2.27.2006


We talked last night about the end of the world, and how the world has ended before, and how it will end again.

We sat and ate a box of delectable Danish chocolates , pressed into molds, filled with crème or praline or truffle or amaretto. My favorite was a coin depicting the town of Brugge, in Belgium, which once was Europe’s largest seaport, but the river silted up and the ships stopped coming and the town stopped growing and how different would Europe be now if that river had been wider, faster, deeper?

What does “end of the world” mean? The world built here in North America has ended more than once. The cataclysmic Flood, the upheaval of tectonic plates, the arrival of European voyagers, the attempted genocide of native people, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the invention of the automobile, the mechanization of agriculture, the explosions of atomic bombs, I could make a list from here to there and it still wouldn’t cover everything just in this country alone.

And the rest of the worlds’ ends?

From Pompeii to Hiroshima? From Auschwitz to Iraq? From flu pandemics to AIDS? From the dinosaurs to the dodo bird? From 1066 to 9/11? From tsunami to earthquake to hurricane to volcano to flood, my kingdom for a horse.

This is the way the world ends, not a bang, but a whimper.
Or maybe this time it will be different. It’s entirely possible given the fact we are such a small world, and people fly from one hemisphere to another within a day. People in Osaka, Japan are connected with people in Alexandria, Egypt connected with people in Sydney, Australia connected with people in Anchorage, Alaska connected with people in San Jose, Mexico.

A “global economy” and “centralization” and “world trade” all sound to me like too many eggs in one basket, and any end of the world is different now, because we know about it when it happens. And if it happened on such a scale that everyone, everywhere, faced financial ruin and mortal danger, then yes, this would be the end of the world, as predicted for thousands of years. Perhaps it comes, slouching along, sooner rather than later. Maybe this time all doomsayers are correct in their prediction, the sky will fall, the end is nigh, the entirety of life as we know it will cease.

We cannot know. And if, in fact, it is the complete and utter end? We will not know. Choose what you will eat, what you will drink, and what will make you happy right now. Tomorrow is a dream gone in the blink of an eye.

In the box of chocolates, bought for the 95% discount post-Valentine’s Day Era-of- Globalization price of $2.09, there was a dark delicious truffle formed like

Napoleon’s hat.

2.23.2006





Downhill I ran yesterday through the wild Indian plum and the ivy climbing cedars, my steps hushed in the duff, breath control, heartbeat solid and rushing. The wind was my own through the still forest, and I could see the black ribbon of river through the bare trees. The bones and tendons, the bend and torque of motion, spring release. The wild cherry blossoms adazzle in the glimmers of sunlight through dark grey clouds. I try to consider it the other way, to free my steps I imagine I am perpetually airborne and simply need to touch down for traction. Lightness.



Tonight we share sushi with friends, a birthday celebration, a raw fish orgy. Then if too much sake has not been consumed, we'll join in knitting night, and the problems of the world will be addressed, resolved, and mended, stitched together with neat, even strokes.

2.16.2006



A change in strength and resolve, a determination deep as bone, let me inhale and exhale and trace a thumbnail sketch on skin.

The world is ready to burst with cherry blossoms.

I've danced every night for a week and the tired I am is the ache of growth. Pull of muscles, press of bone, connections of sound to motion. Rondejambe means round leg and undulation mean wavelike, and a shimmy is a shimmy.

2.14.2006

Snow falling and three crows sitting on a wire, the flakes descend with no swirl or deviation. Feathery droplets falling from a white sky, crystalline precipitation that becomes visible only in context of depth; the snowflakes can be perceived only when there are dark cedars or black crows or damp buildings behind them. The words tranquil and grace rise as the flakes drop, something a little more than weightlessness indicated as they settle to the ground. Some are absorbed by the green river’s thick glossy surface, others fall to the black streets and melt, but those flakes which land on the wide waxy magnolia leaves, that drop to the piles of fallen brown oak leaves, that subside on the grassy riverside slope, these flakes stick, and accumulate.

A recluse, solitude found me alone this past sunshine-laden weekend while S traveled a long way north, to Whidby Island on the Sound. I listened to the house creak and sigh as it settled each night. Long day’s sun warmed the timbers and bones, and then frosty night made all the joints constrict again. In warm sunshine that turned my nose pink I pulled blackberry brambles in the yard and trimmed back the wild canes of raspberries.

I danced and danced and danced, and rolled around on the floor, body therapy in sit-ups and jumping jacks. I sewed until my eyes couldn’t see, working on costumes for many performances coming in March, private parties, culinary school dinner, nightclub show with a band. I didn’t eat much, but drank gallons of water. I missed him, his presence, his voice, his eyes, his cooking. He returned before midnight on Sunday and I curled against him and breathed him in, home home home.

Valentine’s Day and I have a meeting with two other dancers; we’ll discuss starting a performance company and seeking venues. Then dance class, and I am ready for an exciting workout with intricate isolations, how do I control, how can I move, what shape can I make. Then home and time for a late dinner, sweetness in his smile, and jazz-accompanied kisses.

2.01.2006

We’ve been off-kilter and under-weather, less than our general boisterous selves but twice as busy. It wears like scratchy wool, too much to do. I feel like I need a long winter’s nap but alas even when the wicked manage to rest, the daily toils simply accumulate.

The doldrums are at a latitude south of here, where it’s warmer and doesn’t rain, hail, and snow all at the same time, and right now I’d prefer it to here. My skin would appreciate it, some tropical sun and saturating, penetrating heat.