GOODBYE Sucky Job with great benefits, Hello Awesome Job with great benefits

If I wasn't catching a cold, my body's way of saying "you aren't sleeping enough and stop getting on planes", I would be turning cartwheels. I am internally indulging in a jubilant display of acrobatics. Then end is here. Today is my un-official last day at the job that sucks my soul. :). I have one meeting, a letter to write to make sure my assistant gets a pay raise and a promotion (my last act), and a little desk cleaning and I will be home and painting by 3:00pm!

Since it's my last day, and it never hurts to be thankful for what you had, I would like to express a little gratitude. Thank you crappy job for my health insurance....it is fabulous. Thank you for my dental insurance. I got my many cavities filled last month. Thank you for quality chiropractic care with low co-pays. Thank you for my bus pass and good internet access. Thank you for the opportunities I've had to meet and interact with cool people. Thank you and GOODBYE!

Unanswered Questions- rejj ©

Am I manifesting destiny
or is destiny made manifest in me?
She holds the mirror to me
and tells me
I am God,
but how can I be God
when Jesus,
looks like Mel Gibson?
If I am God,
if God is me,
then God is a black feminist
who does taekwondo
and hates my boss as much as I do,
God is fragile
and crooked,
with toes that overlap,
God cheats at cards
and never wins the lottery.
Where is perfection?
I’m no omniscent power
and this world
couldn’t possible be my creation
with cowboy presidents
and war among nations,
but she holds the mirror to me
and tells me God is in me
like the seed of a mango
nestled deep in the folds
of my flesh and fused bone,
God is beneath my breastplate,
the spark of spirit,
the solid gold flecks in my soul,
the conscious of my higher self,
the part of me
that loves me
even when I’m looking in the mirror and seeing
everything but God.
Every complicated flaw
that makes me who I am,
but who is God
to nest in me?
Who is God
and what does she want with me?
Is this like reality TV,
another shot at humanity,
this time without all the fanfare
or being nailed to a tree.
Does she want to know me?
What it’s like to be me?
Or does she want me to know her,
or at least that she’s there with me,
in me,
when I am blinded
by the mess we live in
on the daily,
the gap between who we are
and who we were born to be.
If God is freedom,
why don’t I feel free,
except in the quiet moments
of unexplained joy,
the stirring within,
like the seed of her
taking root in the heart of me,
an unsettling grip of peace,
a lightening flicker
illuminating life beyond
the boundaries of me,
but then I’m back to normal
and still wondering about God
and why she would stick me with these crooked teeth.

Desert Flowers

This weekend I've been hanging out with my mom and aunt in Arizona. I love Seattle, but this June is rediculous. It's cold, rainy and just like October all over again. We didn't really have Spring, which sucked, but I cannot be denied a slice of summer. It's getting dire. This trip came up just in time. It's my aunt's first time seeing my mom's place and her first time in AZ. Even having been here before, I still feel the weight of the heat. It's hard on the body. I have to temper my urge to stand out in the sun soaking up the vitamin D with the knowledge that if I don't stay hydrated I'll get sun sick again...not a fun experience.

For the last two mornings, my aunt and I have gone out on walks. Neither of us are really early risers, but we've gotten up early enough to walk before it gets too hot. Anytime after 10:00am and going outside becomes like opening the oven door. But if you get out around 7:00am or 8:00am at the latest, it's just medium hot.

When my mom first moved here, I had just finished leading my second trip to Japan. I arrived the day before her furniture and spent a grueling August unpacking her house. It took me the month to get aclimatized in between the jet lag, moving, and the unbareable heat, but once I got used to the weather, I would wake up early and ride my bike or walk around the neighborhood. Arizona is kind of what I imagine mars to be like once the rich white people have colonized it, red brown and deserted save for shiny cars (that don't rust as quickly without the salt and snow of winter), the occasional patch of well watered grass, and adobe houses. The birds are mostly brown. There are rock colored lizards, gigantic cacti that make creepy shadows at night, and lots of pink rocks. It's beautiful in it's way, but so foreign from the midwestern landscape I grew up with or even the lush year round green of Seattle.

Where my mom lives, almost every house is surrounded by white walls or wooden and wrought iron fences of some kind. They look like compounds or Mexican villas. Lot of places have pools. Hardly any house has a basement or even a second floor, though it can be hard to tell because the houses are so hidden. It was fun to walk around with my aunt. I took her past some of my favorite houses, the one with a second floor sun porch and the one with the big half circle windows that reminds me of a Mexican restaurant. I also took her past a few of my favorite gardens. I love looking at the desert gardens. They are so textured.

Later this evening we went to the Desert Botanical gardens. I saw plants I'd never seen before, different kinds of cacti and aloe. I saw long earred jack rabbits, tiny hummingbirds, roadrunners, quail and wrens. There were these really cool Dr. Suess like trees sprouting from low growing, long leaved patches, as well as a variety of geraniums with different scents like rose and nutmeg. There was an herb garden with chile peppers, purple sage, several different types of lavender and other sweet smelling plants. It was really nice to spent that time with my family and also to commune with the desert. There is something that awes me about the desert. I'm not quite sure what it is, but I feel a deep sense of wonder at this unfamilar part of the world. Oddly enough I find myself thinking about Chile again and wishing I had made it north to Iquique and San Pedro de Atacama. I want to see the Desert bloom. Just the fact that in such a rocky, prickly place, that once a year flowers bloom fills me with hope...or maybe faith, that miracles do happen, that life finds away to flower even in the most unlikely places. That's my happy thought for today, that even with all the prickers, cacti blossom.

Bittersweet

When I was a senior in high school, Hillary Clinton spoke at my school. I was still active in politics then and cherished ambitions to one day be the first black woman president. Seeing Clinton speak, I was filled with hope and excitement. I wondered if she would ever run for president, and I just knew that I would vote for her.

Fast forward a little over a decade to this year's election where my hope had finally been realized, but as usual not the way that I had envisioned. I couldn't vote for Hillary Clinton. I used to look up to her. I still admire her guts, but she has changed. Over the course of this campaign she has really pissed me off. She has been tacky. Her behavior and campaign have delved into cheap and gimmicky stunts. She has lied and made really divisive comments. She has taken advantage of all her white privilege, while simultaneously pointing the finger at Obama for playing the "race card". This is not the Hillary Clinton I remember.

When I read Dreams from my Father, it moved something in me. Due to a combination of work and school and later work and traveling, I had lost my connection to the political world. I had stopped working on the campaigns of local politician. I still voted...I believe in voting, but I felt an extreme disconnect between me and my government. Reading Obama's book (I'm still only half way through the Audacity of Hope) made me want to get off my ass and participate again, because after way too many years of the Bush dynasty, I finally felt like I had found someone I could believe in. I know Barack Obama is not perfect. We disagree on certain issues, but I find his sincerity refreshing.

Today I watched Hillary Clinton's exit speech and was surprised to feel so sad.I have to say, she gave a really beautiful speech, one that reminded me of the woman I saw speak 10 years ago. She was strong and articulate and graceful. I just wished that she had run her campaign as well. As you know, I voted and caucused for Obama because I believe in what he can do for this country and I really do think we need a bigger change than Clinton would have provided. I don't regret my decision at all, but I do have this strange feeling of sadness as I wonder how much longer we'll have to wait for the next woman to come along with enough power and courage to be a viable presidential candidate.Clinton says that by coming this far she has shattered the glass ceiling and made history and I hope she is right.

This has been a hard election season for me...exciting and restorative in some ways, but hard still to see how slow change actually is. We've come a long way, but there is so much left to be done. And just like the 20s, when women's suffrage and the right of blacks to vote was the issue of the day, my country again asks me to choose between being black or being a woman. And it is just as ludicrous now as it was then. I am both,I will always be both. And it is with my whole self that I feel sad to know that time for a woman president is not quite here yet, just as I feel empowered to know the time for a black president is upon us. If we can do this one thing, if we can make history, by making a choice we've never made before, what will this mean for our future. I feel fortunate to be alive, fortunate to be a part of something amazing. Next weekend I go to Spokane for the WA democratic state convention where I will be repping Obama as a delegate.

Memorial Day -rejj ©

I don’t want to remember,
don’t want to wear yellow ribbons,
won’t sing a word,
can’t pledge my allegiance to a flag
for which so many are murdered.
The silence is fraught with them,
thick with the ghosts of boots marching
down the path to infinite.
Soldiers assuming their position
in graves evenly spaced and tight
marked with miles of white crosses
like rows of teeth in a mouth
that will never wake to speak.
So we stand in the silence,
the void of joyless peace
and remember
what can’t be relegated
to six inches of newsprint
or a CNN special,
a color photo, a flag, a grave,
a color photo, a flag, a grave,
a color photo, a flag, a grave,
another moment of silence
to mask the unspoken truth,
that we won’t remember,
that we never remember,
that the repetition is our only memory
and our wars continue
like a TV blaring in the next room,
but no one is watching.
And we are silent.

Almost Done

I figure now that the rough draft and the cover art are done, that if I put it on my blog, it'd be more incentive to actually finish it. That and I seem to be able to manifest well with this whole visualization thing. So this is what I am envisioning right now...my finished Chapbook. :) I am on the one and a half week count down to my six week staycation. YEAH!

Painting

My first night in Tokyo, I was placed in a hotel room with two other teachers, one of whom was originally from Madison. Although we had lived in the same small city for an overlap of nine years, had mutual aquaintences, and at times even attended the same school, we never met until Japan. After that weekend, we were sent out to our host communities and we landed in small towns about an hour away from one another.

We became friends. Once I got over my Osaka craze of needing to spend almost every weekend in the city, we would spend weekends at each other's house. An's house became a refuge for me. It was new and clean. The only furniture was a beautiful stained glass lamp and 2 tibetan prayer mats, but her walls were covered in art, pics from magazines, sketches, painting, etc. She lived simply, but colorfully.

It was at An's house that I first started to make collages and later to paint. I never thought I had much of knack for art. I wasn't particularly encouraged or discouraged in school. In college I thought I might take a beginning course in painting, but I was told that due to the limited space, only art majors could take those painting classes. So I never took a class, but even after Japan, I continued to paint.

There is something soothing about sitting in front of a blank canvass and adding different colors until it feels right. I've discovered I love creating beautiful things. This year, for the first time, I've decided to share my work outside of my circle of friends. I'll be showing my paitings at the Wallingford 1st Wednesday Art Walk on the first Wednesday in July from 6-9 at Alliance Chiropractic on 45th.