Love with catastrophe

you are mangled

no mingled

no my words slip and recover

in enough time to refresh the nursing home

no not nursing home carnival lights

no the naked lady with a tattooed thumbnail

when I look straight at you

you slide sideways

no margins

no margin of error

your parallel universe

you are hanging from a hook over the bathmat

no a swan

your black beak a single eye

no I keep saying no I don't understand

help me to understand

no you can't

your mouth is disconnected from your stomach

such hunger is fathomless

such breadfruit

such understory

This morning I made bread. Whole wheat bread. With pumpkin and sunflower seeds in it. I don't care that I am slightly allergic to wheat ( a stupid allergy if there ever was one). Warm bread from the oven is HEAVEN. The original comfort food.

Then I went and bought tickets to a ZooTunes concert. This is an outdoor summer series and you sit on the grass. There are a million rules, fer cripes sake. Your chair can't be more than 24 inches high. You can't drink or smoke. You can't have balloons or 'flags'. So Seattle. Gone are the days when you sit on each other's shoulders, take off your shirt and light your hair on fire. On acid.

I'm still thinking about Haiti. The heat is in my blood. The air here is so clean. And everything is fresh and sparkly. I don't understand why I can make bread and have health care and other humans can't.

My roses are all in bloom at once. They're bright yellow with wicked thorns. They were here when I moved in. I prune them carefully. They're not like those anemic store roses. They're flagrant and sassy.

Port au Prince, Haiti

I'm back. This morning I was in Haiti. Tonight I'm on my couch with spoiled cats who eat better than the average Haitian. I'm going to bed. Tomorrow I'm going to have a piece of toast. I missed toast. I missed sleeping on a bed. I missed clean air.

Haitians are diamonds and pearls.

Alright. I leave tomorrow. I have a towering pile of small bills beside my computer. I have continued to eat everything in sight. Ice cream, pizza, more ice cream, cookies, watermelon (?). And tonight an email from one of the midwives currently in Haiti says we can buy fruit in the market. WHAT MARKET? FRUIT? We've been preparing to live on dried soup and raw oatmeal. Which is it, people? High anxiety. I admit it. Fortunately there is zanax for the plane.

My younger child just called from the airport. She's returning from NYC. She loves it there. Oh yes. It is the best city in the world if you don't mind not having any trees or a garden, which I would mind. Otherwise, it's most amazing. Once I saw a woman with hair down to her calves. She was talking toward me. As she passed, I turned to watch her walk away, her cascade of black hair swaying behind her. Only in New York.

New York. Carnegie Hall. Radio City Music Hall. Lincoln Center. The Met. MOMA. Central Park. Bagels. Knishes. The NYTimes. WBAI.

If you can guess where I am in this picture, you win a prize! And no cheating for the ones who were with me on that particular little adventure.

I've lost the paper with the amount I'm supposed to pay for my very first car payment (in years, in a long time). I smoked a cigarette. (blech). I've been eating weird because I won't be eating much very soon. My student told me she ate rice and peanut oil for 9 months when she was in the Sudan because she didn't know what the 'meat' item was. She said her stomach stuck out a lot by the time she came home. I'm eating avocados and coconut bliss ice cream and vegetables and apples and cookies. I have a pre Haiti eating disorder. My kitchen and dining room are really messy now, very messy and full of medicine and bug spray and dried food and piles of clothing and gauze and more medicine and baby clothes and water purifier stuff and headlamps and a battery powered fan and throw away phones. Oh, and a pile of money in small bills. It looks like a demented clinic where you only go if you're desperate and you dragged yourself there over broken rocks for days. I feel deranged. I am deranged. Michael is going to cut my hair tomorrow. Maybe he can put me back together. I'm heading for the cave high up on the mountain where the tigers live. I'm not ready. Too bad. All the wheels are whirring and grinding and the centrifugal force is more powerful than I am. So I'm disappearing by degrees. By. Degrees.

My next door neighbor came over with $200 in small bills for my trip. People continue to amaze me with their generosity. My travel buddy bought each of us battery operated fans. I want one of those fans you attach to your hat. There are cold showers. Awesome, three times a day, that's where I'll be.

I'm gonna take my malaria meds right after my oatmeal. Stay tuned.

The other midwife I'm going with came over last night. We are in agreement. We're both nervous. I'm sticking to her, velcro midwife. Any disaster, she'll be right there to help me.

We both agree. My '2 person tent' from REI is monstrous huge, way too big but I'm bringing it. When I leave, it can be someone's home. Gawd.