I would wear my sweaters and curl up to watch Jaws

These mornings my heart falls over inside, as it has done almost everyday since I've returned home from Paraguay because Paraguay and a million other things that have happened this summer have pulled my heart out into the open. Where it is immediately affected by what is going on in the world. And it falls over from joy, pain, laughter, love, and surprise all the time.

But these mornings it falls over because the air is cool and I wear my sweaters and break out my oversized sweater slippers and curl up in the hammock and read like I would when I was sixteen, summer mornings lying on the couch at home with the wind blowing those long drapes.

Sunday night we had a discussion on the front porch of Hot Chocolate House. Apparently some philosopherorother proposed that women do not think in words, they (words) are a construct of men and that women have just subscribed to communicate verbally in the language of men. Because we (women) do that kind of thing, I guess (here I make a weird, inexplicable face). That's probably a simplification of what he was saying, and whatever it is, it's a simplification of something. There is something that is more than words and that's what I think in. 
But words, they go straight to my heart (that falls over all the time now).

I used to worry about having my heart in the open because I have a tendency to expend myself so much in loving everything that maybe I could get worn out and use up all my love and things wouldn't be special anymore. I stopped worrying about that a year or two ago, I've never run out of anything. But. But some words stay safe. I made the decision a long time ago that there are a few things that I will keep treasured and hidden and special for just that final one relationship that my secret romantic self hopes is in my future. I promised myself that I would never share my favorite love poems with any male outside of that...ugh...marriage. That may sound trite, if I weren't me and I were reading this I would roll my eyes and gag, but you read Neruda or Borges and tell me if you find trite dribble. You don't. That is all. I have told you what is in my secret, sacred corner of my heart that is now mostly completely open for the world.

How is it that we have not all collapsed from how beautiful this time of year is? My soul is about to explode over how the late August sun shines. Makes me want to paint everything in dandelion wine, to follow the end of summer for the rest of my life, to cry. 

a tissue of hellenistic anecdotes

I'm in denial that all these things are ending:
1. Relationships spreading over the globe like fiber optic lines bleeping their pulses across land and sea. I look out over all this vast kingdom and think, "Oh! Hey! Gee! What a friendship smattering!"
2. University dreamland that is only marred by the occasional general class that's shoved down my throat. I'm not actually graduating this December, am I?
3. Warm, sunny weather. Despite the fact that I don't ever seem to have a wardrobe that fits these hot days and I let my fingertips dance across my piles of sweaters everytime I languish in my closet--I will soon be dying in the cold. Emotionally. My solar panel soul will begin to choke on cool white skies soon enough.

I'm not worried about what will happen. What I want to have happen will happen. Is it strange that I am always certain of that? I think the trick is that I just dream the right dreams. (I wonder what my wake-up call will be like.) The only problem is deciding which direction to go.

Sometimes traveling seems real and staying in one spot seems like a game.

Sometimes I stick pokey, glow-in-the-dark gauges in my ears. Maybe.

angels crying so hard they're laughing*

I have broken into an odd, all-over, symmetrical kind of itchy rash and the only thing we can figure is that it's my stress exploding out. It started yesterday and I went through an entire tube of a generic hydrocortisone cream. I've been wrapping my head in a turban so I can't itch my ears. 

This started yesterday because today is the eve of my departure for everything.

So thank you, heavens, for suddenly letting all your rain pour down upon this earth because I went outside to stand in said downpour and it's the best I've felt all week.

I can promise you one thing, I will continue to be stressed but this is the best summer ever.



*read this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/science/29tier.html

look what she did to the hydrangeas

another from a series where Marge Bjork wonders why she writes diary-like every day huzbahs for the world to read. Is it really that important?

There are other sides to summertime times. They're the rounding-out, three dimensional character building, story fleshing times. 

Last night Karonius and I bicycled to the dollar theatre (pardon, that's a misnomer, the dollar twentyfive theatre. blah) to watch a stupid flick that ended up being so stupid I began having an overwhelming craving for taco seasonings and junk food. And we walked out.
Only to find that our bikes were being watered by the evening sprinklers. These things are always highly amusing at 11:30 pm. and things seemed even more funny when Karonius, my protector who has super powers, retrieved them and we rode home with wet bums making almost every green light.


This morning I woke up from a dream. Do you remember that I hate dreams? All I desire is complete, heavy unconsciousness. Since we started sleeping outside I have not been troubled by internal, nocturnal, sleepytime films. Someone told me over a frozen pizza that the dreams probably just drifted on and away in all that big, wide, nighttime sky. 
It was bound to happen, I suppose. This clean streak couldn't last. And this dream being the worst kind, taunting me with something I wish for. [But] all gone after a deep breath of outside morning air.


Then I noticed my limbs itching over breakfast. I innocently assumed I must have gotten a couple of new mosquito bites and continued to read about Russian espionagers infiltrating suburbia USA and growing hydrangeas. It was not until I looked in the mirror before my shower and saw that my usually clear-skinned décolletage was mottled by minute bug bites or some kind of rash. Minutiae ruin everything. Minutiae is now gracing my calves, knees, elbows, upper arms, collar bone...

"Ah mortality," she said as she leaned back in her rocking chair and continued to crotchet her afghan. Then out of the corner of her eye she noticed a black spider string down from the ceiling and land on the bamboo mat about four feet away from her. She never wears shoes these days so there were none of her usual weapons on hand. Asking for forgiveness for such a disrespectful act, she picked up a book of poetry, prayed this would be one of those miraculous times when she could aim true, chucked the book at the bugger, beaned it flat on the mat, and retrieved the book, with not a bent page corner in sight.

bodies eat cavities

The new thing is to blog in the morning because by the time evening comes all I can do is fall onto the air mattress outside, mumble my participatory remarks in the girl talk that ensues, and fall asleep.

Especially when I get home at 2:30 a.m. after a great summer adventure.

What a dreamy summer.

Sometimes I wonder why I'm blogging instead of writing in my journal. But today I just want it to be written in every locale I can think of: I may sometimes be afraid of things but I can't stop there. I may most particularly be a little agoraphobic but I can also stand firm by my life theory that people will end up liking me because I always end up liking people.

Oh dreamy, dreamy summer.

Even though I keep popping all of my bike tires.

Video coming soon, I promise.

Trigger out.

Remember those t-shirts that said "NO FEAR"?

Ok. I'm really done now.

my chiasmus summer plans. with baby bookends.

sister is pregnant and i am the happiest sister in the world.
here.
california.
here.
florida.
paraguay.
florida.
here.
california.
here.
sister has a baby boy and i am the happiest aunt in the world.

Dearest Baby that's about to be,
Everyone in this family is blindingly happy with anticipation. 
You're such a miracle and a joy.
Love without bounds,
M.

ritzy rhubarb

This summer calls for rhubarb.

Upper Midwest U.S. grows rhubarb without even trying. It grows better than people. It grows better than weeds. Mow over it and it grows. The beautiful ruby color branching into large ruffly green leaves. So tart it surprises you every bite. So made of summer barefoot in rich, garden earthness.

I don't live there anymore. I have to accept this.

I have hesitated every western summer to purchase rhubarb, even from the farmers' market, because I wasn't there to make sure it had the loving, glorious growing time it needed.

I will trust in local farmers' this summer. I will embrace their rhubarb and welcome all the local sweet, biting tastiness.



I wish I could weave fabric out of memories of the spring where I was nine and the snirt was piling in the gutters, the snow was melting into crusty white ice and large puddles in my back yard and it was lovely enough to play outside wearing that hoodless, oversized, green sweatshirt and those fuchsia boots.That would be the stripe next to the times I would lay in the grass and listen to the bird coo in the evenings and the back screen door swing shut. The garage door you had to slam shut with all your strength and force open by knocking it with your hip. My barefeet on the decomposing sidewalk. That rainbow that went on forever in the warm greyish sky and we all stood in the driveway looking at it. Those plastic clips with the poodles and bows my dad would let me clip into his orange hair. The mornings my mom would don her sun hat, that blue shirt with the leaf pattern; kneel on her green knee cushion and weed. I'd join her and we'd smell like bug spray together and the mosquitoes would circle us and I'd squeal and run away everytime I saw a spider and my mom would wonder what was going to become of me.
Those irises.
Chives.
Humidity.

Someday I'll live in a house and have a garden at my elbow and a healthy lawn to squish my toes in.

I would like that time to also have a husband and maybe even a family but that's a secret you'll never hear me say out loud. À haute voix.

just a little somethin' I had up my sleeve

last of summer from Marge Bjork on Vimeo.

i made this for when it's cold.