Posts By: christinelonge

Mon Histoire

 

Multilinguisme est le meilleur cadeau
qu’un enfant peut recevoir
pendant les années formatrices

J’aurais dû parler le français et le suédois
comme mes principales langues familiales

J’aurais dû, mais
le déni de langue de mes ancêtres a traduit par
un monde fermé dépourvu de capacité à communiquer

J’aurais dû, mais
la pression de l’homogénéité
anéantit la langue maternelle des citoyens américains
génération par génération

Mon arrière-grand-père franco-canadien
et mes arrière-arrière-grands-parents suédois
étaient les immigrants les plus récents
qui cherchaient une opportunité
dans le mythique rêve américain

Je suis un Erickson paternel

Ma grand-mere n’apprenait pas ses sons suédois
car ses parents et ses grand-parents ont jugé
être en sécurité pour s’adapter

Ma grand-mère, effacée de Suède,
a marié
mon grand-père, le fils d’un évadé Canadien

Je suis un Longe paternel

puis
elle a légalement ajouté l’accent aigu
en héritage pour mon père

qui est devenu un Longé

Elle espérait que cela inspirerait
moins de mauvaises prononciations
d’un beau nom de famille français

Malheureusement
l’accent n’a fait qu’ajouter
de la confusion à un système
exclusivement anglais

La pression des États-Unis
pour une langue singulière
opprime et supprime
maintenant mon inclination à rêver
dans un nouveau tonalité

J’ai toujours senti les échos français en moi

La langue flotte
sa résonance et sa percussion
comme un colibri
en remuant l’air

Longe (nom) : corde, lanière

Mes lignées ancestrales de France et de Suède
ont été dépassées par la fierté enracinée au plus profond
des sols de la Révolution américaine
paradoxalement anglaise

Longé (passé composé de la verbe longer) : aller le long de

Comme c’est ironique d’être marqué
comme quelqu’un
qui suivait
qui allait
qui roulait
la longueur de l’itinéraire assigné

se rendre complice de…

Seul un sous-ensemble de personnes pâles
sur une petite île
était destiné à maintenir l’anglais

Mais il s’est manifesté dans le monde entier
grâce à la colonisation, au génocide
et à une extraction culturelle plus poussée

L’homogénéité n’est pas naturelle

On ne le trouverait nulle part
dans le réseau interdépendant complexe
et dynamique de cette planète
des âmes
de la végétation
des éléments

Notre société humaine, elle aussi
bénéficie de la diversité en équilibre

Poussez quoi que ce soit trop loin de chaque côté
forcer la singularité là où elle n’a pas besoin d’exister
et la vie intelligente exige à s’égaliser

En apprenant le français, je découvre
la racine pivotante sous tant
de mots et de phrases en anglais

Je tire et creuse, creuse et tire

Je suis une ligne à l’autre
chacun empêtré à chaque intersection

J’aurais dû parler le français, mais
c’est le gâchis actuel
de ma lignée atrophiée au langage.

 

 

Je cherche…

Here’s the deal with this trip. “Trip” is the best word I can find for it, as it’s neither vacation nor honeymoon, nor residency, nor vagabonding, nor holiday. We’re mostly working remotely in other people’s homes: some rentals, some housesits; some more suited to our needs than others. I haven’t written or shared much in these three months abroad, but my trusty notebook has captured evidence of fun highlights, learning moments, tourist itineraries, incredible meals, community connections, and widened perspectives.

My personal journey throughout this extended trip—by which I mean epic pratfall—has been bumpy and riddled with confusion, to say the least. Feeling creatively constipated and generally adrift, a chance encounter with a random youtube video that played out of nowhere (God, is that you?) invited me to focus ninety minutes every morning for ninety consecutive days on a singular project. I accepted this challenge in late November. Why wait for December?

Initially unclear on which one project to develop, I discovered my delight in playing with the many photographs I’d taken in the previous seven weeks. I downloaded a software tool that offered enough editing dials for free, though I admit some of the subscription-locked bells and whistles would be useful. Homesick for my two-going-on-three-year-old tradition of handmade holiday cards, I decided these photos needed captions. The French verb chercher (to look for, to seek) echoed in my mind after our inaugural dogsit in Mont Saxonnex with a pair of truffle hunters trained to Cherche! on command. A few days later, a kind elderly Parisian couple spotted my consternation amidst a busy sidewalk and asked, Vous cherchez quelque chose (Are you looking for something)? Thanks to them, we caught our train. Piecing together the repetition of this action word with my own overall loss of direction, the series in this gallery took shape under the rule to begin each caption with Je cherche (I seek). Another rule: because they’re in French, they’re in cursive. It’s a thing, and I don’t know why.

Here’s the deal with this series. It’s a game. It’s a game to help me rekindle creative impulses. It’s a game to channel my energy, to begin each day in a playful state. It’s a game of wordplay made trickier by intertwining English and French idiosyncrasies that both fog in translation. It’s a game of casual laissez-faire, as I haven’t been exporting the full-quality photo files, so they end up a bit fuzzy-looking. It’s a game to render travel memories more interactive, rather than dooming them to an untouched, unseen album. It’s a game (within a game) of hide-and-seek; sometimes I forget where I hid the caption, and what I wrote. It’s a game to force me outside, to observe, explore, and take more photos when the coffer runs low. It’s a game to appreciate how many photos I might edit in a ninety-minute session; to appreciate how many photos I might have in the series at the end of ninety days. It’s a game due to conclude in late February. It’s a game for me to notice where I’d make slight aesthetic adjustments. It’s a game I didn’t intend to share, yet displaying “imperfect” work offers me a chance to edge out of my comfort zone.

I have another month to go, so you’ll find more photos in the gallery along the way. They’re currently organized by locale in alphabetical order, which isn’t chronological. I’m working on the blog bug that’s separating upload batches into their own alphabetized sections…very unexpected. I intend to add image descriptions and make this gallery accessible to everyone. (Contact me if you’d like to contribute your hand at describing one or a selection of images! Audio/image description is a great tool to sharpen and practice.) When I have access to and time with a larger monitor, I intend to re-order the gallery into a curated story sequence based on the captions, which will mix up the locations.

Comments about the series, photos, or captions are welcome on this page; see below. Right-click on this gallery link, then select the first option “open link in new tab” for most ease to return here. Once you click to enlarge a photo from the display grid, you can view the fullscreen(ish) photos with your left/right arrow keys. Be patient; they might be slow to open. If you aren’t a fan of mystery, I recommend having this translation search open in another tab. Remember to refresh the page to see the rest of my 90-day progress populate the gallery, through March at the latest.

Enjoy! Bon appétit!

xoxo

Mont Saxonnex, France

The sensation of time passage feels like a week at most, and yet also like a quarter of a year in this goofy autumnal hourglass. The feral cat and 11+ year-old mighty duck are self-sufficient compared to the (easy) 5 year-old and (needy) 3 month-old dogs. The puppy dominates our attention and steers our daily schedule toward brief bouts of work punctuated with outdoor drinks of fresh air below the Bargy mountains.

Our housesitting residence was originally a high barn loft perched atop a small two-bedroom residence built in the 1860s. Our hosts spent the first two years of ownership in the original ground floor residence while they converted the upper barn space into a two-story, five-bed-two-bath layout. It’s a continued work in progress after 18 years; the kitchen recently received a new oven unit to replace the antique woodstove. A young family of four from California started their yearlong downstairs rental in July, so we’ve landed in a surreal US west coast normalcy. Their residence on the ground floor shares a dividing wall with the original cowshed, which was converted into a one-bedroom apartment, rented for years to a kind Frenchwoman who loves dogs and feeds the puppy chex mix.

The access road Chemin des Voyis is named for this hamlet, off the main switch-back arterial to Mont Saxonnex, and the house numbers here indicate the metric distance of the building from the arterial. The great-great-grandson, born and raised here, lives across the street to the south with his children and grandchildren. It was either his great- or great-great-grandfather who settled this acreage in the late 1800s and who built this central barn-cow-house. The two or three surrounding houses in this hamlet are still in the family, owned either by his cousins or other relatives. He tends an enormous garden on his plot, and feeds apples to the cows in the field to the north, adjacent to the garden and tool sheds here.

We’ve eaten heartily from the ample garden to spare the produce from seasonal rot: cabbage, eggplant, leeks, beets/greens, kale, nasturtium, beans, carrots, pears, onion, and zucchini! Loads of zucchini, ou courgette en français. A week ago, we hunkered down for a 2- or 3-day thunderstorm event, complete with photograph-worthy lightning bolts that danced on the surrounding rocky ridges. The elder dog Meg hid in every tiny corner while the puppy played, oblivious to the commotion. We’ve felt right at home, yet suddenly married with young children, staying hydrated with Evian-fresh tap water and strangely interacting with very few French locals due to our distance from the sleepy, pre-ski-season town center.

Behind the Mask: A Clown’s Vulnerability

From the moment I read Brené Brown’s Women & Shame and saw her classic TedTalk speech, I was thrilled that someone else was talking about vulnerability. Finally. And on a very public stage.

I’ve spent the past 25+ years obsessed with the same vulnerability phenomenon and its inherent superpowers, only I’ve researched through a different avenue (albeit like Brown’s interest in storytelling). My method was theater. More specifically, the theatrical form of Clown. Yes, Clown. If theater reflects society for society’s sake, then Clown technique pierces straight to every individual heart in the audience. There’s a reason it’s known in theatrical pedagogy as Personal Clown. The trouble is – and my frustration boils because – U.S. popular culture believes that “Clowns are scary.”

Don’t laugh: I’m creating a podcast series around the question “Why are people afraid of clowns?” I ask counter-questions aplenty; I interview experts and laypeople alike. I tug at the threads of vulnerability, failure and fear, humor and beauty, to see how all connect in the tapestry of human experience. There’s a wealth of insight to be mined – a lot to unpack from theatrical clown technique, plus its vast cultural and historical evolution tracing back to early civilization’s shaman. This unique art form showcases and reflects our inherent wisdom, flaws, innocence, and medicinal magic. Maybe a shift in the public’s perspective will inspire collective courage.

My investment stems from a preschool-age moment where a delighted stranger’s laughter caused a lightning-fast, harmful ripple effect of embarrassed behavior, confused desperation, and unhealthy relationship patterns – all of which I’ve been sub- and consciously unraveling from my being as I age. I wonder if people are afraid of their own vulnerability (i.e. their Personal Clown), perhaps afraid of the power in embodying their wholeness. Brown’s research seems to support this theory, among others I’ve pondered. I wonder if this obsessive curiosity, to piece together the source and logic* of laughter, is my inner child’s lifelong quest. What conclusion will I uncover that might provide a satisfying peace of mind?

I feel vulnerable in advertising this work-in-progress. I’m still learning how to share as a vessel of abundant, potent ideas rather than guard them as precious and exclusive. Who knows, maybe all my years of notes, inquiry, practice, observation, Clown Labs, continued education, and gameplay would be fun and useful in a new collaboration. If so, I trust that you’ll communicate with me!

 

*The topic of “Clown Logic” is an entire department unto itself.

Exploring a Fish Bowl (compost draft v1)

The first challenge to publishing an individual, internal account of a traumatic brain injury: it’s invisible. There’s nothing tangible or obvious, no roadmap or guidebook. The journey is inward, and one encounters that unknown territory as a person dependent on light would grasp into a dark abyss with arms outstretched. A brain injury is invisible and yet smackingly immediate like a mischievous ghost wanting to play innumerable tricks on their haunted house’s intruder. As if the body itself and everything familiar within that identifiable territory suddenly turns shapeshifter. Or traitor.

My brain injury started with a mild t-bone collision. “Mild” only in terms of not requiring an ambulance, hospitalization, life support, surgeries, casts, or the many other medical memorabilia I was spared, thanks to the fact that the negligent driver was quickly accelerating from a stop. “Mild” doesn’t refer to the terrifying push into oncoming traffic, the burst tire, the lateral whiplash, or the closed head injury diagnosis that grounded me from a six-month sojourn in Europe a mere ten days before departure. At first my internalized ableism saw this as a full stop in my life’s trajectory, but I’m stumbling through the process of rewriting that biased, misinformed story.

A brain injury is every climate, every geographical phenomenon, every season, every sunken and mountainous city, every remote village, every language of Babel, every mode of transportation; smashed together in one claustrophobic maze of overlapping altitudes and layered textures. All of it uncomfortably intense and inexplicably oppressive. With a brain injury, every micro and macro sensory input punches you in the head like an animated club. Because the brain’s effort to heal itself translates as zero regulation and amplified computation, everything at the same exaggerated volume.

A cloud of cigarette smoke. The screech and hiss of a bus arriving at the curb. A bright sunbeam reflecting off the windows across the street. Singular raindrops tapping your arm, head, back. The flavor of your coffee, plus the heat of it, biting your tongue. This snapshot captures only a few simultaneous things going on when you exit a neighborhood coffee shop, not to mention the dizzying effect of objects in motion within your primary and secondary views. In the time it takes you to read this paragraph, your brain will compartmentalize each sensation with such speed and dexterity that it costs you nothing but a few milliseconds to interpret these typed English characters into linguistic meaning. My injured brain refuses to brush aside insignificant inputs, and pains itself to make sense of minutia in slow succession.

The one then two then three (and how many more?) years of healing have felt far from “mild,” although one would think the sole prescription mild: rest. Imagine going to the Apple store, your sleek and freshly dropped Airbook in hand, then they say to just wait for it to fix itself. Maddening, no? Don’t work, don’t read, don’t travel, don’t learn, don’t use screens, don’t exercise, don’t stress… Stop doing every last activity that defined the dimensions of your life, and relax. Sure.

My neurologist informed me that the saying goes: if you’ve seen one brain injury, you’ve seen one brain injury. While my experience is unique from all the others’, the community of TBI survivors can undoubtedly commiserate about shared symptoms.  A symptom is how the brain injury reveals itself from its invisibility cloak, such as headache, dizziness, fatigue, etc. Any whiff of commonality is a breath of fresh air in what’s otherwise an extremely isolating experience.

I’ve reached notable milestones throughout my ongoing pursuit toward a return to “normalcy.” I hate that word. Along the way, repetitive symptoms have arisen in varying levels of intensity. The worst: the most sneaky and subtle. The most difficult: the separation from a sense of Self and identity. The most common: acrid, dense fog amongst neural pathways; absence of clarity, cognitive and otherwise; trying to decipher incomprehensible (yet simple) text messages; fingertip reading like a kindergartner, muttered aloud to attempt to recall the string of words, rewinding over and over to retrace the meaning of an entire sentence; emotions everywhere, out of nowhere, big and deep, erratic and unregulated; feeling tranquilized, but not tranquil; thick throbbing headaches, similar to feeling spun around in nauseating degrees. And goodbye, memory.

How could an unassuming traveler guess that a bruising kiss would crucify their own ego from the body republic (rendered unrecognizable), and hide it hostage within heightened senses? How could a trustworthy steward ever conceive of being gas-lit by their own inner landscape lacking resemblance or familiarity?

It’s a sticky place, this injury. A different kind of sticky than the incessant sweat of Brisbane’s humid summer. My wheels spin and lurch; momentum jerks. Nothing smooth or sailing about it. Adventures away from home are consistently the occasions wherein I fill notebooks with nonstop writing, yet I avoid scribbling the intricate details of these three years and another yesterday with all my might. I don’t want to see it any more than I want to experience it. I know the travel story of this injury; I reside there. But I don’t want to give it shape in permanent records. Ask how it’s been, and I muster quick footwork for a lightning-speed getaway, a sitting duck poised to flight in a snap.

I wish you shared access to my mental capsule of events so you could sit beside me per your viewing request. And we’d hold hands while I avert my gaze from the flicker slideshow projected on pale faded daisy sheets in an anonymous file download of facts. You’d watch intently, then turn, peer at me with awe and appreciation for my resistance to succumb to the void’s beckoning loneliness etched into this invisible injury. You’d solemnly nod in compassionate agreement that one hundred sixty hellish weeks of bearing this _________ is indeed cumbersome – and still, all the while, I packed and repacked to muster miracles as I walked on footing unsure, flinging hope into light shafts wherever shelter opened and kindness appeared amongst unmoored lily pads.

My denied permission to write has incidentally dulled what memory – and memory of memory – could have been recorded in the moment, so now it’s a fickle game of recollection. Recollecting factors of repetitive yet fleeting side effects forces me to sift through mental rucksacks and train trunks to re-collect the journey’s amassed souvenir (“to remember,” en français)…seasonal aromas folded within foreign flora, sharpness of windchill, colorful sunsets, culinary flavors at market, unusual ambulance sirens… Souvenirs take time to coax from their hiding places, sometimes tucked into far cobwebbed corners after years of neglect. Only the most polished anecdotes sit on the obvious shelves, lifted often enough to build a distinct dust imprint, revealing the separation between fondness and forgetfulness.

My jumbled and gapped word bank trails behind in strenuous efforts to maintain a conversation. I wonder if that spaciousness resembles the stuttered consequence of children sniffing jars of glue tucked into their sleeves, the ones who asked for money from drivers at intersections in Nairobi. Tangent: I cringe to recall my preteen naïveté in shamelessly uttering the Swahili word to “welcome” two young Maasai sisters to the safari campsite (where I was the visitor), on property etched into their herd’s feeding grounds. My vocabulary now snags on rock and rubble on its route between my impulse to speak and articulation. It begs for an immediate salve, but instead receives practiced, pitiful tsks with sharp splashes of “…but you look fine!”

A brain injury could visually resemble the heavy cement oratory atop a high hill in Montréal. Its exterior: hundreds of steep, severe stairs cascading downward (a vertigo-inducing mind-fuck). Its interior: a dark, ominous demand for silent reflective contemplation. A few narrow stained glass windows offer barely perceptible splashes of color on the cold, grey floor. For that matter, the terrain of a brain injury might more closely resemble Dante-esque catacombs than share a likeness with any landmark or landscape I’ve traversed throughout four continents. Their depths threaten a deafening rattle of rage, nerves, and riddles to sort. I keep these caverns locked, but they leak.

I wouldn’t describe the prolonged, quaking fear and grief as “mild.” These friendly foes have been annoyingly persistent in my periphery like the wild-hair bearded vagabond who followed my twelve-year-old self on foot through Paris to the Louvre, intermittently blowing into a melodic bird whistle and smirking in disturbing eye contact once I’d identified the sound’s source. They all ignore my evasive maneuvers.

I joke (seriously) that a brain injury places me in a very different time zone than the surrounding world. As evidenced during conversations, my response circuitry is sluggish while everyone else runs on fiber optic. My effort in this molasses air feels glacial among average passerby tailwinds who vault along with extra springs in their step. Every so often, though, the cityscape clocks into my time zone. (What relief the pandemic provided! People stuck at home!) We finally find syncopation for a few beats before their pace of the pendulum rocks ahead again.

As worker bees, theirs is an erratic pace to which I’m not eager to match once I’m fully healed. I had a taste of this time zone during my 2015 trip to Australia and New Zealand. To be. To exist. To allow minutes to mirror hours. Not to compete. Not to get ahead. Not to rush toward the myth of success and satisfaction and instant gratification. Why hold oneself under unnecessary pressure?

Recreation (as in, leisure) is crucial for catching one’s breath, for curiosity, for daydreaming. To remove oneself from oneself and all the trappings of routine, persona, mindset, fixed perspective, and comfortable community. To be. What freedom in anonymity and unrestrained, unscheduled time! Re-creation (as in, forming again) is important for embracing the undone, for immersing in the unfamiliar, for imagining new architecture. We’re often inspired by the unexplored, so let’s not be precious about our one lived identity. Be wild.

Slow and steady became my full-time job; a stark contrast to my previous go-go-go energy. If that’s a gift, the twist was not being able to “make something” of it (as in, “be productive”). However, the prolonged meditative sit with myself has probably been the most arduous work. I’ve had countless moments of feeling foolish, failed, and faulted. Confusions roost: remorseful quagmires of questions unanswered. Many hints to puzzle out, indefinitely.

How will this local wanderer recognize the promised land of recovery? Does it already move amidst this changed wholeness, holistically healing hour by hour, impatiently patient? And what have I noted along this improvised itinerary? Healing takes time. Maybe a long time. And focus. And practice. And intention. Rest is allowed and encouraged.

I’ve been steeped in a travel bundle I never sought, yet I cannot deny the wealth of gifts this injury has offered me. Human bodies are only ever temporarily “abled” and there’s much societal work to be done in the collective mindset…

(to be continued with more details and revisions)

REVISING EDUCATION: Part One

The present situation of Covid-19 affecting school closures in the U.S. provides a generous opportunity for citizens to meticulously examine and clarify what defines and encapsulates K-12 education in this country. After listening to fellow educators of multiple grade levels and departments, plus parents and students, I’d like to pose some broad questions to consider.

My goal here is to light a match so we can more courageously look into the “hidden shadows” outside the limited parameters of what’s been the accepted standard. Let’s take the time to collectively imagine an amended educational system which includes every available possibility that previously eluded our attention. If we first identify the ultimate, agreeable objectives of K-12 education, then we can more easily establish and implement the tactics to achieve those goals year after year.

This is a starting point. I have many more questions. I’ll follow this post with a Part Two to elaborate and offer my own suggestions. Until then, you’re welcome to share your ideas in the comments, and/or take this conversation to your families, town halls, city councils, and superintendents. Systemic change may feel both radical and torturously slow in the moment, and it’s nonetheless a necessary pathway to design together.

For the sake of our young people, I ask you…

…currently:

– What would it take for this country to indisputably prioritize the funding of schools, teachers’ salaries, classroom materials, and extracurricular activities?

– How do we really want young people to spend their precious, fleeting, impressionable K-12 years? What do we want to cultivate in these future generations? What is essential?

– For what does the established, pre-pandemic mode of education truly prepare young people? Is it solely preparation for the end of earning a diploma? For collegiate acceptance? For their guidance in mental, social, and emotional growth? For moving toward the unique dreams of their minds and hearts?

– What exactly do we want to quantify and qualify as learned lessons for the young person’s development?

– Is quantifiable education exclusively about the memorization and demonstration of an encyclopedic knowledge?

– Could education be a dynamic way for young people to learn how to negotiate their own path within a collaborative world of diverse cultures, perspectives, biases, etc?

– How do we fully honor the young person’s lived experience (including realities such as generational trauma) while providing space for them to build skills in stress management, interpersonal conflict, rage, loss, and navigating change?

…historically:

– When did policymakers require that people ages 5-18 attend school? Was it once the child labor laws were enacted?

– Why were the (roughly) September-June and Monday-Friday schedules established in the U.S.? Who says that those models of structured time have to continue unaltered?

– Who and what determined the sequential K-12 curriculum as it stands? When was that established, and when was the last time it was examined? Why does that curriculum widely vary state by state?

– Why and when was it decided to assign certain historical, geographical, and language-based subjects (and their abbreviated segments therein) per grade level in K-12 learning?

…holistically:

– How has an attempt at fairness by way of the generality of standardization affected the ability to meet young people where they are with their own inherent strengths and capabilities?

– When did we stop (or why do we avoid) teaching the entire person? How might attention on a student’s emotional development inform the rest of their learning experience?

– What would K-12 education look like if young people were grouped by their learning style rather than age? And what if they were matched with educators who could meet the needs of young people based on their given cultural, emotional, psychological, and additional means of support and understanding?

One moment, two versions

1. the experience, as a free-write dictation in December 2015

5 am sunrise in Napier:

The horizon flips to keep the night sky in the ocean. The sorbet lining between shades of blue. Birds chattering like 50 alarm clocks sounding at once, overlapped and enthusiastic. Dawn is so far underway that only one star/planet is visible despite my strained search of the clear sky. Two. I thought the first was an airplane. One in the east, one directly opposite in the west. The east star looks like two linked together, which I vaguely remember from either the Sydney observatory or my friend’s telescope.

The dark red amber transitions to gold, revealing a ship in the distance. It’s just the birds, ocean, trees and pathway, and myself. This is my morning ice cream, crisp to the touch. A bicyclist chirps “Morning!” as he passes in a whip of wind.

An enormous log lay beached on the sand. Did the ocean toil all night to birth you there? The waves gently lap and kiss you, to bid farewell after a tumultuous separation.

Gold brightens further to yellow. The clouded horizon softens and blurs, the cloud wisps above sharpen in contrast, cotton candy striped in orange-pink-blue. Impatiently patient. The log is a prehistoric jaw curved upward with a great warthog tooth.

The west planet now barely detected; the eastward sisters shine through bubblegum candy floss. Another greeter of dawn walks the footpath. My form is further exposed in the light: bare feet shoved into untied shoes, baggy pajama pants, ski coat, haphazard scarf. My wild nest of hair untouched by smoothing eyes or fingers after the pillow worked her night shift.

Bubblegum taffy evolves to neon orange, soft cotton of the baby blue blanket further beyond. The horizon light pales, stripping itself of depth and character. The whiteness/witness of the pastel yellow bores. Yawn. How ordinary.

I am a mountain on these black pebbles. Firmly planted and aligned, growing every breath. Tall with light and energy, casting shadows around my periphery. The she-ocean crashed along my toes, tickling to entice me away from my foothold. The foamy sirens eager and clambering for their mother to take me for herself.

A red belly grows behind the skirt of smog, the glowing orb pushing its way up from the golden-lit water at the extreme edge of the earth’s end. Then it’s lost again in thick congestion. The neon cotton bleached white in the wake of approaching sun, paled and perhaps by fear or apprehension, or cowering in reverence.

Ah, this is the bulbous glow that stretches now beyond the reflected windows, over the deco rooftops. A concentrated light forms backstage, ready for the 5-minute call.

The clouds deceived. Morning glow emerges as a surprise, catching the earthly circle off guard. The radiance is all colors at once, so intense only short glances will keep your irises intact. What a grand entrance. Swift and steadily, as if the pulleys were freshly tested and mended for this grand spectacle. Hello, Sun. Good morning. Your rays push blush to my face, carve contours on my outer layers. It won’t be long now, for you to suspend for another seven hours, leaping higher across the convex arch. I’ll see you then. Now I go, return to the woven blankets and threadbare bedding. Tell your night’s journeys to the ocean; she’s eager for company.

2. shaped into poetry or lyrics in April 2020

NAPIER’S FIVE A.M.

Multitudinous avian alarms chime and peal. The main holds the night sky in a flipped horizon.

Sorbet slices between shades of blue. This is my morning ice cream, crisp to the touch.

Deep red amber kneads to gold.

An enormous log lay in the surf. Did the sea toil all night to birth you there?

Her waves gently lap and kiss you, to bid farewell after a tumultuous separation, your prehistoric drift jaw curved into a giant warthog tooth.

Gold brightens to pale yellow.

The clouded skyline softens, blurs while wisps sharpen, cotton candy stripes canary-orange-pink.

Impatiently patient, shining on my wild nest of hair untouched by smoothing eyes following the pillow’s night shift.

Neon orange shifts to bubblegum taffy.

Shadow mountains cast on beach pebbles, firmly planted and aligned.

Skyline pales and strips its depth and character.

Soft baby blues beyond.

She-ocean crashes toward my toes, tickling, enticing me from this foothold; foamy sirens eager and clambering for their mother to take me for her own.

A red belly grows from within smog’s skirt, the glowing orb pushing its way up out of the earth’s extreme edge.

Ah, this is the bulbous irradiance stretching now beyond reflections, over the deco rooftops. What a grand entrance.

Swiftly and steadily, rising true, as if his roped pulleys were freshly tested and mended for this canorous spectacle.

Hello, Sun; good morning. Your rays blush my apples, carve contours in my creases.

Your suspense will expire, leaping higher across the convex arch.

Sing your night’s journey to the sea; she welcomes your camaraderie.

The storm…

…is upon us
Tears precipitate
in grief and gladness
millions of souls
echo the fury

Generations snap to attention
The uprising
is striking
jolting into focus, to see
what is essential, what is
valuable, what is equitable

Wind forces open
room for new fires to ignite,
fresh oxygen at the ready.
Inevitable stages:
treaties and negotiations
that mock progress and intelligence,
denying lived experience, and
more denials of lived experience
more denials of lived experience
more denials of lived experience
more denials of lived experience
proof branded as true scars

At this moment
finally
we fight for the benefit of everyone
the fight for peaceful treatment of Black bodies
is a fight for peace within white bodies
Humanity is fed up
with the divisiveness
of racism and white supremacy
That air is poisonous,
like the rising heat of our global crisis

Rock the boat, crack the hull
release the tides
swarming for tangible freedom

Starving severs patience
Have you ever been so h-ANGRY?
Change is on the menu

It’s one fight for all
that is loving and plentiful: life
the fight against greed, corruption, violence, dis-ease,
theft of time, energy, livelihoods,
looting, pillaging, exploitation
of autonomies and resources

Demonstrate whose lives you render dear,
whose light you know to be luminous.
Hearts are bursting open
allowing the pain to penetrate
and resuscitate
sense

For universal well-being
the balm prescribes a new pulse,
to harmonize
with resounding drums
once clattering in opposition,
now in opportunity, hammering
ancestral longing, and clapping
in new music, revolutionary rhythms

Pledge your allegiance
place your window signs
stand with the majority:
the people of color, the global majority,
the elders of land protection,
the creators,
the direct production workers,
the cultures smothered barely recognizable
by melting pots

The thunder baptizes
the blessed
flames
fulfilling destinies
centuries of oppression
getting what’s due
today

This is the moment
— in movement —
after hundreds of years’ messages
“Wait for it” and “When the time is right” or
“Later…”
of promises emptied

Redraw the root of power & live
Life, abundant with gifts, balancing
the great ideals: liberty & pursuit of happiness
not at the cost of another being’s existence

Life isn’t a zero-sum game.
Fabrication of the negative-to-one creates only
Haves and Have-Nots

Capitalist deception spins myth
around scarcity & competition,
making us peck at each other rather
than the rooster (that cock of bull)
manipulating smoke & mirrors

How dare we willingly believe
and throw our wealth of self
to those who sit heavily upon our labor,
who hoard and claim that nothing’s left
to go around, save the discard scraps & bones
eat up

Pervasive fears
feeding fear
and untruths unfold
insipidly slithering, scale by scale

Old placations lose their grip
on wild, fuming lightning

When bus drivers refuse to transport cops & their arrestees
when the people who truly run society uniformly & unilaterally
take ownership of their sovereignty and
make the decision to interrupt the machine,
those who think they own & operate that society look really foolish —
with somewhere to go and no way to get there

An outdated handshake
wove the reluctant agreement
a bond, unrequested
and manufactured
for protection in trade of work, but
the contract nullifies
when their promise
is indeed slaughter,
only a pretense on guard
of white “from” Black
when the reverse is necessary

Patriarchy chips away significance
dents and bends the truth
into gnarled roots of control
by violent elimination

Let’s buck the insistence
that some lives are second-rate, at best
of a duty to cower and kowtow
to a false sense of superiority
and insecurity masked as purity

One crises layered upon another,
holding isolation in new light —
it’s all the same fight for justice;
everyone trod upon
fights for the same future:
another day on this planet
Life choosing Life
in times of chaos and upheaval
it’s coming; it’s happening

(and where are the imprisoned in all this clatter? Are they locked down by the watchmen, for lest they drink of the rage waging war on the corrupt police state of this country, and create an uprising of their own, to destroy the cage doors once and for all?)

Time to rip up the rules
written for us, not by
or on behalf of us

We vibrate, breathing
into our instrumental essence
for this storm.

Reparations must be made
for us to reconnect.
After so many repeat inflictions, restrictions,
invasions of boundaries,
healing requires honest and thorough action:
every defined and refined proclamation,
proven in motion.

Blazes sweep through, so we look to the horizon for elements of rebirth and renewal

for return to the tree of
knowledge with open curiosity, with hearts forgiven
and instead bejeweled by beams of compassionate clarity.

Time to paint your door frames:
signify your support
sign your contract
in the cause and effect
we’re fighting for
peace, and
violence is the only language
understood by oppressive power

Today’s fight is to redesign equality,
on the heels of barricades and obstacles
forcing flight from foes,
and place power in the hands of the people
where it’s belonged this entire time,
yet has long been robbed & extorted

This storm erodes every past provision, and
draws green trenches in the soil for us to imagine anew
Permeate, refresh, rejuvenate;
The environmental fight is the people’s fight is the right fight
Hurry to this space before we outrun and overwork the pace of earth to tread

Hold us sodden in stillness and self-reflection
to see and be seen exactly as we are:
flaws, mistakes, regrets, injustice, hurts, monsters, injuries…
Wholeness of selves
best lit from the shadows
of creation’s image;
which warrants a little more care and effort
in listening
for signals of distress

The storm is upon us —
for a thorough drench of possibility,
nourishment, reprieve,
exaltation, and exhalation.

Time to improve the rules
without chokehold trade-offs
It’s completely possible to have
every essential met and supported by
and within the society.

Grasp hands, link into unbreakable
chains of universal liberation–
when one is free, we’re all free
from the bondage of suffering
That celebration is ours to share

We’re supposed to be together
as accomplices
to survive and thrive
in life’s mundane profundity

Let us traverse, two by two billion,
arm in arm, united as one,
repairing the brokenness of the original sin:
the kidnapping of innocence

Mend the pernicious wounds with a deafening demand for justice.
Flip the switch.
Create the effects.

We are the storm
the collective deluge in countless drops
pounding the pavement and prairies
from sea to shining sea
and then some

Roar, clap, echo
the demands of a people for their freedom
once hung to dry
let the flag fly
drenched in this monsoon of clasped hands
raise the call
announce the arrival
of the great tempestuous reckoning so
we may revel within an unsuppressed, non-oppressed
undivided resonance
forevermore.

Take a Bite

I have a genuine question for you: What if I suddenly died today? I don’t take death lightly, despite its inherent levity and spaciousness, so please know that I mean this; I’m really asking. Take a few breaths, a few minutes, and give it some thought.

All of my questions here are rhetorical; I’m not fishing for validation. I’m not seeking a reaction at any level, nor am I curious about any post-death logistics to which you might attend. Humor me with my own self-assessment. I ask this “what if” in a deeper sense. If you’re someone who’s been in regular or semi-regular or even one-time contact with me, you have the opportunity to compare the time(s) you’ve experienced “me” to this hypothetical absence.

Imagine the world and your goings-on without my physical presence, despite all our plans to connect tomorrow, next week, etc. Imagine you received a note somehow from my family, or more likely, you learned about my death through social media or another informational grapevine. How would that news sit with you? What would you do? Would it matter to you? Again, I invite you to take this moment to reflect, and I invite you to keep your responses to yourself.

What’s been the specific ripple effect from me to you, if any? What have I added to your life, if anything? Would my death (this hypothetical, unexpected change to your list of friends) possibly inspire you to do or say something previously verboten, seek an untrod path, finally make a big what-if decision, or discover a new perspective? I’m sincerely curious about this field of impact. I’m surveying my work.

Huh. What is this game, this George Bailey mic check? Naturally, I’m thinking about all the farewells I’ll issue in the coming weeks as I pack and prepare for departure. I’m removing myself from the Pacific Northwest, from every place and every community I’ve ever known and understood and found comfort within. So, in a way, it is a death. An end. Like all ends, this, too, is one that transforms into new beginnings. Who knows how temporarily or permanently this geographical change will play out? I certainly don’t.

I’ve uttered a fair share of difficult and surprise goodbyes in the past four months, not to mention throughout the past 23 years, at least. I was in sixth grade when my eighth grade choir classmate drowned in her bath due to a seizure. More recently, in October 2018, I learned of the deaths of three incredible humans in my life via Facebook (literally one per week), all quickly followed by two additional major life “losses” of different forms. Two weeks ago, my 94 year-old grandfather (one of the two main characters of my solo show The Two-Step) died after an extended decline with dementia. In the week prior to his death, I fully faced his decaying body and mind, a very new experience for me. I held his hands and sang his favorite melodies to him one last time. I whispered encouragements of “You can let go now,” in spite of my longing for him to lead me in just one more dance.

What if _______ died today? Quickly consider this for any and every seemingly incidental person who’s crossed paths with you. Or maybe just go straight to the list of your closest beloveds, maybe in the two or three tightest concentric circles beyond your immediate family (chosen or biological). Would you carry yourself any differently if one of these beloveds suddenly died or became otherwise removed from your day-to-day routine? If so, do you currently make an effort to communicate their life’s impact while they’re regularly visible and available to you, as they exist now?

My aunt’s sudden death in 2008 spurred my immediate family members to start saying “I love you” at the end of every phone call and upon every parting, even for a quick run to the store. When Christy Duffy died in February 2009, barely an hour after she stood next to me at the school, a fellow preschool parent sent a message of grief to the “info” email address (my inbox, as office manager) with this note: “We’re all hugging each other a little tighter today.” Chris Stagg’s death in early October propels me to continue his incredible work of filling the world with harmony, peace and acceptance. Compassion. Laughter. Light.

If you, dear reader, are one of the people who’ve declared how much you’ll miss me when I leave Seattle, I ask: WHY. Why do you say that? What does that really mean to you? What would be “missing” of my physical absence, and what will remain for you of my energetic or impressionistic presence in your life and/or way of life? (Believe me, I’m working with how and why I’ll miss you, and investigating what exactly that is per person, and if it’ll exist in another form while I’m across an ocean). Isn’t it so curious how much of an impact the smallest, simplest thing can carry?

And if in the rare chance you surround yourself with people whose deaths wouldn’t affect you, I ask: WHY. I constantly ask this of myself. I’m actively narrowing down and chiseling out a sculpture of community members who matter immensely to me. I want to buoy my life with that level of intention and inspiration. Within an incredible pod, while there’s care and unconditional support, this community offers a raw challenge of open honesty. I’m required to check my ideas, my behavior, my actions, my words, my emotional reactions on a regular basis. I want to push beyond complacency so I can evolve and connect more deeply within myself and to those willing participants of my immediate sphere of influence.

This life is shockingly brief, so let’s fill it with substance and meaning and movement — movement of the soul.

Let’s dig in.