Ryan tied me in at the first belay station on a tiny ledge about 190ft above the ground. The ground; it never spun like it does in movies, but it looked up at me and laughed a condescending laugh. My eyes wandered over the knots and carabiners that held me to the wall. 
Sometimes our heroes are people we've never met before. They come to a bouldering competition that you are working at and they limp up to you with a cane. You look down to see one ankle wrapped and the other foot adorned with a climbing shoe. He is smiling. 
Camp Cuyamaca gives some kids the kind of gifts they have never received before: like a night hike during a full moon. Many of the kids who come to 6th grade camp have never been camping, let alone spent five whole days submerged in the beauty of nature. B.) Write a scene in which you slow down time (think Conroy & the yoyo, or Slater & her mom at the piano on New Year's); take one moment and DRAG it out so that it takes up a paragraph, a page...all for something that in real life would take about a second or a minute or two.
The snow gave way under my feet with a crunch and sigh. For each footprint I left, the snow hurried to fill the scar. I made my way to the edge, and braced myself as I looked over, looked down, and down. My eyes fell like a stone, bouncing from cliff’s ledge to the next, taking years to reach the bottom of the Grand Canyon. And when my eyes found the river’s edge, they rolled right in. Snowflakes tumbled above me, icy water flowed beneath me, and one night-black rook flew above me. I breathed in the moment, closing my eyes to save everything I saw. When I opened my eyes, brushing snow from my lashes, those first few seconds took flight, but left behind a feather in my mind’s eye.
G.) Write a completely TRUE paragraph. Now add the word "perhaps" at the beginning of every sentence.
Perhaps I fell for you when I saw you under your hood. Perhaps I felt it when I first saw your green-blue eyes. Perhaps I gave myself up for gone when you started calling me by my name. Perhaps our story began with a wrestling match, and we’ve been wrestling ever since. Perhaps we make it through these next few years, when we are apart more than together, if we make it then, we’ll make it forever. Perhaps dreaming is more than wishful thinking; perhaps it is willful thinking. Perhaps if we keep this up, we will never have to ask ourselves who we are—we’ll just know.
E.) If epilepsy is the metaphor, or Lie, which conveys the real person Lauren Slater IS (see p.162)...what is the LIE or METAPHOR which conveys the real person you are? Now take 10 minutes to write about it, as if this were real.
I live within a Lie that calls itself Society: where we walk the streets amongst a crowd of people who refuse to look up from the sidewalks. Where suit and tie strangle the once young and proud—strangling their sense of independence and need for adventure.
Society is a Lie I embrace. If I did not embrace society, I would run. If I allowed the Truth to set me free, if I stopped and looked at the sun and felt my worth beaming down on me, I would break. I would cut up my social security card, I would burn my birth certificate, and tear my credit cards apart with my teeth. I live with a Lie that keeps me on the roads between work and school, the streets between my divorced parents’ houses. This kind of life is limited. This Lie is limiting because my sense of conforming knowledge, as opposed to independent experience from which life is derived.
But Truth is a flame in the back of my mind, in the core of my being—it reminds me of that cabin in the woods where I would learn to be complete. I think about a rifle and ammunition which would translate into raw food—a match flickers—a warm meal. A cold stream for water: for bathing, for music to listen to when I rest my head on my arms and stare at the stars. To be lost in the unknown.
But Society throws its arm around my shoulders like a car-salesman and assures me this is the best one, this is a steal, this is what he would drive out of the car-lot. I nod, dumb and mute, because if I don’t, I’ll run from this Lie.
The Truth? The Truth is what scares me, it is who I really am.
Walked to Denny’s with Tyler and Jared tonight.
Flip flops on side walks. Street lights and humming telephone pole wires.
Three stars. One, two, haze.
Sprinkler stains on dilapidated fences. White and grey.
Cars race by--screaming, screeching. Loud.
The city is loud. Loud in my ears.
I brace myself against the abrasions.
Sounds cut like a hacksaw.
I feel alien. I feel alone. I know where I belong, yet
I fight against that urge. Fight against myself and what
I know is truth.
Why must it be about me?
Why can’t I be happy leading the normal life?
Why am I so selfish in my desires?
I sketch pictures of granite walls and blue-backdropped trees in my mind. A quite, contemplative scene where I can retreat and recall. There is peace in the quiet of my mind, the solitude of my recollection. In reflections. In memory. In sounds only I can hear.
A pack on my back. Boots on my feet. A ringed fire with the smell of burning pine. Dirt under my fingernails. Melted snow cascades and finds its way into my water bottle--sweeter than honey. The static lightning that flashes as I slide into my sleeping bag. Home.
But I’m not home, leastways not in the deepest sense of my meaning of “home.”
There must be others like me. But I hope not.
The call the call
The howl
The tear of clothes to hair too teeth gnash
No more orange clouds night!
No more no more stars!
Why why why?
And the thunder in my ears
Is the only truth I know
So no wonder why I run run
After my headsound as it thunderfades
Back.
Retreating to a place I cannot go
Want to go want to go cannot go.
It is the green of the shade, of the ground
of the air, of the moss on the side of the stream.
It is the blue of the sky, of the wind in the leaves
of the shade in the evening.
It is the white of the sun in the hot of the sky,
of the feathers of breast of the beat of the bird: Fly.
Why can’t I go
Why can’t I leave
Why can’t I howl
And clutch at the stars like
the sound in my head?
Neverend neverstop--the peace in the silence
of thundering with my howl.
Originally written Friday, September 15, 2006
Thoughts for a Friday afternoon
An iron buffalo
Contrast to
the animate shepherd dog- pounce!
Take a turn;
lights are green
Here are lines
and asphalt which
demand blood as a sacrifice-
we give it what it needs.
But the sun is shining yet
and birds are wheeling
so are these tires.
Whistles I to the blurred trees.
The bison hasn't moved an inch
I continue my decent
to valleys and deserts
and views of
the sheen of crow wings.
Yellow. Stop. Go.
This is how I go
my thoughts and I
to work
Thoughts for a Friday afternoon.
Originally written Sunday, December 21, 2008
I aim for the mountains ahead,
Passing by blood-red Ocotillo blossoms,
Held up against the snowy, white heights,
They become the framework of my thoughts.
They have held back their beauty for years;
The time of the drought is now over.
Miles beyond, the snow whispers to the sky,
Making it blush deep colors.
We all change, we all bend towards
The sun, whatever the season.
With permission granted, I am moving forward.
I am leaving the desert, running like winter
to a land where I am no longer a refugee,
but a woman who can walk in freedom.
Originally written Sunday, February 08, 2009
I think there will be a time when rainbows are not just seen
through our own perspective.
I think we will hit a point where anyone can see what the
other does.
I think we will be able to ride the see-saw of everyone who
is not “me,”
And that is where solid ground will find itself under our
feet
And we will no longer wobble and topple as we fight to find
common ground.
I think we can get there. We just need to open our eyes and
enjoy the weather.
Second to last day at Vista High School. Anticipation and bitter-sweet thoughts. Did I do all that I could for them? What did they learn about themselves? It’s never about me, you know. It is about them: the students. They give me an energy in the classroom that I cannot describe. It is better than coffee, more filling than a feast. I have many purposes in life, but they have given me one more; live for them, teach for them, and be there for them. If I can show them but a glimpse of the world and what it would be like without injustice, then I have done my job.
Looking toward the summer, just barely looking up enough to see the horizon, and I am blinded by uncertainty. That is what makes life mysterious, however, and interesting. I crave the Unknown; We only fear the Unknown? I then crave fear, if only to overcome it.
I clench and unclench my fists, feeling my fingernails on my palms. Nails? I need to climb. I need to run. I need to get by body back to where it was before. Selah.
My keyboard has finally been thoroughly broken in and I type seamless sentences. My thoughts, my brain, my words.
Mom and I had a good conversation about my life last night. I spoke my mind, she listened, she didn’t condemn: we are improving.
I feel older. It seems that I am learning life lessons exponentially. I am more aware of myself, more attentive to my actions, words, intentions, and feelings. I am here: now. This is a beautiful day, a timeless moment. May I make the most of it.
or the snow whiter
There I would find
my perfect ensemble
For Old Winter sings
Of times long forgotten
And Lady Snow whispers
of the land she buried
This tune echoes on
within my ears.
The rhythm kept
by the nod of the forest
The melody chimed
by the wind and icicle
Here I sit
I feel my heart will burst
if I do not join in
So I close my lips,
open my heart,
and sing, sing, sing
for all I am worth.
