Morning mood

We weave in and out of days.

A mood arises, untraceable.

Did it come from the furrow of blankets,

seeping into you, and I am the mirror?

Or did I find it in my hands,

hands digging in my dank darkness?

Did I pull it out, offering it as a 

tainted gift?

The cloudy morning's opening strains

are our life's music, not set to logic.

The melody finds us in unknown territory,

lifts our eyes (in recognition),

and sings us home. 

Passing Time

1.

Music sounds out in the empty living room.
The clicks and sounds that mark a day's passage
Roam through the apartment;
Sometimes the weight of melancholy is too much to bear.

2.

The car has been through a lot.
It sits mocking the world's superficial preferences,
all mess and ill-fitting hood and broken antennae.
Last summer it disappeared from the curb where it was parked.
A week went by. It served as home and dumping ground and
Canvas for his desperate prayer of survival.
With police chasing and nowhere to hide, it was abandoned in a driveway.
Now the car sits in mine (stolen property recovered), biding the years with me.
Little by little, it is breaking down.
Yet I tend to its parts, oil its motor,
replace wiper blades.
This simple act of faith,
Of caring for an ugly and
dying car,
is my participation in redemption.

3.

Do the window panes collect their dust
as a way to remember that the year is passing?
Objects speak constantly to us
As we pretend not to notice.
The faithful kitchen table
is work surface and G-d all at once.
Our hungry mouths betray our need.
And we come and we have need and we are filled
and we have need and we go on
and we go on, just passing the time.

Kyrie: a storm, a shooting, a phone call.

Today, a tornado that was up to 2 miles wide in places ripped through a small community outside of Oklahoma City. Lives were lost, homes shattered, hearts devastated by this storm. Just yesterday I was reveling in memories of holing up in the basement with my parents and my blanket, safe from the storm. I loved that feeling of having everything important to me, just the essentials, right next to me within arms reach.  For so many people today, that luxury was ripped away from them. The pain in Oklahoma today saddens me.

And then I learned that the "firecrackers" I thought I heard last night were not firecrackers after all. I was just drifting off to sleep after a full day of errands, household work, and soccer. Right before midnight, we heard pops in the distance. First a set of fast ones, then about 5 more, slower, deliberate. The dog started scrambling to hide. We told ourselves that it was just some kid setting of firecrackers, put doggy in her box, and tried to get some sleep. Today I learned that those sounds were not just a kid playing around. A woman was shot in the leg when two different groups exchanged gunfire just 1 block away from where I live. That is the third shooting within a one mile radius of my home since I have lived here. We will no longer walk the dog at night. Hearing those bullets fly sent a chill down my spine. And yet, I am privileged. I can move away. I can conceptualize a safer neighborhood.

I look at the children playing outside and think about their futures, about their eyes and minds as they survive on these streets. Where will they go? How will they survive this? My philosophy about why gangs exist, why people own guns, and the violence of the prison industrial complex is not daunted by the felt danger I am experiencing, but rather it is reinforced. More guns, more criminalization, more police, only leads to more violence and more death. True rehabilitation, equitable wages and work, education, and holistic support are better ways to address "criminals" rather than throwing them in cages for years. It is just too convenient for us to build more cages, put the "bad guys" in them, and then deal with the cost later. The cost is not only a price-tag of somewhere around $35,000 per year, but of continued systems of inequity and violence. Being grounded in social justice philosophies maybe matters the most when bullets whiz through the air mere blocks away from home. But these philosophies are not bullet proof, so no more nighttime dog walks.

A few minutes after reading about the shooting on the Central District news blog, the phone rang. SPU was calling, asking for money, giving me some "campus updates". They mentioned the new president, a new dorm. They asked me for money. Then I told Andrea, a sophomore, that when my girlfriend and I attended the annual Christmas party in December, that we got harassed by SPU students. We attended the event with 2 other gay SPU alumni couples...a total of 6 of us fabulous graduates who are making our school proud, serving in the private and public sector, living out the ideals of the mission of SPU. Yet as we took part in the night's activities, someone yelled "That's disgusting!" at us when we posed for a picture, kissing. It was saddening and embarrassing to SPU that this happened. I emailed the president, welcoming him to the post, introducing myself and the ways I was involved, and explained what happened. He did not respond in an inclusive way, but rather brushed off my challenge to work towards making SPU more inclusive. So when Andrea asked me for money, I respectfully declined and asked her to share my story with her boss, to let her know that I would be happy to give, as soon as SPU changes their policy to be inclusive of ALL students, regardless of who they are.

My heart is heavy. At a loss. There is homework to do... the chapter is titled "Middle Adulthood: Cognitive, Personality, and Social Development". How can I concentrate on the pages of a textbook with this world around me that is brimming with need? How can I read these lines in black and white on a page when everything is gray and there are no easy answers, no safe places to hide?

The storm rages on...and I will hold on for dear life to the essentials. Maybe, just maybe, not one tragedy, not one "criminal", and not even one good ol' alma mater is beyond the hope that within incredible darkness our love can shine bright like the light of the moon.

Loosening the Hinges

I dubbed these rooms that I have called home for the past 19 months "The Romping House" in honor of the way that a certain little doggy tends to make her way from place to place in this apartment. Just 4 more nights sleeping here at The Romping House until the hinges that open and close the doors will never feel my touch again. I feel unhinged with all this uncertainty ahead, and many of the items that signal "certainty" to me are boxed up in little stacked containers, cluttering the wall space, the hallway. Something has been opened up and the wind is whistling through, the doors are unhinged and an unexpected future is unfolding. What keeps me steady through the winds of change? What will I find in the rooms that will contain my future? What new sights will signal "certainty" to me in the days to come?

This solid wooden roll-top desk has been with me since I was 11. 16 years of traveling together through the days. It holds old love letters, secrets, bank statements from 2004, a collection of unsharpened holiday pencils from mom, some paper weights from uncle Pat, and all of my files. I never seem to sit at it to work on things, but I need it just the same, to tell me that I am solid, that I am home.

Then there are the 2 crates full of give-away items. I see the pitcher (old, yellowed, sticky with oil) that my mom poured apple-sauce out of during my childhood picnics on the porch. I see a cutting board that I purchased on my first trip to Guatemala, age 19, the decal fallen off, the wood stained with mildew. These are the things people let go of, that will be adrift in a sea of Goodwill's donations until the end up thrown out and deemed unsell-able, or on the shelf of some stranger, blind to their beginnings.

Sadness abounds along with hope. I waiver from setting my sights on the horizon, where I will have new systems and a bigger living room, to looking backwards at my journey here in the Romping House that began in strife, moved towards independence and generosity, and is ending in gratitude (laced with the aromas of the zoo next door). So unhinge my future, oh sands of time, and lend me the grace to give openly and receive freely, in whatever spaces I move into next.