i'm a visitor here myself...

Poem inspired by: “But here’s something I always forget about travel loneliness…When you finally accept that you are on your own, when making friends no longer matters and when you turn your attention to other subjects, it vanishes. “ –Matt Gross

The Heaviness of Mementos I Keep

Sometimes I feel as though I’m a tourist in my own life.

Destination after destination, looking for keepsakes of my travels.

I collect faces and their expressions;

experiences and their many sordid lessons;

various mementos that signal hazy memories

that float up in my mind.

I walk through a crowded street. 

I overhear fragments of conversation

 not meant for my ears.

With a memento in my hand,

 I walk to the end of the street.

Beyond the street lies a mosaic-encrusted set of stairs

 that leads to

 a cliff overlooking a vast, blue sea.

I walk up the stairs to the edge of the cliff.

The salty, warm air wraps its arms around me.

I gaze down at my memento.

It represents quiet memories,

stringent loneliness,

misremembered companions.

I see you somewhere in it,

lurking below the surface.

I drop the memento in the water

and watch the current slowly carry it away.

As the sun warms my face and shoulders,

I feel buoyant and radiant.

I turn around and walk back to the street.

The once-crowded street is quiet as I walk

on its cobblestoned-back.

I peer inside a dusty yet fragrant café.

I see a familiar face, smiling and beckoning me in.

I amble in.

Ready to stay awhile on this trip

that is my life.

....Pictures taken in Australia, 2006.

Mag 37

In the late afternoon sun,

I am like the crumpled sheets in our bed,

Ready to be made.

The luminescent light that reflects

from your bronze eyes

bares down on my soul.

Sometimes it's hard not to look away.

......Inspired by Magpie Tales

 

 

baby, what's your sign?

I came across emma tree's beautiful blog yesterday and read the following:

"life is just overwhelming at times,

and we are all standing on a corner

with a sign in our hands needing something".

She, as well as Graciel , posed the challenge to show off our own signs.
Below are mine. They were taken at work, with the camera on my phone. My real camera has met an early demise (but work with what you got, I say)...

I have never been the assertive type. I am a person that will let things happen to herself than make things happen. It feels easier that way, somehow. I was once described in high school as "unobtrusive, but always there." That rather apt description has followed me throughout life and was starting to be a disadvantage to my personal and professional life. I would go out of my way to be agreeable and easygoing, but I was losing space, literally and figuratively ( for example, the area I worked with students at school consisted of a student desk wedged between some filing cabinets and the area for the coffee maker and refrigerator).

I need to elbow my way in and take up some space and be a real presence. In conversation, in the classroom, in decision-making, and in my life when I have the power to make something happen rather than let something happen.

Laughter is one of the keys to my survival. If I don't laugh at least once a day, a vice-like tension starts to build in my chest and I begin to traverse the slippery slope of frustration and sadness. Laughter gets me through the day. When I want to cry (which can be often), I try to laugh. To quote "Garden State:" If you can't laugh at yourself, life is going to seem a whole lot longer than you like."

The rat started out as a running gag. Members of the Reading Department would place it in work areas, unbeknown to people. When discovered, it would give a slight fright and a good chuckle. One day, it disappeared and was forgotten about (or so I thought...). One morning, as I was preparing for students, I wandered out to my bookshelf and found....RAT MAN. It startled me and a laugh, starting in my toes and working through my belly, erupted in raucous fashion. I laughed and laughed until I cried. I don't even know why. The absurdity of it all, perhaps. But those laughs are the laughs I yearn for. Through laughter (and the friends who make you laugh), things don't seem that bad.

inspired by indian lake

Horizon

The path before me is lined

by withering birches and

carpeted with leaves of

crimson and gold.

It meanders toward

the shore.

The water lapping

gently at my feet.

If I look far enough,

I can see the horizon,

lined with peaks and possibilities.

Possibilities that seem infinite.

   

Yet, here I am

on the rocky shore.

Limited by how far my

feet can go.

My feet stop at the

clear blue water,

but my thoughts

quietly guide me

to the promises of the horizon

and what lays beyond it.

The sun's rays

dance on the water's calm surface

and envelope me in a warm embrace.

I smile.

And I wait.

journaling saves prompt: "i don't want to write about..."

...Loneliness

Enduring the Night

The keen sense of

my solitude stings,

piercing the foundation

I've built for myself.

The quiet emptiness of the night,

with words left unsaid,

were once a comfort.

But that which comforts you

can cage you in the end. 

My loneliness is

crowding the spaces in 

my heart. 

Which leaves no room for

the possibility of

someone or something new

to burst in.

I'm waiting, hoping, 

that the familiar pangs

will heal on its own.

But for now,

I remain with my 

constant, quiet companion.

And endure the night.