-employed, skilled communicator of abstract ideas rendered in aesthetically pleasing ways. I have known this for many years and pursued writing as one avenue toward this goal; however, it seems to me that words alone are fairly limited in what they can say. But a single word set in a stunning font, or paired with a particular shade of green, can be a very powerful messenger.

I believe an education at [fancy art school] would give me both the artistic foundation and technical training that I need to pursue a career as a creative professional. I am also excited about the opportunities provided by [fancy art school] to learn from experienced professionals and become involved in Portland’s art community. I think there can be no substitute for peer critiques to foster growth and generate quality, and looking at a sample of the work produced by students at [fancy art school], it is obvious that excellence presides in the learning environment.

I feel I have a strong creative intuition, but I know that I am lacking the skills necessary to execute a visual message to the best of my ability. I believe that my education at [fancy art school] will give me the skills to become the artist that I am. E. E. Cummings said, “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” It also takes time and a lot of money, but it sure beats growing up to become who you really aren’t.

Thank you very much for your time. Sincerely,
Autumn

the day before my last day of a fourteen-year Bachelor’s degree: order of events

9:37am: miss the bus, walk/run to my first job
9:45am: realize that I rubbed make-up remover all over my face instead of moisturizer
10:05am: arrive five minutes late to my first job
10:05am-1:00pm: teach writing, my students thank me and hug me, I cry. I love my students.
1:22 pm: miss street car, run/walk home
2:00pm or so: eat gigantic bowl of chili with half a diced onion on top while writing final paper
2:thirtyish: notice my kitty’s eye is swollen shut and watering
2:thirtyish: minor kitty freak-out, call vet, resume paper writing
4:14pm: not finished with paper, not dressed for second job, call work and tell them I’ll be five minutes late, finish paper
4:19pm: walk out the door and see bus going by, RUN, look down to make sure I have put pants on
4:35pm: arrive five minutes late to second job, fully dressed. Brush teeth (at work).
4:35pm: manage a restaurant, train a manager, host a restaurant, train a hostess, make people calm and happy in high-stress situations (can I put that on my resume?).
7:15: trusted colleague offers mints, I accept.
Around 9:00pm: fire manager trainee, go home
9:46pm: eat fried plantains, the most delicious food I have ever eaten
11:42pm: drink glass of wine, revise and edit final paper
1:33am: can’t sleep

senior thesis: not sure if this even remotely answers the question

I will be graduating this term with a BA in Arts and Letters because I never could pick just one discipline in which to focus my academic study. When I began my college career over a decade ago, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. The problem was that, at the time, Harvard was the only school offering a degree program in Ethnobotany. Harvard does not accept poor kids from alternative High Schools who haven’t taken a math class since the seventh grade and who still think SAT is short for satisfactory. Denver Community college does. So I began to study biology (the “botany” part) and anthropology (the “ethno” part) with great determination and even greater delusions. I wanted to become The Best Ethnobotanist in the World.

The idea is simple: Save the rainforests. The only way to save the rainforests is to find something that the world will recognize as a valuable commodity and sell it, without destroying the forests in the process. Medicine yields an extremely high return on investment and can be extracted from the vegetation with minimal impact. And everyone in the world needs medicine. So the really interesting thing about plant medicine from the rainforest is that the indigenous rainforest people are the experts. And the really interesting thing about indigenous rainforest people is, well, everything; not the least is a perception of reality that is completely foreign to a poor girl with a questionable education.

So, one discipline led to the next in my quest to become The Best Ethnobotanist in the World: Biology led to chemistry led to physics led to astronomy led to logic led to philosophy, etc. And on the Arts side, anthropology led to politics led to language led to literature led to writing. . . Throw in a bunch of full time jobs, a couple moves across the country, military service, marriage, divorce, and a life-time of debt, and all this culminates in a Bachelor of Arts in Arts and Letters.

So what can be said about the perceptual lens of my discipline? My “discipline” came about haphazardly as a result of the desire to protect what I love. Throughout my studies I have encountered obstacles and opposition, but the original intent is still intact. I will graduate with a BA in BS, failed attempts, hard feelings, no math skills, my goals unreached and ultimately unattainable, but I still want to save the rainforests. And I know just how many disciplines it may take to reach the world.

my prayer

God (or whomever) grant me a sense of humor
To accept the things that surprise me,

The ability to laugh
When I surprise myself,

And a great smile
When I have nothing else.

the beginning of the end of a very long journey

She thought she had been traveling for as long as she could remember, which was a very long time because the seabird had a very good memory, but the ever-questing seabird had finally come to rest.

She knew she was home because she wasn’t looking for it anymore.

places i have lived

1. Small house (apartment?); Lakewood, CO
2. Coast Guard housing; San Juan, Puerto Rico
3. Coast Guard apartment; Queens, NY
4. Rental house on Aqueduct; Littleton, CO
5. Grandma’s basement; Littleton, CO
6. Pulte townhome; Parker, CO
7. Mom’s apartment; Littleton, CO
8. Dad’s townhome; Parker, CO
9. St. Luke’s Loony Bin; Denver, CO
10. Mom’s apartment; Littleton, CO
11. Ron’s house; Littleton, CO
12. In my truck; Various Cities; CA, OR, WA
13. Emily Dickinson studio; Denver, CO
14. Emily Dickinson studio (corner unit); Denver, CO
15. Ron’s house; Littleton, CO
16. Pearl St. studio; Denver, CO
17. In my truck; Davis, CA
18. Weird apartment; Davis, CA
19. Matt’s apartment; Sacramento, CA
20. Tiny studio; Sacramento, CA
21. Ron’s house; Littleton, CO
22. Logan St. one bedroom; Denver, CO
23. US Coast Guard basic training; Cape May, NJ
24. With Nicholas Hartshorne (deceased: Thank You, Nicholas!); Portland, OR
25. Irving studio; Portland, OR
26. Glisan house; Portland, OR
27. With Andre; Snohomish, WA
28. Seattle house; Seattle, WA
29. Seattle house #2 (with bitchy lady); Seattle, WA
30. Gordon’s studio; Portland, OR
31. Nob Hill studio; Portland, OR
32. Weird house; Portland, OR
33. High-rise; Portland, OR
34. Vista St. High-rise; Portland, OR
35. The Adeline studio; Portland, OR
36. Condo; Portland, OR
37. The Adeline studio (again); Portland, OR

professional ice-cream eater (the one that earned me a "B" in advanced poetry writing)

Did I ever tell you
about the marvelous day
I ate ninety two scoops of ice-cream
before they melted away?

You may say, “That’s impossible!
A truly astonishing feat,
to eat a ninety two scoop dripping, slipping,
tipping tower of sweet!”

Well, that’s just what I did
and I’m here to tell the tale,
so gather in close
and listen up well.

It wasn’t that easy, no
it took some preparation:
Lots of sleep, some TV, and proper
ice-cream eating education.

I slept in on Monday,
I slept in on Tuesday too—
I would have slept in Wednesday,
but I had some practicing to do.

I went out to the ice-cream shop
and ordered up a single.
I ate that scoop so fast, indeed
my tongue began to tingle.

I ordered one more scoop
(I had to work on my technique)
to overcome the trouble
with a cone that has a leak.

I watched TV on Thursday
to give my teeth a rest.
After weeks of eating ice-cream cones,
I thought that would be best.

On Friday I was ready,
my days of practicing were through.
I wouldn’t stop at seventy,
I would eat all ninety two!

As I walked up to the counter
I felt a shiver in my knees,
“Ninety two different scoops
on an ice-cream cone, please.”

Strawberry, peanut butter, pistachio, rocky road,
caramel, coconut, and cherry a la mode.
Mint chocolate chip, cookies and cream,
butter pecan, and fudge truffle supreme.

Blueberry cheesecake, coffee almond swirl,
peppermint, peach, and raspberry whirl.
Banana surprise, chocolate chip cookie dough,
(Could you spare me the scoop of vanilla though? Yuk.)

I took that ice-cream cone in hand
and smiled because I had a plan:
Eat a little from the top, and a little from the bottom,
when I reach the middle, I’ll have eaten the whole lot of `em.

My plan worked quite well,
I am happy to say.
I ate all ninety two scoops
before they melted away.

People looked at me in awe,
they clapped and cheered and sang, “Hurrah!”
I handed out my business card to everyone on the street,
“Professional Ice-Cream Eater, My Business is a Treat.”

i don't like gum

I don't see the point of chewing something that isn't food. Which brings me to my next point: It's not food. You're not supposed to swallow it. And I don't know about you but I believed them when they told me if you swallowed gum it would stay in your stomach forever, or for seven years or something. So I never chewed gum becuase I was afraid I might accidently swallow it and spend the rest of my life with gum in my stomach. How could you accidently swallow it? you ask. Well I'm not sure but that's what I was afraid of and the last time I chewed gum, which was five years ago, I accidently swallowed it.

my first true love

I have read somewhere, “I know a woman who would marry a poem,” though I cannot remember who said it, or who it was said about, and after having searched now in all the possible books in my collection, I shall have to quote the line here and appropriate the author as soon as I come across it again. Perhaps it was Browning about Browning, or Yeats about Maud, but now that I think about it, it may have been someone about Edna St. Vincent Millay. I’m not sure.

I am sure that it could have been written about me, by anyone who might know me well enough, or even by someone who has known me briefly but has heard me speak of my favorite poem. Anyone would surely have noticed the devoted reverence and singular, empathetic adoration in my voice.

I would marry a poem if I could and I know which one I would take to be my lawful, wedded husband.

I found Tennyson’s “Flower in the crannied wall” when I was fifteen, just before I was admitted to the juvenile loony bin for being, admittedly, a juvenile lunatic. I came across it as I was studying for the literature part of the GED examination. I was actually searching for the answer to a question about "Daddy" and in doing so I had just discovered Sylvia Plath, and that she rose with her red hair and ate “men like air,” which I thought was very interesting.

But when I found “Flower in the crannied wall” I thought that someone else before had felt exactly the same way that I do; that I was not alone; that maybe it was ok to have so many questions and so few answers; that I had found a tiny sliver of miraculous beauty in a dark, dark world; that I had found myself, my soul, and my true love.

Tennyson’s little flower saved my life. I even graduated from high-school.

We have been together ever since and I think we shall be ’til death do us part.

question, asked with as many infinitive verb forms as possible

I learned how to roller skate forward and backward and how to round my corners to pick up speed. I finally learned how to control the tips of my skis, although I never could understand how to make them come to a complete stop. I learned how to do long division and then I learned how to multiply fractions, but now I can’t remember how to do either one. I learned to sing in key, but only when no one was listening. I like to play the guitar, but I haven’t in a while because I can’t remember where I put it. I wrote a couple songs, but I forgot how to play them. I learned how to iron, get a job, wait tables in a fancy restaurant. Later I learned that I didn’t want to wait tables. But it was too late. I learned how to make the best of things. I wanted to travel extensively, but I settled for seldomly. I wanted an education but first I had to figure out how to pay for one. It took a while to learn how to work and go to school at the same time. I learned how to overcome obstacles. I wanted to defeat the dragon, but instead we called a truce. I learned how to bear impossible burdens. Then I learned how to adopt homeless kittens and feed them and give them a good home. I learned how to make lasagna and how to bake chocolate chip cookies. But what I really want to know is, does anybody know how to unwrap the damn CD celophane wrapper?

split personality

Obsessive-compulsive Urbanite Goes to the Jungle

I stepped off the volunteer bus, took tired strides toward the dining hut, and THWACK! Big, nasty bug in the eye. It was huge, not your average garden variety fungus gnat. And I have eyeball phobia—I’m afraid of mine and yours. My hands flew up to my face and I blindly asked whoever-was-there-no-one-in-particular where the bathroom was.

It’s difficult to get that clean feeling from an icy cold trickle, roughly the diameter of a spaghetti noodle, and a bar of natural soap that until your unsuspecting hand came upon it, served as an overstuffed sofa for a squishy little lump of baby lizard. Baaadd neeewws, I reflected, I’ll just dry my hands on this old pink towel, carefully avoid the sleeping towel frogs nestled in the folds, and make haste for my hand sanitizer.

Now, I realize that facing the prospect of not being able to wash one’s hands for the next ten days may not induce the same hyper-neurotic, paralytic dementia in everyone. It just so happens that if I were asked to describe what I thought hell was like, I would answer that hell is having perpetually dirty hands combined with an eternity of inadequate water pressure.


Passionate Naturalist in the Jungle

I stepped off the volunteer bus, smelled the rainforest smell and, strolling gleefully toward the dining hut, got my first close up view of Machimus cingulatus. It was enormous, much larger than the average garden fly. After carefully handling the beautiful insect, I went to wash my hands before indulging in the fresh yucca chips and homemade salsa set out on the table.

It can hardly be called “roughing it” in the jungle if there is a sink with running water just a few steps outside of your tent. Thankfully, the baby lizard lounging on the bar of soap reminds me that I am, indeed, the minority life-form around here. I turned to dry my hands on a soft, pink towel and, to my delight, spotted several sleeping tree frogs nestled in the folds. This is heaven, I thought.

Now, I realize that lizards and frogs may not be the first things that come to a person’s mind when asked to describe paradise. It just so happens that if I were asked to describe what I thought heaven was like, I would answer that heaven is sharing the sink with a baby gecko in the middle of the rainforest, and realizing that we all belong here.

the real truth

It’s not that I wasn’t smart enough to pass the fourth grade.

I was plenty smart, ninety-eighth percentile smart. Reading was my favorite subject and I looked up the words I didn’t know before I was asked to, just for fun. That’s how I learned what tangible and nomadic meant. Science was my second favorite. When our class was learning about weather, I memorized all the different types of clouds and their names: cirrus, nimbus, stratus, cumulonimbus. Over and over I said those names, letting them roll and sweep and bounce through my head. Just thinking those words was fun. It was the same with birds, and then constellations: Orion, Ursa Major, Cassiopeia, Cygnus. I knew more constellations than anyone else in the fourth grade. And Math was always easy, just boring.

So when Ms. Jostess requested a parent-teacher conference to discuss Why Autumn Is Failing The Fourth Grade, my parents were a little surprised. Then they were a little more surprised to find out that I hadn’t done a single homework assignment since oh, about the second week of the school year, which was almost over now. I was doing fine on all the in-class activities and my test scores clearly showed that I was capable of doing the work, so why hadn’t I done any homework? they all wanted to know.

I lied and said that I didn’t know it was supposed to be turned in; I accidentally threw it away; I didn’t understand it; I didn’t have time; it was boring; I lost it; my sister stole it; and, yes, my dog ate it.

But the real truth is that I quit doing my homework once I realized that if you didn’t do your homework, you had to sit on the bench during recess and you weren’t allowed to go out and play with the other kids. The other kids said I was ugly and stupid and weird and had big teeth and too many freckles and they threw dirt in my hair and tried to pull my pants down, so going out to play with them at recess was the last thing I wanted to do. I’d rather sit on the bench.

I thought I had found the perfect solution: don’t do my homework, don’t go to recess.

That’s why I was failing the fourth grade.

here's a little ditty with summative modifiers, can you find them all?

The Coquí (pronounced ko-KEE) frog is so named because that is the sound it makes. Or more accurately, that is the sound of its mating call (which leads me to wonder what we would be named if we were so named for the sound of our mating call, but that's another story). And if you are in the middle of a Puerto Rican rainforest at night, this is the sound you will hear—all night long—a moonlight sonata played by 2000 piccolos all tuned to a slightly different key. This is the inimitable call of the Coquí.

It is said that the call from a single frog, whose mature size rarely exceeds a full inch in length, can reach 100 decibels at only a meter away, a noise level roughly equivalent to that produced by a chain saw, jack hammer, printing plant, riveting machine, or speeding express train.

This sound will accompany you wherever you go and no matter what you are doing—to bed, or trying to sleep, for instance—but it is especially prevalent if you are in fact crouched amidst the wet, leafy understory where the population of human is outnumbered by Coquí 50 to 1 in a single bush, a good ratio if you are a human crouched in the bush for the sole purpose of spotting and capturing the tiny, bug-eyed amphibians.

Speaking of bugs, those are also in the bush with you and the frogs. However, because I spent a significant amount of time crouched in Coquí habitat, I prefer to remain ignorant of the actual ratio between human and insect population, surely some ungodly factor that one should not contemplate if one is to continue frogging in the Puerto Rican rainforest at night.

yes, it's just me

I was craving saffron risotto fritters, and when you’re craving saffron risotto fritters, well, really nothing else will do, so I took myself out to one of my favorite restaurants, the only place I know to get said SRFs. I waited an absurdly long time to be acknowledged by the bartender because, “Oooohhh you’re dining alone I’m sorry I thought you were waiting for someone else I didn’t realize you were by yourself I’m sorry.” Yes, it's JUST ME, which means that I, more than the cooing, kissy couple next to me, deserve a drink. I should have left but I really wanted my fritters, you know?

Also, I’m in the business, and when a single diner comes into my restaurant, I’m very nice and I do whatever I can to make the single diner feel comfortable because I’m a single diner and I know that it’s usually an uncomfortable, at the least, experience.

So anyway, I’m all awkward and gawky at the bar next to cute couple with accents, receiving bad service and sucking it up because I want nothing else at the moment but saffron risotto fritters. And a mojito.

And in a way, I guess I also wanted someone to just be nice to me.

When I finally get my drink, there are two small, black straws in it but one of them is about ¾ inch shorter than the other. What the hell? I had to keep evening out the straws to get anything out of them so I looked like an idiot and my fingers got all sticky.

Then, my SRFs were delivered. I picked up the lemon wedge and squeezed . . . lemon juice right into my eyes. My eyes teared up so badly that I couldn’t see and I was trying to wipe them with my sticky mojito fingers.

Now I looked like a blithering, ridiculous single diner crying alone at the bar over saffron risotto fritters. And you know what? That’s exactly what I was.