it's blue

"if you don't know how to use, ask for help. if you don't have the patience, don't use it. it's a computer, not a fucking vacuum cleaner."

followed by, "dude, this is the kitchen. there is food here and i'm making sandwiches. don't be taking off your shoes and asking for our opinion on your foot gunk. have you no consideration? take it out of here." oh, uh, i'm sorry, i apologize man. "man, just think about it before you do something. what the hell?#@*%!!!"

so begins my morning, a schizotypal in the midst of a bunch of crackheads who believe the 6 a.m. local news is gospel and that it is important to know what is going on in the michael jackson trial. with borrowed patience, gifted serenity and breathing exercises i manage not to misuse the sandwich board as a blunt instrument. a couple more deep breaths and my blood pressure came back down. creasing the top of the lunch bag into a neat self holding origami fold. i look up and leave and by the time i am outside i can sincerely bring a smile to the blue dawn.

often i find solace in words, in language that stir the mind and bring little wounds to our hearts. in hope, the little wounds might soften our hearts and make us stronger. in hope, the heart might learn to bear the pain and be able to carry the gift and burden of compassion. in hope, our shells might learn to live with our own self hatred and find forgiveness and somehow bring that deeply found understanding to the way we deal with others.

The Shortest Distance
by Erin Lambert

Perhaps the dead long for light, long for the sky and stars.
Why we fold them in boxes, shelve them neatly in rows
six feet beneath a world they lived long enough to die in,

I do not know.

I thought as a child that the hell-bound had it easy,
already down there, not much distance to go.
Those in limbo could rest awhile, stretch their bones
back into the earth and fashion new lives from memory;
live ten thousand lives in dirt and darkness.

But who can help those deserving heaven?

Even the statues turn away; angels with eyes lifted
or heads bent in prayers for the living because soon enough,
our turns will come. They try not to hear the dead who are good
tossing in their graves with desperate talk: Which way is up?
Was that a crow this morning?

Because the good are perfect, they are not tortured by memories
so they forget themselves. They lie with the damned
and those left to wonder, who try to give directions with talk of love
and light, the shortest distance between ground and sky. Remember God?
Those in waiting ask the good who, dumb as dirt, stagger for the answer
to a god too distant to wake the dead.  

--

it's evening. i'm at the cafe. soon i'll have to head back to "sanctuary" and experience the myriad of random behaviors of temporal housemates. i'm promising myself i won't pick up the cutting board with harmful intent. yeah, i think that is probably the right attitude. hehe!!!

i had another one of my "reading shakespeare on the bus" moments today. it caused me to get off at the wrong stop and have to walk way farther than planned. but it was okay, i need the exercise (yeah, right!). but then the cut down passages from much ado about nothing are so good. now if i can just memorize some of the better lines. but robert keeps reminding me that my insults are ineffectual unless i dumb down my language. hell i'm not even a native english speaker. what the hell is going on with this country? is everybody trying to be bush? arghhh...

need to make effigies. making effigies will make me feel better, especially after i...