All Things Bookish

I read this today from Louise Erdrich's new novel The Night Watchman:

And Patrice thought another thing her mother said was definitely true -- you never really knew a man until you told him you didn't love him. That's when his true ugliness, submerged to charm you, might surface.

Oooh boy. 








On Friday night I joined a virtual silent reading that I heard about from my beloved friend, poet Heather McHugh. The thing originated at a hotel somewhere in Seattle and was a yearly affair where you basically showed up, I think, at the hotel bar, alone with a book. And then that was it. You sat at the bar or in the bar at the little tables and just read your book. Alone. For two hours. While a man played the piano. You could drink and eat little plates of food, but mostly you read and looked up and around at the other solo people reading and what they were reading. And then back down at your own book. So, this year given The Pandemic, the Silent Reading was virtual. I signed up, paid a small donation and joined the Zoom thing at 6:00 on Friday night with nearly 300 people. Reader, this is the kind of thing that makes me truly and perfectly happy. It's the ultimate reading dream. I made myself a plate of sheep's milk cheese, crackers, soppressata, french fries, olives and a glass of wine. I read The Night Watchman and I read from Sharon Olds' new collection titled Arias. I peered at the tiny thumbnail portraits of all the people sitting in their homes reading. I lay my head back on my chair and closed my eyes and listened to the piano music that poured out of this guy for the entire two hours. I saw Heather's smiling face in early evening light and the book she was reading, something by Borges and once again felt overwhelmed by her beauty and what she's brought to my life since I've met her. Understanding. Humor. Caregiving. Poetry. She's got a fabulous new website/podcast thing going in anticipation of her new book of poems, Muddy Matterhorn.  Check out her sound files here.





What else? I guess the usual -- vacillating between a strange ennui and ridiculous industriousness. Noticing everything that is ugly and stupid and false about our country in particular and so not anything like or ever has been shining on a hill even as the oak hydrangea flowers chartreuse, the acacia tree leafs out, the succulents thrust their onanistic blooms three feet in the air overnight and the hummingbirds clash with one another in irritation or ecstasy who knows but the bees are profuse and there's a Coopers hawk nesting in my neighbor's tree, the Orthodox family next door has five laughing screaming children and the Los Angeles sky is empty of planes. A loved one misunderstands who I am or confirms again that I am not known, digs around in an old place only just barely buried under dark dark earth. I worry for my sons, vacillating like me between ennui what's the point, confusion, and the delight of new recipes (a lemon-parmesan emulsion for pasta!) Their dark brown eyes. I imagine how the world might use two incredibly beautiful men with hearts as big as the sky. I dream of firemen not doctors.

All Italics Are Da Vinci's Except For That Moon

I say that the blue which is seen in the atmosphere is not its own colour but is caused by warm humidity evaporated in minute and imperceptible atoms on which the solar rays fall rendering them luminous against the immense darkness of the region of fire that forms a covering above them.

Leonardo da Vinci, from Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci


What happens when everything you see and touch and hear and smell and feel comes to you as in the fulfillment of a dream?

Writing about the kite seems to be my destiny since among the first recollections of my infancy it seemed to me that as I was in my cradle a kite came to me and opened my mouth with its tail and struck me several times with its tail inside my lips. (a dream of Da Vinci's infancy)


The room at the top of the stairs where I learned to rest four years ago, the woman who cared for me like a mother, the courage to send in my writing, the awarding of three weeks in a cottage in the woods in the same part of the world the next year, a great upheaval that led to a bird photographer, an owl, a whale's fluke (like a whirling wind scouring through a sandy and hollow valley which with speeding course drives into its vortex everything that opposes its furious course....), a white bed in the same part of the world four years later and then this: waking at four, always four and a beam of moonlight shining in the only strip of window not covered by curtain. Shining on the blue sea, blue moonlight. I'll get the moon for you, he had said, and he pulled the curtains to there right before love (touch), and then sleep, and waking at four, always four and there it was, and you (I) stood there in a black nightgown bathed in blue.

To me it seems that all sciences are vain and full of errors that are not born of Experience, mother of all certainty, and that are not tested by Experience; that is to say, that do not at their origin, middle or end, pass through any of the five senses. For if we are doubtful about the certainty of things that pass through the senses how much more should we question the many things against which these senses rebel, such as the nature of god and the soul and the like, about which there are endless disputes and controversies.

There's a little blue book by the side of the bed of the woman who cared for me like a mother, a little book of selections from the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, and I open it to Flight, to Structure of Birds' Wings, to You will study the anatomy of the wings of a bird together with the muscles of the breast which are the movers of these wings. And you do the same for man in order to show the possibility that there is in man to sustain himself amid the air by the flapping of wings. And what are the chances of this, of reading of birds and whales and blue and flight written in the 16th century?

Impetus is the impression of local movement transmitted from the mover to the movable thing and maintained by the air or by the water as they move in order to prevent the vacuum. (Movement Through Wind and Water)

The body of anything whatsoever that takes nourishment continually dies and is continually renewed; because nourishment can only enter in those places where the preceding nourishment is exhausted, and if it is exhausted it no longer has life. (Life of the Body)

Soul Repair in a Cruel Era

photo by Carl Jackson

On Friday night, poet and MacArthur Genius, Heather McHugh, graced a room full of my friends who came to watch a screening of her and Adam Larsen's documentary UNDERSUNG. The documentary is a love story unlike any you might have seen, following four families as they "explore the limits of human need and in the process show us something limitless."

Long-time readers of this blog know that several years ago I was fortunate to receive a one-week, all-expense paid respite in Victoria, Canada. Caregifted is a non-profit foundation founded by Heather shortly after she received her Genius award. Family caregivers who have been caring for their disabled relative for at least ten years are eligible to receive the one-week respite grants.  The week quite literally changed my life, transforming my perceptions of identity and what my future might be. I felt grounded, at peace and truly rested for the first time in nearly two decades. I felt a deep and abiding sense of possibility that holds true even today, three years since I lay on a bed by myself in a little apartment in Canada, took long walks on a log-strewn beach, wandered the small town and took long, luxurious baths while the rain pattered on the ceiling.

One of my best friends, Cara, opened her gorgeous home to all of us on Friday evening. Here I am in a room full of people that I love, trying to do justice to what Heather and Caregifted gave me that summer:

photo by Carl Jackson

Heather is not just an angel and philanthropist but a poet. When we planned the evening, she wrote me:

We could think of these gatherings as soul repair in a cruel era. Something we can do, as artists and philanthropists, to re-secure communities of kindness. I see these gatherings as just another way (like the marches) of re-securing our premises in principled kindness, over and against mockeries and manhandlings and one-upsmanships.

Given the constant drumbeat of hideous news and our mounting fears, particularly for those of us in the disability community (our disabled children and young adults are among the most vulnerable in the country), Heather's message was truly soul-repairing. She read two powerful poems and then led us down a labyrinthine path, telling us how caregivers have inspired and motivated her to action. I can honestly say that I still don't understand how this woman who is not a mother herself has accomplished something incredibly profound in understanding exactly what our experiences are -- both the joys and the sorrows -- and reaching out to help us in a way that has eluded even our closest friends and relatives. She is one of the great humanitarians, I think, of our time.

On Friday night, Heather truly secured our premises in principled kindness.

I find myself, again, deeply in debt to both Heather and the many friends who came out to support Caregifted.

Thank you, beautiful people!






Make a donation to Caregifted, if you're so inclined!

The documentary can be streamed on Amazon now, and I highly recommend that you watch it. Here's a clip:

#RESIST

Love is a Verb, Part 345

Crescent Lake, Washington

I slipped away from sunny California and traveled first by plane to Seattle and then by ferry and car to  Port Angeles in stormy but beautiful Washington for a long weekend. I joined my friend, fellow writer and caregiver Jeneva Burroughs Stone, and writer/caregiver Leslie Haynes at the invitation of Heather McHugh, the MacArthur prize-winning poet who founded the organization Caregifted. Many of you who've been reading this blog for years might remember that I received a week of respite several years ago, the first time I'd been away for more than a few days in more than nineteen years. Caregifted provides respite weeks, free of charge, to family caregivers of the disabled who have been doing the caregiving for at least ten years.

That week in Victoria is documented on my blog, and it quite literally changed my life. I grew to love Heather and what she is doing for those of us with these unique, often arduous but also deeply fulfilling lives. Most, if not all of us are exhausted, and while we might have learned some profound perspective, the relentless nature of caregiving for a severely disabled son, daughter or spouse is something that few people -- even close friends and family -- ever understand. I'd say that Heather McHugh is a person who does understand this -- inexplicably, as she has no children of her own. She is a poet and an angel -- and I don't say that lightly.

There is no other organization that I know of that does what she does, and while it's a small one, the impact of Caregifted is deep and intense. Heather invited us to her beloved Pacific Northwest  to have a kind of creative pow-wow to figure out how to keep the organization going. Given the disastrous election, many of us who work with and care for our disabled children and young adults are justifiably terrified at what might happen. We are certain that any services we might receive could very well be cut or drastically reduced. We are concerned about the rights of our children and all people with disabilities and about our ability to fight successfully for them. Disability rights are civil rights, and they will be threatened. There has been real progress under the Obama administration in the areas of education law, the Affordable Care Act and other issues. Many people don't realize that, but there is still much work to be done. The cognitively disabled, in particular, are overlooked, as are the severely disabled, and our lives as caregivers are seriously impacted by a culture and government that doesn't acknowledge or help us.

Caregifted is an extraordinary and very unique organization. Since the election, many of us are mobilizing through concrete action to help organizations that are helping the disenfranchised. I am making monthly donations to Planned Parenthood and to the ACLU. I plan on registering as a Muslim should the Trump administration make registration a priority, and I am ready and willing to do what it takes to resist the mockery of a presidency, the band of mostly white men who surround him and the legion of their supporters. I know that many of you are doing the same, supporting organizations that support people of color, the LGBTQ community, climate change initiatives, Muslim and other religious minorities, as well as women. I urge you to add the disabled to your list. Caregifted is decidedly NOT a political organization, but it is an extraordinary and very unique one. I would love if you'd make a contribution, however small, to Caregifted. Helping caregivers helps the disabled. Rights for the disabled are civil rights. Trust me on that one.

Here's their website. Donate if you can. Stay tuned to hear about screenings of the wonderful documentary Undersung. We are a small group, but you are a mighty one. Share it and tell your friends and family about it.

Thank you!

Weekend

I know there's a metaphor somewhere in that photo of a little knothole in the Ventura Pier that I took last weekend, but I just haven't been able to think of one. Let me know if you have any ideas.

I'm getting ready to drive down to Orange County with the boys. Henry has a lacrosse tournament over the weekend, so I'll be -- what is it called? -- stateside, with my book, some knitting and my best pretend sports-Mom look. I'll keep you posted.

I know I have a lot of readers who are writers, and I wanted to tell you about a very cool opportunity you have to contribute to a wonderful cause and get a languishing manuscript read and critiqued by a famous writer. My alma mater, Caregifted (the organization founded by the MacArthur Genius grant winner, poet Heather McHugh) that sent me the amazing one-week, all-expenses paid trip to Victoria in June of 2013, will benefit from all the proceeds of this fabulous event/opportunity. Seriously, ya'll. Some of the writers donating their time to read YOUR manuscript are

Rae Armantrout, Mary Jo Bang, Robin Black, Matt Bell, Janet Burroway, Ron Carlson, Alexander Chee, Billy Collins, Nicholas Delbanco, Mark Doty, Cornelius Eady, Therese A. Fowler, Daisy Fried, Linda Gregerson, Mark Halliday, Matthea Harvey, Tony Hoagland, Major Jackson, Ben Lerner, Philip Levine, Thomas Lux, Rebecca Makkai, Michael Martone, Elizabeth McCracken, Joyelle McSweeney, Eileen Myles, Lucia Perillo, Joanna Rakoff, Roger Rosenblatt, Natalie Serber, Brenda Shaughnessy, Rebecca Wells, Joe Wenderoth, Hilma Wolitzer, Laura van den Berg, Dean Young, and Matthew Zapruder.

You can read more about it here.

Reader, what are your weekend plans? Do you have a metaphor for my photo of the greeny sea through knotty pine?

Thrilled and Honored

I'm over the top grateful for this recognition. Honestly, it seems ridiculous to give me a reward when Heather McHugh and the beautiful people who run and support Caregifted do what they do. If you don't know anything about these angels on earth, you can catch up here. 

Now I'm going to flip through my photos from my week in Victoria and meditate on them. The beautiful thing about that week of respite is how it still sustains me. I think it's the affirmation of possibility of rest, if that makes sense. If you're a caregiver and believe that you'll never feel whole again, or rested or even sane, trust me that it's possible.

Gifts, Poetry and Cake

I've had a lovely day -- breakfast with my friend Jenni, flowers from those neighborhood cuties above, and a coconut cake that I bought myself in the late afternoon. Henry surprised me with a card and an apple, carved into a swan.

Who knew?

Oliver gave me the most beautiful blue reclining Buddha. Here it is in front of my friend Moye's gorgeous pottery:

I posted both the apple turned swan and the Buddha on Facebook, and Heather McHugh -- that angel saint poet who gave me the respite week last year and who is the founder of Caregifted -- wrote a comment that is a poem. Honestly, I am in awe and so honored. Here it is:

amazing how much they have in common, the swan and buddha, in these iterations... but though the steadiness of the buddha's eye is to live for, the seediness of the swan's eye is to die for.

Wow. Right?

And then someone left this link on my last post which I believe is perfectly suited to a person who was born in 1963.



So, there you go. Gifts, poetry and cake -- I am rich indeed.

More of the Night Before Last, Yesterday Afternoon and This Morning

I'm back in Los Angeles, the Oscar helicopters are circling, and I've already scrubbed my Barbie bathroom clean. 

Let's reminisce.

Here I am in the Chihuly boathouse BATHROOM. It was filled with vintage children's books and weird animal figurines. It was, after the pool, my most favorite room:

Here's a magnificent 85-foot table, made from one slice of a tree that was felled when too many prisoners in a penitentiary used it for escape. It begged for someone to dance right down it, but I refrained.

Here's a close-up of the sculptures that ran down the table in rainbow colors:

Here's a close-up of the bar. See that familiar photo of moi? It was sitting right below the bottle of Scuttlebutt beer that features a mermaid and the letter S. Like my friend Carrie says, There are no accidents. Those photo cards were distributed throughout the boathouse -- the beautiful people at Caregifted loved our video and used the still photos in such a beautiful way.

There were stacks and stacks of warm-colored Navajo blankets in a room ringed by low leather armchairs and a wall of sepia-toned photos of Native Americans. There was poetry by Heather McHugh and Robert Pinsky. There was jazz by Molly Ringwald. There was an excerpt of an upcoming documentary about us -- long-time caregivers of the disabled, made by the extraordinary Adam Larsen. Remember that name. My friend Cara and I drank, perhaps, a bitt too much beer and wine. We laughed a lot. I told her secrets, and she held them. When the event was over, we took a taxi to a restaurant called Grub, and I ate sauteed calamari with a light, flavorful sauce of tomatoes and wine and garlic. I drank a whiskey sour, and I slept well.

Yesterday afternoon, we hosted a luncheon for the caregivers, and I met and talked with the most wonderful people -- all recipients of respite weeks. They each have incredible stories, many of which will be featured in the documentary.  It was rainy in Seattle that afternoon, but I lay on my bed and read and thought about everything, relished it all. Last night, I sat in the living room, sipped some berry wine and talked for hours to Adam about caregiving, about dance and documentary and cities and life. Remember what I said. Remember Adam Larsen's name!

This morning, I woke early, and Heather gave me a ride to the airport. We stopped at a funky hippy bakery and got coffee, talked every second of the 45 minute trip. I love this woman and can't believe my good fortune to have met her.

How's that for superlatives thrown willy-nilly?


Reader, what did you do this weekend?

I'm off to Seattle this afternoon, where I'll be meeting some new people and attending the Caregifted benefit on Friday night. Word is that Molly Ringwald will be singing jazz and the great poet Robert Pinsky attending. Heather McHugh, the Master of Ceremonies, Saint of Caregiver Recognition and Poet is responsible for this beautiful event, and I'm very excited to be a part of it! If you haven't already, please visit the Caregifted website and look around. There's a wonderful video, photos, testimonials and even a place to donate, if you're so inclined. I look back on my week in Victoria, a grant from Caregifted, and realize, yet again, that what I received was literally life-changing.

On another note, are ya'll watching the second season of House of Cards? No sooner had Downton Abbey finished then I opened up my Netflix and watched the first episode. I won't type any spoilers here, but what happened churned my stomach. I was into the first season, and have just now finished the second and third episodes, but I'm wondering why exactly I'm watching such vile people. I've never been a big fan of Kevin Spacey, although I concede he's an incredible actor, and the relationship between him and his scary ice-queen wife, played by Robin Wright, is something to behold. But, it's just gross -- the whole thing -- and at the same time sort of boring, the way perversity is sometimes boring.

Stupid Meditation on Peace

BY ROBERT PINSKY

        “He does not come to coo.”
                    —Gerard Manley Hopkins

Insomniac monkey-mind ponders the Dove,

Symbol not only of Peace but sexual

Love, the couple nestled and brooding.

After coupling, the human animal needs

The woman safe for nine months and more.

But the man after his turbulent minute or two

Is expendable. Usefully rash, reckless

For defense, in his void of redundancy

Willing to death and destruction.

Monkey-mind envies the male Dove

Who equally with the female secretes

Pigeon milk for the young from his throat.

For peace, send all human males between

Fourteen and twenty-five to school

On the Moon, or better yet Mars.

But women too are capable of Unpeace,

Yes, and we older men too, venom-throats.

Here’s a great comic who says on our journey

We choose one of two tributaries: the River

Of Peace, or the River of Productivity.

The current of Art he says runs not between

Banks with birdsong in the fragrant shadows—

No, an artist must follow the stinks and rapids

Of the branch that drives the millstones and dynamos.

Is peace merely a vacuum, the negative

Of creation, or the absence of war?

The teaching says Peace is a positive energy.

Still something in me resists that sweet milk,

My mind resembles my restless, inferior cousin

Who fires his shit in handfuls from his cage.

(lifted from the Poetry Foundation page)

What Heather McHugh, Caregifted, Molly Ringwald, Robert Pinsky, Poetry, Respite, Seattle and I have in common

Victoria, 2013

That's me and Heather McHugh, the extraordinary poet, MacArthur Genius Award winner and founder of CAREGIFTED, the organization that sent me on a week-long respite trip, all expenses paid, last June in beautiful Victoria, Canada. Keep reading the rest of this post to learn about an upcoming benefit for CAREGIFTED in Seattle right around the AWP conference. I'll be at the benefit and would love to see any of you there! Please share if you're a caregiver or a Seattlite or just know of people who might donate to this worthy organization.


via Heather McHugh's Facebook page:


PRETTY IN PINK star Molly Ringwald not only won hearts by doing John Hughes movies, but she also sings JAZZ! She'll be coming to Seattle on Feb 28 to do just that, a performance for CAREGIFTED caregiver respite-- and so will emeritus US POET LAUREATE Robert Pinsky and world-touring jazz pianist Laurence Hobgood-- all three are taking time out from their own tours in order to come to Seattle to perform for the benefit of the weariest souls on earth-- and it'll all happen at the eye-boggling Chihuly boathouse (a private venue). Only people who get their tickets at this link can come!

http://www.strangertickets.com/Browse#search=Chihuly%20Boathouse

With more than 10,000 writers due to come to town for the AWP conference that week, and only 175 tickets, the slots will get swallowed up-- so if you have an interest in caregivers or if you already live in the incomparable Pacific Northwest, you might want to grab your tickets BEFORE the announcement is posted elsewhere this week to all the out-of-towners making their own plans for a week here.. ALL proceeds go to respite for the weariest of family caregivers-- these are the ones who have spent a decade or more giving up opportunies of their own in order to take care of someone who can't take care of him or herself. And they do it until one of them dies. Talk about love. No better Valentine's day gift than this one, for you or anyone else.

Caregivers of the kind CAREGIFTED serves are saving ALL OF US billions of dollars of institutionalization costs-- and they are invisibly working day and night in every extended family, every neighborhood. Most people turn away, if they notice at all. But the fact is, these caregivers can teach us the truth about love. Our first single dad caregiver (of a severely disabled teenager) is taking his CAREGIFTED getaway in 2014-- he and another caregiver who will be at this Chihuly Boathouse Benefit Soiree and both are featured in this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZ78gHne0LM

(The other is the woman who MADE the film clip, the cherishable Elizabeth Aquino). At the event Feb 28 (5 to 8:30) you'll be able to raise a glass to both of them, and 8 other CAREGIFTED awardees, and also see what Adam Larsen has been doing lately with our CAREGIFTED documentary (he just appeared on POV on PBS).

Not to mention a chance to bid on rare art works like a signed Samuel Beckett novel's first edition, and a signed Linda McCartney photograph, holidays in Whistler and Vancouver Island, and more...

This event ain't cheap, but includes all these amazing people, artists, performances, food, drink, and a location that you'll never see anywhere else-- one-of-a-kind, a real dazzler-- and your choosing THIS for a Valentine's Day present to someone who can be in Seattle Feb 28 will ensure we can go on giving our all-expense-paid weeklong getaways to these most desperately-tired caregivers from all over the country.

This is MY Valentine's gift to YOU, letting you know before the rest of the world does. Now pass it on, yourself, for love!

http://www.strangertickets.com/Browse#search=Chihuly%20Boathouse

LARB, Heather McHugh, Jeneva Stone and Getting through a Saturday

Heather McHugh, Butchart Gardens, Victoria, Canada 2013

Imagination makes me large. The constraints of duty make me small.

Jeneva Stone

This morning, the telephone rang too early and the voice of my Saturday caregiver gave me the death knell words that she wouldn't be able to come in today to take care of Sophie. I confess to irritation. I confess to snapping. I confess to internal dramatics -- the I can't go on and I hate my life and This is only the beginning -- before I pulled myself together and got out of bed with a big, grandmotherly sigh (Pray that I die, my Italian grandmother used to mutter, while fingering her rosary beads. Pray that I die). When I later opened my email and saw that my friend, the great caregiver and writer Jeneva Burroughs Stone, had an essay published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, and that this essay was a tribute to Heather McHugh, the extraordinary poet who gifted me with my recent respite week in Victoria -- well -- I took it as a sign. While my literal week away in Canada, when I was taken care of with exquisite attention to detail  -- good food, beautiful nature, the ocean, cultural excursions, solitude, real rest and sleep, massage, baths, brilliant conversation, (the only thing lacking, sex) -- is receding, the memory of it is clear, and that clarity is a glass door that leads to possibility. Because of Heather and Caregifted, I now know that respite and the concomitant return to my self is possible, my self is indeed intact. That glass door might be closed to me today, and I might walk around fingering my rosary, pray that I die, but I can certainly look through it. I'm also going to make a peach pie.

Read Jeneva's essay here.

Blogaversary

photographer: Heather McHugh

Hey, it's June 30th!

I'm sitting in the Victoria Airport, waiting for a flight to Seattle and then onward to Los Angeles and home. I have been reflecting about my week here -- how enormous, how fantastic, how very restful it was. I still can hardly believe that I had this opportunity -- that it was given to me by a poet and a person who seems to understand -- profoundly -- the needs of caregivers. I realized, today, that I learned of Heather and Caregifted through Jeneva, who I learned of through Vicki, who I learned of through Stephanie and Andrea, who are all writers and most bloggers and that this community projected me toward this week in Victoria EXACTLY FIVE YEARS AGO, TODAY, that I began blogging.

So on this day, June 30th, I send up thanks for blogging, for that seemingly innocuous day in 2008 when I started clicking away here and met you and you and you and this.

This.

(And now I'm off to walk outside onto the tarmac and climb aboard one of those very small planes. One just came in and people are wandering around all smiley and happy that they're in Canada. This place rocks.)

P.S. My second blog post, on July 1st, 2008 is one of my favorites. I'd forgotten all about it.

Yesterday with the Poet

I have yet to wake up from this dream because each day dawns and there is something new to marvel over. Heather took me to Butchart Gardens yesterday. They're famous -- world famous -- but I admit to feeling jaded about gardens when she told me where we were going. I live in southern California. I know some pretty wonderful gardens.

Well -- these were some amazing gardens, unlike any that I've ever seen.

Over the top.

Where's Javier? you ask.

Ridiculous, right?

Heather is very beautiful.

Here we are. It would only be cliche to say that Heather not only writes poetry but actually lives it -- her care-giving of caregivers is -- well -- I don't know what to say.

Enough? That picture right above is where the gardens end -- right at the Pacific. Outrageous.

Did I tell you about the food, yet? Heather and I both love it.

What a coincidence (although there are probably no real coincidences --)

We left the gardens sated and tired, but the skies were finally clearing up so she took me to her tiny apartment up in the sky where we looked out over the water, at the snow-topped mountains that had suddenly appeared.

I know, enough. Too much. Uncle.

Are you breathing heavily?

I'll save the ones of me and Javier for another day.

My Good Fortune

That's the view from my little tree-top apartment in Victoria, British Columbia and where I arrived last night and was escorted by the wonderful poet Heather McHugh. It would seem that my good fortune knows no bounds, as they say. The weather here is cloudy and I woke last night to the pitter patter of rain, but I slept naked (can I say that, here?) and woke to Canadian birdsong and green treetops. I've made myself coffee and two slices of toast. I've unpacked my suitcase and piled my books on the table beside the bed where I think I'll climb soon. Maybe later I will go for a walk, either to the right and see the town or to the left and see the ocean. Good fortune can come and go, has come and gone and come again.