Angel in a Saloon

     An angel that knew me when I was twelve graced my city this week. She fluttered about her long, linen-like wings and blew kisses over the heads of every person out walking. I got a free mattress from a historically beautiful woman who makes stained glass art and has renaissance moles on her face. We folded the thing into a taco and shoved it in my trunk. No one wanted to drive behind me. 

    In the saloon, one sweaty and warm night, we danced crazy in cowgirl boots to the punky country music. An old hick found me later, smacking his gruff hand against the back of my shoulder saying, "I wish you'd lend me sum that energy, girl!" The linen-winged angel laughed, two beers deep. 

    I've been thinking about how painful it can be to love somebody so much. It's the curse of the earnestly tender and if you're reading this, I hope you and this ache are well affiliated. I wonder if I will die young. I keep telling myself that I've made it this far. I'm sure I can keep this thing rolling. Sleeping for less than five hours is bad math and I'm learning not to do this. I've been thinking a lot because I can smell fall. There's so many warning signs. 

    For the first time in my life, I have an ear infection and it's reminding me of the fact that I can still experience new things. I was sad at the clinic when the doctor pulled up the anatomy of an ear and basically laid it on out that mine was fucked. That's having a body. I could combust at any moment but instead an angel is gracing my city this week. I'll put up with everything sounding like it is underwater for even a glimmer of that. Everyone is showering her in love and beaming because of her and there's so much to sing about. Sometimes there's too much. 

Anything Could Happen

 Anything could happen and it could be right now. The choice is yours to make it worth while. 

    I remember the first time I heard The Clean's song entitled "Anything Could Happen'', off their 1985 album Compilation, I was sitting in a friend's car parked at a spot we frequented in Fullerton, California. The spot was private, moody, and near the woods. We would sit in the car, sometimes for hours, listening to music and talking about our favorite philosophers. This song stuck out like a sore thumb then and now as I board my plane to England. 

    Sitting impatiently in the isle seat, the song acts as a mantra to keep my mind off of the feeling of being held captive on the plane as well as a centering reminder that every journey I take is up to me. The way I feel in new places. Just how open am I going to be? Anything could happen. I spent all ten and a half hours in the air wondering what I'd feel like on the return flight. 

    Laying in my light blue night gown( the one with the flower embroidered neck), my dear friend is beside me sound asleep. After three years, we have found our way back in the saddle together and it is grandma's pie. This country is hilly, green, and Eden-esque, We walked through a two hundred year old library that had been bombed during WWII. You could see the damage on the books that remained. It made me think about the undeniable fragility of our objects and how these items, if lucky enough, can endure the damage of war. Some people are like that as well. 

    Being far away from home feels unusual inside of my heart. I love where I live and in this moment, in this full-sized bed, it feels really uncomfortable being away from what I know. My city is like a stone in my hand that I must occasionally cast unto still waters for my chance at experience in exchange. The first time that I left my city after only living there for a handful of months, I visited New York and I was absolutely desperate to come back after a wimpy seven days. What a beautiful feeling of confirmation that you're in the nest you feel warmest in. What luck. It's a good thing I like dancing with the girl that brought me. 

    This night in particular, we grabbed drinks with a group of friends that my friend had met while living there. They were Polish, direct, and beautiful in the way that everyone is beautiful when you live on different sides of the planet. Where I live, people tend to be passive so meeting them was like a rooster at dawn. Shocking me out of my sleep, out of what I'm accustomed to. Thank God. No one should be too comfortable while being alive. Death is our well-promised nap before folding back into the jitter of humanity. One of the girls was very touchy and sassy. I took a liking to her after she told me my tattoo was "cliche". When we parted, she rubbed her cheek against my own three times and made me promise to see her again before going back to America. And I did. The goodbye was hard then, too. I don't know if I ever really meet a stranger. 

    My friend is a special girl. Very bright, adventurous, and open-hearted. All the things I like in a person. We met at a party when we were teenagers. She was the only other girl there amongst the beer kegs and devil-marked high school boys. There she was like the virgin Mary. My saving grace in the sea of frat. I respect her because she will never stay in a situation that doesn't seem right to her. She doesn't look to me like one of those people that gets 'stuck'. She's so poised yet comedic. I wonder if she sees herself this way. If she sees the stark dignity I see. I wonder if she sees the extent of the unadulterated goodness inside of her own heart. She'd be very smart but very blind if she didn't. 

    Whenever I travel, I often will meditate on what the child in me makes of it all. When I was a little girl, I did not dream of traveling, or getting married, or going off to college because I couldn't see a bright future for myself. The farthest out I could see was the end of the week. Anything further than that and my adolescent mind would go blank. The future that my young brain could not fathom now contains both worldly and spiritual delights. Delicious foods, markets to lose yourself in, and the dazzling faces of people going about their destinies. It's all so absurd so I just try to live joyfully. 

    The discomfort of travel makes arriving juicy and worth the effort. My first choice of location would never be in a flying ship thousands of miles into the air but I do what I do because I love this world. We're living in alien times. I'm here praying and wishing largely. In the Fitzwilliam museum in Cambridge I sobbed with great devotion at all of the paintings of Mary and baby Jesus. I don't know if that's normal. On the plane ride returning home I sobbed. The people next to me thought that the turbulence was getting to me but I'm just in love with God and where I live. That's between me and the ether, though.