X (2010)

You know,

here at this crossroads,

I want to go where

the fire is.

I want to go

where you didn’t take

me, to the sirens

falling over the river,

to the river burning.

Joys of A Broken Ankle

Today my ankle cast comes off. It's been six weeks, and while I don't feel like "it's gone fast," as everyone else seems to think, I am really grateful for this time. A broken ankle brings strange joys. My dear friend Whitney chronicled her broken foot joys months ago, and we have some overlap. Unlike Whitney, I'm making my list at the end, now that all my joys have accrued. She made her list in the beginning to cheer herself up, and then watched as they all came true. My list is not in any particular order. They're all equally joyful.

1) I sleep more. Anyone who knows me well knows that in the name of anxiousness, and getting things done, I habitually sleep-deprive myself. But with a broken ankle, I really have no reason not to get 8 hours, and in the first week or so, when my body was still a bit traumatized from the fall I took (climbing rocks), I was getting 10. New (and very attainable) life goal: prioritizing sleep. It makes me happier, more patient, and more creative.

2) Vivid, sometimes prophetic dreams. 'Nuff said.

3) Friends stopping by unannounced, often with food.

4) Taking up quilting.

5) Taking up the ukelele (thanks to Josh, who brought me a ukelele).

6) Re-taking up embroidery as an art form.

7) Reading lots.

8) My crutches double as arms. I can turn on the radio at the bookstore, (although someone else has to put CD's in for me), and I can warningly poke troublesome people who get too close.

9) A broken ankle keeps me present.

10) My yoga practice has actually become stronger. Because the poses I can do are fairly limited, I've gotten very creative. Also I laugh a lot when I'm doing my one legged yoga routine. Friends have confirmed that I look as silly as I feel.

11) Piggyback rides.

12) I discovered how much I love Sudoku puzzles.

13) In the name of bone health, I kicked my coffee habit. I don't miss it right now.

14) All the foods I'm supposed to be eating are my favorites: green leafies (especially brassicas), apples, raisins, oats, sweet potatoes, pineapples (which I don't usually eat, but am indulging in). Also peanut butter. I discovered late in the game that this was on the bone health list, but don't worry, I'm taking advantage.

15) We started turning over our garden last weekend, and while everyone else digs, I just sun myself on the giant wooden spool and look up things like "how to prune rue" in the garden book.

16) I have as much writing time as I could possibly wish for. I haven't felt this way since I was in school. Come to think of it, I may have more writing time than I did in school.

17) People who care about me, who wouldn't otherwise let themselves be conned into playing my favorite nerdy word game, come over to play with me once or twice a week minimum. You know who you are, you have made me very happy, and thank you.

18) People I don't even know terribly well have very sincerely told me not to hesitate to call them, and I haven't, and now I have new friends.

19) I'm learning more about healing herbs. I made a particularly timely purchase at Talking Leaves right before my injury. It's a really beautiful, and very comprehensive herb book. I started by reading about herbs for a broken bone (arnica for bruising and trauma, comfrey as a bone knitter, nettle and tumeric to reduce inflammation)--but I kept reading.

20) I'll be a smarter climber when I get back to it. My injury stemmed from a moment in which I did not listen to myself. Important lesson that I've learned before, in life. A broken bone really drives that lesson home. Listen to yourself. Especially when climbing rocks unharnessed.

21) I turned to meditation when I first broke my ankle because there was a surgeon telling me he thought it would be a good idea to put a metal plate and a few metal screws into my bone. I was a little freaked out. After the scare passed (and thankfully, no, I didn't need the surgery), I continued my meditation practice. Partly because it made some of my tightening muscles feel looser, but it also just made me feel good. Straight up, old fashioned, good old good.

22) I've worn velour tracksuit pants to the grocery store multiple times. Also to work. Yes, people, I own velour tracksuit pants.

23) People tell me how tough I am for breaking my while ankle rock climbing. And I don't think it makes me tough. I think it makes me a little stupid. But still, I don't mind if people think I'm tough.

24) Gratitude. I live with more gratitude, and with more gratitude, I find, generally, more joy. I notice other people with handicaps more, and see a lot of cases more permanent than mine. I'm grateful my mind is strong, I'm grateful for the little cat that we adopted one cold night in March, who is now keeping me company, I'm grateful for all the people this past month and a half who have made having a broken ankle easy for me, and helped me without me asking. The gratitude list could go on for a while, so I'll stop. I'm grateful to be grateful.

25) Learning how to dance on one leg. Both impressive and comical.

26) Writing letters.

27) No multi-tasking! I hate it, I'm bad at it. And now I can't do it.

28) Reiki. The thing everyone says about reiki is that you have to believe in it. But I went in as half a skeptic, and it blew my mind. Thank you Michelle.

29) I know more about what is going on the lives of the people I care about, because they visit me and I listen and listen and listen. And that's really a gift. Because I have all this time to relax, and I can share that energy.

30) More time to work on songs.

There is more, but I have just enough time to get a couple hours of writing and some uke playing in before my appointment to get this fiberglass deadweight sawed off my leg. Supposedly it will be really gross in there--some atrophied muscle, some mildew, and a Liliputian or two. I'll check back in.

newspaper

when I call from my window

to the low street,

rippling with wet snow

and necessity

a zing

he stops in the dark, tosses the plastic

package

the story has arrived, the boy who brought it to

my door is here, open

I don’t move if I can help it

not to pull my nose or touch my hair

I want this visit, unwarranted, uncounted

the place they can’t put their finger

under the cold blanket of night

But I see reporters

in flaccid

florescent offices

nothing like Rosalind Russell. Although

the thing she called production for use

is the same.

If he sees me here?

behind the glass and the glare,

forever borrowing a moment

fuck the clock, I am unrepentant

yet nobody's been paid

for this work

Come on, boy of stories,

bringer of messages

envoy of industry, harbinger of ink,

fool, herald, witness, carrier

his bike slides forward

we are trying to read minds

but something slips

off the tracks

If it was murder

it didn’t look like one

when I put my body in front of your body

and said

I know this man.

From South Buffalo, looking west (2010)

My city, to the west

In smoke in ash in haze

Paper box specialist, Samson

Crumpling beside

my going bike gears.

Wild mustard greens and trees working up.

We buckle

We ease down,

the earth below us, does not.

 

The Boarding House restaurant

all boarded up—but maybe not

A lot that is not dead in this town

appears to be.

I was asked to write about my journey.

There was nothing to do everyday, but pedal. My quads got bigger and bigger. There was nothing left to think about, I exhausted every subject. I sang about everything--to myself, to the weeds and trees that lined the canal, to the mosquitoes and flies, which couldn't stay on my skin in the wind. I ate food I never eat. I ate sugary pastries for breakfast and diner omelettes with hash browns for dinner. I had coffee with my dinner and still slept like a baby. Nothing happened, everything happened, which is the way of the road, which is why writing about travel is so difficult to do well, to do honestly. It is why good travel writers are also good liars--because to tell the truth about journeys in retrospect, it is important to embellish and eliminate--and also the reason why many people find it impossible to write at all. I've been asked to write about my trip. I don't know what to tell you. I know what, and not how. I know neither what nor how, but I know why, which is always enough.

The smell of manure suddenly (outside Lockport), and I am nostalgic. Fields of rolled hay, orchards. It is not me--there is a breeze in the shade that whispers, "Don't stop, don't stop." It has never mattered where I am going, or how long it takes. It matters that I'm going, following a path. Watch--the bees know their business. Do they ask how many flowers in how many minutes? I don't think so. It is not that time is not important, just not quite as important as everyone thinks.

I find mystery in small towns, knowing there is no mystery there. I know that for the teenagers sitting on the canal, life is bland, marked only by crushes, stolen cigarettes, and the hope of growing up faster. Jazz clubs and restaurants sit along the canal in a line. Laughter, music, clinking of glasses. I want to be sweatless, in a sundress, sparkling on the water, clinking glasses. I am riding towards nothing, I am riding towards my next meal, I'm riding out unanswered questions, I'm riding to friends.

Peaches, oh summer, don't end. Blueberries, summer, don't end. Raw sweet corn from a roadside stand. Morning, don't end. As with walking, everything is closer when cycling. My mortality is closer to me. I pass roadkill--this solicits a prayer. The first few times, I put the body in the weeds to disintegrate, lay it to rest. On the roads, in the hills and valleys of the Finger Lakes, I cannot stop every time, or I'll be roadkill.

The weather turns warm, wet, dark, hazy--like pussy. New York state is beautiful, struggling, smells like dead fish and ragweed. Smells like milk thistle burning, like clean, cold water, and lakeweed, like sweat and sunscreen and chemical greens, everything rotting in re-burgeoning wetlands, everything going under and everything coming up. New York state is belligerent, inappropriate, impatient, Italian, stuck and drunk, overheated, understimulated, anxious and bored, and finally, very kind to travelers.

I ride parallel to I90, which looks silly from my curvy, sensuous country road. I see billboards from the back, and their shape is foreign in expansive corn. Hills! Exhilarating doesn't come close to covering it. I stop at an intersection to check my map, and a policeman stops his car to warn me of rain. It rains. Something is baking on the horizon, and after the storm, wind carries it to me. Delicious hunger, delicious hills. I am riding towards friends. When I get very tired, I think, What am I doing? I should be at home writing children's books! I will do that too, later.

Until electricity came, the canal was lit by 31 hour kerosene lamps. Most canal jobs have been lost, but there are still some maintenance jobs. Canal-watchers walk up to 7 miles a day, up and down, looking for leaks. What is going on now? What is the industry of New York? A very mild amount of tourism. But mostly, prisons and landfills. In and out of prisons, nothing comes or goes, except sounds. Birds, voices, trucks: hum and whir, rattle. I am doing a thing of ultimate privilege and freedom. To set out on a bicycle everyday, with nothing to do but move forward. I ride by fences as tall as the trees that surround me, with barbed wire on top instead of leaves. When I camp alone, a grove of towering pines protects me from rowdy voices nearby, children's voices, adult's voices, and from the wind.

Everyday I am on the road, I come closer and closer to my own mortality. I develop a relationship with everything. I get slammed by thunderstorms, heat, and mosquitoes. I eat a lot ice cream. I make new friends--not life friends, but friends of the moment. Cyclists everywhere see my panniers, and ask me how far I am going, and if I need anything (water, granola, a place to spend the night). One night, after a roller-coaster of a day, I end up wearing my rainjacket as pajama bottoms because everything else is wet. Whenever I get myself into situations, I like to think about Mark Twain. At the thought of him, my discomfort becomes amusing, and that is how I know I'm okay. I sleep, I dream, I ride, I dream. And then I arrive.

When I see the skyline of Albany, I tear up a little. I don't know why--I've never loved Albany, it's just something about the finality of my arrival. I have reached my goal and I'm a little sad. I'm also exhausted and incredible. I'm relieved, but without my lovely, simple purpose, I feel empty and lonely. Riding a bike all day makes it easy to be in the moment. I eat a bunch of salty, crunchy things at my dear, old friend's house, and then go home to my parents' house and eat more + wine. Then I sleep, I dream, I ride.

1 Minute Old

Eveningless

Summer night

The day just runs into

The wind

And do you care

Where you were

When it rained

No

Because in summer,

Everything is an element—

Not just the weather,

But your skin,

Your lover’s skin,

Your lover.

You can’t get caught in the rain,

You can only be in it.

 

Run, run it

Clap hands

Big sounds

What are you

going to do now?

Dauphin Island

The rigs hum at night, mechanical giraffes
Ghost crabs scatter at the sound of our feet,
their eyes on tender stalks
Wary.
I would give 50 years of my life to be there again
The way it used to be
Imperfect and sediment-heavy
Already there was phenol in the water and
Mercury in the blood of the pelicans.
The marshes keep their secrets
They smell of old love affairs
Sulfur.
A blue heron waits
His back curved what an old man disappointed with life
And the live oaks stand witness
They scare us at night as we pass them on bicycles
Their moss hangs down whispering  You don’t know what I have seen.
I want you still god help me
Or if not you then a more vivid memory
I want to taste your salt air again your warm water
Forgive us, mother, for the mistakes that we are bound to make and the
million ways in which we have wounded you
I will find forgiveness when I die
Walking out past the children with the clam guns
(a crabber looks on)
Into the breaking waves
The oyster beds kiss my tender feet/

by Eleni Petrou, May 2010. Bob the house.