Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Captain Chavela

Last night I had that dream, again. I was pregnant. I had a huge belly. I woke up aching.

So.........

This is for the fetus that invaded my dream last night:

I don’t want you anymore. I kissed you goodbye on my 37th birthday. Remember? I placed you on a paper boat that had your name on it.

Chavela.

Captain Chavela, captain of her paper boat.

Please stop invading my dreams. It is time for you to invade the dream of a 26-year-old uterus. Mine is too old for you. Mine is for black birds that need a place to fly. Go rest your baby Buddha head on somebody else’s shoulder. Take your pacifier, your bib, your red little coat, and your diapers and go away. You’re better off being something other than my daughter. You’ re better off being a blue sky. A sweet orange. A yellow M&M. A handful of rice. Cold water in a cup. The last autumn leaf on a maple tree. I don’t want you. I don’t want your Mother’s Day card and your photograph on my wall.

I had enough of your cruel baby invasions. Please stop.

Saturday, December 26, 2009

no internet

I don’t have access to internet. For Christmas I received technical difficulties. I’m writing from a coffee shop. Yesterday my husband and I took a long walk. The ocean is about three miles away from our house. The following are images we collected:


This boy asked Santa Claus for a litle bit of ocean.



He was not invited to Christmas dinner. He spent the day with the Pacific ocean.



My hands. I had forgotten what they could create when there is not a keyboard in front of them.



" y mami?" asked the boy.
"tu mama esta con nosotros" the father said.
The boy looked around, but he only saw the Pacific ocean in front of him.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

...

That night people around me were slowly drowning in small talk. I’m not much of a conversationalist so I sat in the back of the room and listened. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I began to spit out phrases from Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

A teaspoon of soil

We can leave the library then, go back to the creek lobotomized

Emotions are the curse, not death

Self-consciousness……hinder the experience of the present.


Nobody listened.

Monday, December 21, 2009

because

Because I dream,
that is not what I am.

(from the film Leolo)

Random thoughts

1.
My first psychologist, a UCLA graduate, straight out told me on my 11th visit that my problem was my hair. Yes, my hair. The problem was not my mother or my father. It was my miserable, shitty, scruffy, dry, mother fucking hair. She advised me to buy a hairdryer.

Mrs. Dalloway said she would by the 'hairdryer' herself..

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Proposal

Todavia and I invite Mr. Crónicas Urbanas to reenact the Louvre scene (Godard’s A Band Apart)





Also…..Mr. Crónicas Urbanas would you like to recreate this scene?

smithereens

There is no school for the next three weeks.
No students.
No lesson plans.
No exams to grade.
No conferences with parents.
No California Standardized Test preparation.
I can go to the restroom anytime.

I desperately need to rest.....meditate.....touch sand....sit down....

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Sunday

Thoughts of the end of the world arrived early today. These apocalyptic thoughts made me hungry for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a Czeslaw Milosz’ poem I read many years ago when I was in my 20’s. The poem is called A Song On The Day The World Ends. Without an ounce of shame,I wrote a pseudo version of that poem, um, well, it's more like a shopping list for doomsday.

Oh, and Mr. Milosz, please forgive me........

On the day the world ends…...

A man rides a bicycle to work.
A cat sleeps and dreams of a big juicy moth.
An apple rots on the ground.

On the day the world ends….

A seahorse gives birth.
A 17 year-old boy shoots up heroin.
A mother washes a spoon.

On the day the world ends...

White seagulls fly to Anacapa Island.
Chavela Vargas sings yo quiero luz de luna
A first grader learns to read the word, mat.

On the day the world ends......

I wear blue jeans and an old red sweater.
I don't remember Nietzche.
I don't remember God,
The periodic table,
Or Daniel Marrodan, the Argentian boy who broke my heart at 15.