beloved.

dolores park

2010-07-01T22:43:47Z

in the park
under the sun, where once
i would have plucked
and shredded the grass, now
i laze
and caress each green blade.

a corner store in the tenderloin

2010-04-28T19:09:52Z

michael picked me up after my acupuncture appointment. we were going for lunch. we parked and walked into the corner store. michael needed change for the meter and bought a pack of gum. there was a woman standing behind the counter, and an older woman in a head scarf seated beside her, and a fellow in a chair nearby. the older woman said "how are you?" and i, still quite high from my acupuncture, smiled and said "wonderful! how are you?"

"oh!" she said. "you really want to know?"

"yes," i said. "i do."

"like a woman giving birth! that's how i feel. in my knee. oh! it's horrible!"

"would you like some healing work?" i asked, holding up my hands.

"yes!" she said, and shooed away the younger woman beside her.

i suggested to michael that he go feed the meter and pick me up again when he was done. i walked behind the counter and the woman threw her arms up to me, obviously asking to be embraced. i leaned into her arms and gave her mine and "i love you!" she said, wrapping her arms around me and kissing me.

"i love you, too", i grinned. "that's why i'm offering to help." i knelt down and reached out for her knee, which was covered in heavy stockings with a supportive brace over them. i worked with her knee for a couple of minutes energetically. poor thing; it was some of the most pain i have felt in someone's body. the bell rang when michael returned, and i worked a bit more, then got up.

we said a couple little nice things to each other and the woman ordered the young woman to get me a cup of tea, which she did, pumping it from a thermos nearby. we said goodbye.

the tea was black, and sweet, and full of love, like me and the woman and everything else.

in dreaming

2010-04-13T18:29:08Z

i made a kite of cat skin and little bones. the tails were deer antlers. it was hanging all around me clanking sweetly and tangling as i walked around the island looking for a place to fly it, which was an offering i do not now understand.

saying Hi to God on the back steps

2010-04-13T14:57:04Z

When Hazel and Oona, who are 5 and 3, asked what the new brass bell hanging outside our back door was about, I explained that it was a temple bell we had brought back from India, and that we had hung it right outside our back door near the steps up to their flat so that they could reach it to ring it, too. I explained that in India these bells hang outside the temples and everyone rings them to .... "sort of say hello to God", I improvised. And then I rang the bell a couple times and said "Hi, God!" and we all giggled.

I was relieved that they didn't ask what God was, though this came up once before when they were examining my altar and Hazel informed me, with the primness that only a 5 year old girl can muster, that God was the universe.

This morning I was out on the back steps chatting with Oona, who was hanging off the staircase chewing her hair with a little splotch of egg yolk on her cheek, and with Hazel, who had denim hearts on the knees of her denim jeans, and with Jen. This was especially sweet because I had awakened from a dream in which James and I had discovered the Most Perfect House Ever and had decided we could afford it and in the dreamy way we were sort of wooing the house. But when I woke I thought that no, really, living here in a house I share with my friends like I do really could not be any better. That life was perfect just like this.

On the back steps in the waking world Jennifer said "Oh! I almost texted you yesterday! Oona said to me yesterday, 'I'm going to go outside and say hi to God.'"

And she did.

Yes, this is perfect. Just like this.

defining God

2010-04-13T14:55:55Z

One of my students told me that her 7 year old son came to her one day and said "Mommy, what's God?"

And the woman thought "Oh no! This is it! This is one of those definitive parenting moments and I'm totally unprepared!"

And then she said "God is The Force, honey."

And he said "Oh, OK."

thank you note for a kindess done in dreaming

2010-01-30T00:14:10Z

hello jon.

last night in my dreaming, we were in a livingroom. there were rooms upstairs. i think you lived there, and maybe me. you remembered suddenly that you had something for me. you were a little sheepish about the fact that you'd had it for a long time -- one summer between semesters of college (which for me is twenty years ago) my then-best-friend had given you a letter for me.

you still had it, and you gave it to me last night. i held it in my hands. i saw india's handwriting on the outside and i could see her handwriting through the envelope. letters have always been precious between us; we met as young poets. new words from her, a physical manifestation of her/our love, five years after her death. i was sobbing and shaking, overcome with joy.

i woke before opening the envelope, but with no disappointment. my waking face was also wet with tears of joy. i don't understand what the universe is but i feel so surely that she tried to reach me, that she did reach me, and i am so happy for that.

i don't know why you were the messenger for this in my dream; while i hold you in the highest regard and think fondly of you, we certainly don't know one another well. but you did me a tremendous good last night on the dream plane

so here are my thanks

and my love.

kristie

in our bed

2010-01-25T16:00:13Z

pressed close in the night your leg was forward where my leg was forward and your leg was back where mine was back and it was like we were one thing running through dreaming.

on the temple floor

2009-12-12T15:25:04Z

on the night
of the winter day
that my body turned forty
i lay down in my temple room
and slept like a child
in my coat
on the floor
surrounded by roses.

letter from chaya, 2 days after the knife

2009-08-13T00:23:59Z

in my dream this morning, you were turning cartwheels. your incisions came open as you inverted, and a bright white light shone out of them. when you were back upright, you giggled and then gently pulled your skin back into place and the incisions knitted themselves back into place. you did this over and over, giggling every time you had to put yourself back together. someone else in the room found the whole process disturbing, so you decided to ease their distress by putting a large white bandage over your abdomen that had a generic label on it in black helvetica bold which said "bandage." you found this profoundly hilarious.

i love you.

chaya

letter to/from my sister

2009-08-09T04:38:44Z

From: Kristie
To: Karin
Sent: Saturday, August 8, 2009 12:19:56 PM
Subject: big/small

1. will you call dad, jason, and the grammas after jim calls you monday to say i woke up?

2. you are the alternate on my living will. james is first. i do not want to be kept alive in a coma for a substantial time. i do not want to be kept alive on feeding machines in a hospital for a substantial time. life for me includes earth and trees, being able to communicate with other people, and having thoughts. i think you understand. i don't want to be part of the person that i am. i do not want to die, but i am willing to die when the time is right. if i were a dog and you'd put them down if they were like that, let me go.

love,
k

From: Karin
Subject: Re: big/small
Date: August 8, 2009 10:40:15 AM PDT
To: Kristie

Hey Kristie,

1.Thought I'd answered you. Of course I will make the calls.

2. Ditto.

xoxox
K

at the altar

2009-03-15T14:33:14Z

kneeling at the altar
to kiss the face of god
good morning
i remember burning sage last night in dream
and reach for the matches.

in the orchard beside the temple path

2009-01-08T17:45:29Z

picking a lemon
i kissed on the tree
yesterday.

on the kitchen table

2008-12-25T20:45:37Z

the little cat
smells like butter
the popcorn bowl
is clean.

on the kitchen table

2008-12-20T22:15:41Z

the little cat has been pressing her face
into blossoms, her white fur
stained with pollen.

hardly strictly bluegrass festival, golden gate park

2008-10-05T20:09:37Z

it's like being a fish in the stream, walking up the festival path. a man coming from where i am going is talking on the phone. something is written on the other arm.

"hey!" i say and lift my left forearm, which, like his, is tattooed with the word ONE. he keeps walking toward me, keeps talking to the person on the phone, lifts his free arm, too. i duck under it and we embrace. the crowd swims around us for a moment on the sunny path.

we let go and keep on walking. he calls back over his shoulder "enjoy the day."