i w a s r e m e m b e r i n g c a l i f o r n i a

     I got the idea to live in San Francisco when I was in college. Maybe it's the fact that it seemed like the complete opposite of where I went to school in northern Virginia, a geography I never really liked and tried desperately to escape every chance I had. One spring break I made plans to go San Francisco on my own, to explore the city and see if I liked it.
     In writing this, I remembered for the first time in years that I had an ex-boyfriend fly out to meet me on that trip- bad decision- for a few days. Not just any ex-boyfriend, but my first love, long-term high school boyfriend. Why? It's hard to say. I didn't love him any more, but I think I wished I did. I remember throwing a full pack of Marlboro Lights out the window, declaring that I was through with cigarettes. He yelled for me to stop, insisting I was crazy, but nothing was gonna stop me from throwing those babies out the huge city window, with no curtains, in the white-walled hotel room where I was staying.
     I was twenty-one at the time. I had no money (awesome planning), so I made good luck charms and tried to sell them on Haight street for a dollar. The charms were made of random garbage like Juicy Fruit gum wrappers, hole punches, and tape. I made them very small so they could fit in places like wallet pockets. I think I had recently read a Basquiat biography. There was an older man named Bobby who worked the front desk of the hotel. I showed him my good luck charms. I said that I was trying to sell them, 'like Basquiat.'
     I remember the exact outfit I had on that day. I wore a 3/4 sleeve vintage sweater that had peach and rust-colored stripes on it, and a vintage sea green skirt with forest green flower outlines and pale peach flowers on it. I also had on a recently borrowed pair of dusty orange leather, wooden-healed wedge sandals that I wore over thigh high coral-colored wool socks. No matter how great I felt in my San Francisco-inspired outfit, I was bad at selling good luck charms on the street.
     That is also the day I met Dudley. He asked to sit down across from me at a cafe when there were plenty of other places to sit. I was eating a beautiful sandwich, for which I had just enough money. I ended up staying with him the first week of the first summer I lived in Berkeley. Only as a friend. Dudley was more like a brother. He had a creepy van because he used to be a ski instructor in Vail. I borrowed it one day to drive to my first day of art theory and criticism class at UC Berkeley. It was my first time driving there, not surprisingly (though things have changed) I was running late, and of course in a panic to find a parking place. At some point I noticed an underground parking garage and got really excited.
     As I drove down the ramp, I heard the most vile screeching and scraping sounds when I realized what I had done. The roof rack was hanging on by only a few very loose screws. Not only had I done serious damage to Dudley's car, I was worried someone would steal the roof rack while I was in class, but nobody did. Then something strange happened. When I got back to Dudley's the roof rack wasn't there. Apparently it fell off the top of the van as I made the 45 minute drive north, driving 70 miles per hour, back to his place.
     I parked the van a few blocks away and paced as I tried to think of what and how to tell him (a new friend but still a relative stranger) that I tore up the top of his van and lost his roof rack. I even called that same ex-boyfriend, a mechanic, and asked him to make an estimate of the damage, based on my description.
     When I did tell Dudley what happened he told me that he didn't care. That he'd thought about trying to sell the roof rack for a while, and that he was happy to be rid of it. He said the dents, black marks, and scraped paint didn't matter either. That it was on the roof. It wasn't important.
     Sometimes, it just makes me laugh, the roof rack story, and the sequence of events that made it possible.

wonderful ideas

From The Having of Wonderful Ideas
by Eleanor Duckworth (1996)

The having of wonderful ideas is what I consider the essence of intellectual development... In making things work in a classroom, it was but a small part compared with finding ways to interest children, to take into account different children's interests and abilities... You don't want to cover a subject; you want to uncover it... uncover parts of the world that children would not otherwise know how to tackle. Wonderful ideas are built on other wonderful ideas... There are two aspects to providing occasions for wonderful ideas. One is being willing to accept children's ideas. The other is providing a setting that suggests wonderful ideas to children- different ideas to different children as they are caught up in intellectual problems that are real to them... The best one can do is to make such knowledge, such familiarity, seem interesting and accessible to the child... such a way as to catch their interest... realize that their ideas are significant- so that they have the interest, the ability, and the self-confidence to go on by themselves... First, teachers themselves must learn in the way that the children in their classes will be learning... Intelligence cannot develop without matter to think about. The more we help children to have their wonderful ideas and to feel good about themselves for having them, the more likely it is that they will some day happen upon wonderful ideas that no one else has happened upon before.

Dropping Keys

The small person
Builds cages for everyone
She
Sees.

Instead, the sage,
Who needs to duck her head,
When the moon is low,
Can be found dropping keys, all night long
For the beautiful,
Rowdy,
Prisoners.

By Hafiz, a 14th Century Sufi Poet from Persia

Annie Dillard

I pulled an old anthology off the shelf last night and saw this story by Annie Dillard and knew immediately it was exactly what I wanted/needed to read. She says her books are about "what it feels like to be alive." I remember loving her as a teenager, writing down quotes that inspired me. This is an excerpt from Teaching a Stone To Talk (1982), called Living Like Weasels:

***

Our look was as if two lovers, or deadly enemies, met unexpectedly on an overgrown path when each had been thinking of something else: a clearing blow to the gut. It was also a bright blow to the brain, or a sudden beating of brains, with all the charge and intimate grate of rubbed balloons. It emptied our lungs. It felled the forest, moved the fields, and drained the pond; the world dismantled and tumbled into that black hole of eyes. If you and I looked at each other that way, our skulls would split and drop to our shoulders. Bud we don't. We keep our skulls. So.

...

Could two live that way? Could two live under the wild rose, and explore by the pond, so that the smooth mind of each is as everywhere present to the other, and as received and as unchallenged, as falling snow?

We could, you know. We can live any way we want. People take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience- even of silence- by choice. The thing is to stalk your calling in a certain skilled and supple way, to locate the most tender and live spot and plug into that pulse.

***

Rainy day.

Katherine wearing Agnes Venice.

adventure

(from one spring a while back.
one of my favorite quotes
from one of my favorite authors
of sad stories that feel unsettled
and anxious with miscommunication)

i like images that remind me

to enjoy life, to not take anything

too seriously & to be

independent in the way i choose
to experience the world.

* March *

wishes

i wish i was a dj

i wish i was a really good dancer

i wish i was a good bowler

i wish i knew how to tie interesting knots

i wish i didn't require so much sleep

Frances

Henry Darger

Henry Darger was a recluse. His creative life's work was not discovered until after he died. The Chicago apartment where he lived was packed full, piled up endless with his epic story of the Vivian Girls and their quest to conquer evil in a make-believe land. Darger collected and horded many different objects, among them balls of string, shoes, and comic books. Many of his character illustrations were traced from the comic books. Perfection is his use of color. So much of meaning in art lies in the story of its creator.