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she wakes lifts her head lies back down turns over arm on the empty bedside she looks at that space runs hand up and down pillow as if it were his face, back, front she lies back down the sun won't watch her with shyness anymore blinds her heats her sweats her from covers feet on floor, a little cool on wood, a little sore she's been walking again she still wanders not like she's been running or hiking or dancing hard just walking she breathes in and out in deep ways, trying to remove the added weight at sternum's center coax it away with air face at her feet she changes focus, up to the wall teal sea green wishing it were ocean wishing she were shark something large, monstrous, prehistoric she opens her mouth wide as though her teeth were too jagged/triangle/daunting to close down her jaw the thought of her face full of splintered teeth smiles her brings lips together after 9 and she's a shark in sweat pants, tee shirt, tattered, stained she doesn't look back to his side of the bed listens to morning summer breeze and traffic and with help from her hands on the mattress with an oomph she rises thinking how old lady she sounds shuffling to the kitchen the kettle filling looking out window garden out the backyard forever the maples, grass, sky wishing she were up there swinging from branches not running into walls fall down a rabbit hole inside out looking down and she's a vulture hungry that spells disaster but all she is here is slow grounded stagnant fingers aching heart ink over hands green beans and kale for breakfast  wishing she were shark. Photo by Francesco Califano on Unsplash.
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Take a walk. Breathe. Allow for sneezes. Allow for phrases like gezundheit, salud, and even bless you. And even god bless you. Give god your best definition -- maybe it's here right now. Maybe it's paper. This is what she was thinking as he yelled at her, as he screamed and she stood blinking, watching the white screen door rattle. "No. I'm not going with you. Your screaming isn't making your argument fasten hooks on me any harder. I'm ready to leave you now." That's what she would have thought, would have said, had his noise left any room for her to think, to speak. His face coarse with stubble like grey and black pinpricks out to stab, his mouth toothless now. His words as foreign to her as his childhood Portuguese. She let the tears retreat into eye sockets as his words and violence threatened to vacuum them out, as he flung the lamp over as she retreated room to room through the haze of yelling. It had been a year of shouting by now, of shouting and selling and poverty and disaster. She was ready for a new ingredients list on how to live. Walk with eyes open. Take long wandering strolls. Write every day. Eat enough to never go hungry but allow the pangs to come back now and then to remind you what this castaway life was like with this abuser con artist you chose for a partner. Live without judgment of others or yourself, as impossible as that may seem, without apologies, as impossibler as that all sounds. Call your mom once a week. Buy a friend groceries sometimes just because, without expecting favors in return. Go into the moonlight and just sit. Cry in the bathtub now and then because you can. Not like it saved you this year, but it emptied you out. By then he backed her into the room she used for writing in that little triplex where they lived those last few months, pretending they could afford the rent. She was on the floor, fetal position, facing away from him, crying dry heaves into her silent chest as he bellowed and swore and left and slammed the door and motored away. Only then did she let the tears fall, as she breathed through her knees and let her list keep building inside.  Take long wandering walks. Photo by Sander Weeteling on Unsplash. Oh breath Oh skin The belly pomegranates out in a zillion cranberry fractals Open one like a brain, spurt out power The sweat of heels Concern of families Pressed pores tickling I miss San Francisco Dreams of elsewhere Constricted community in my ribs This place Befriend it yes but long for emergence Break the seeds, burst flavor, pop in mouth I growl a laugh a hiccup a burp There is more to this here than work than money spent Reroot Stop thinking and heal and remember This is the hunger We've lost the earth Walking on floorboards Bare feet bare arms bare elbows and pelvis in air Float away, vibrations Stuck in the crawlspace The peeling off windows the bright The world outside the snow I forgot to mention how ticklish Everything before prepared me to love you Sing to me Write melody While we walk Tracing bends Shoulders over wet palms I miss us on our drive Think of our winding roads creaking planks Here the thirst the yawn the woman sleeps It's okay we're hurting It's okay we're rebuilding There's lots for us to notice together My toes draw spaces between cracks, wave hips at the sun  Photo by Francisco Galarza on Unsplash What a year. What a beginning to 2021...I hope you're safe, healthy and pressing on with all the sanity you can muster. All my best to you and yours right now. With all the losses and challenges, I'm fortunate that I can look back on some highlights from 2020. Amidst everything, good things happened. Here are a few from my end. Highlights:
I was about to list some of my losses, but looking back, most of these were related to travel, lost work and household income (aided by grants received), exciting projects put off and important personal events pushed back (like a wedding). I'm extremely fortunate to be healthy, that my family and partner are well and safe, to have a job and a home. I didn't lose close friends or family this year to illness (though it came close) or the violence that came to so many across this country and globe. I'm incredibly privileged, lucky and grateful. Because most of my 2020/2021 goals were made less possible in COVID times, with hopeful optimism (and perhaps naïve delusion) I'm bringing a couple of them back for 2021 and 2022: 3 Big Goals for the Next Two Years:
 How could a year when my sister and I swam here be a total loss? Photo by Kate Kraay  Image by Matias Tapia on Unsplash Sometimes I wish Octopuses put ink in my cartridges Sometimes I think the sun will open and we'll return to spring And sometimes I feel my energy wad up into aluminum ball Until I take a nap or practice a jig or play with my cat I remember days I wasn't afraid to open the news When I could look out the window and think progress I can still look out the window I can still make progress I a giant hunk of wax rolling down the hillside Picking up buildings, journeying to oblivion I can surprise myself I can jump out my feet and far down the canyon into new parachute These days are mine Claim them. Reclaim my voice. A pile of young women enter the lobby with a clang The beginning of tomorrow I can write my future and remember when I discovered who I'll become  Image by Element5 Digital I'm falling in love with my process again, the less I try to fill every minute. I time travel when I read the past. I see into my then skin, compare it with now. I learn about where my brain was and where it is. I've learned that the practice of writing takes time. A long time. That having patience and cultivating love for the act of writing is the thing that leads to authentic depth and realization of voice that can't be forced. I've learned there is deep value in waiting. There is no one way to tell a story, to structure a play. The act of writing daily helps me know how to move my hand through a story, an idea, a play or a thought much more than if I wait between projects. I've learned I have something to say. I am an adventure. I work hard. I can miss things, skip things and the world carries on. I can fail in big and small ways, that's how I learn. For me, writing is not about seeking expertise but discovery, opening, humanity. Vulnerability is the gateway to connection. Everyone has a creative voice to unlock. Listening is a difficult art that requires great patience and ability to resist interrupting, speaking, offering advice. I've learned that I love to use giant weather-based catastrophes in my work, often representing some big world or personal event. I've learned that the personal is political. That my tendency to assume factors about people and situations is a habit that I must continue to break. That as a white person I have extreme advantage that is unfair, but I can use that agency to open up space for the targeted. I've learned that we can make something beautiful together through art, and that I love collaborations even though they are difficult. I've learned that writing is hard and I will always do it.  Image by Alexandru Acea on Unsplash Heart is a blubbery mess of whole skin An aching, frustrated chord on the ukulele And also piano, guitar, bass Or a long minor key on cello Heart wants connection Shakes for bravery Sound of a single coin rattling tin cup Heart sees every color under sky And over In the vast universe beyond We are small Heart contained in my fist And massive, oceans deep Vast, interstellar dreams run million miles Arrows point in every direction Hot chocolate kisses spill out wrappers Heart brushes eyelashes Sticky hands stuck faces Watching out windows, radiate sunshine Reflect back at me the rain off clouds the sugar glass panes Heart walks grounds where Dad lies Waiting His wife still here, beating A-Thump-A-Thump-A-Thump Heart's ears capturing news Remember feasting lunchtime sandwiches running acres wide Backside damp from marshland lawns Blue string knotted tight round finger Falling forward into forever yeses A ball of wax slipping through fingers Blots away cheek tears Heart is a feverish night A journey into great beyond Side-by-side by fire  Image by Camilo Jimenez I can work in a way that I guide the process and the process guides me. My work helps me stay grounded. Writing teaches me how to live, how to listen, how to be. I take time with it. There is no rush. My work goes against values I dispute -- commercialism, capitalism, unchecked patriotism. It challenges me. I can continue all my life and there will always be more to learn. There isn't a wrong but I will never get it exactly right. Not about right and wrong. Writing teaches me what I think. Shows me what I know. Brings out memories that don't surface otherwise. My work gets braver and more specific. Is beginning to reach more globally, into dangerous territory. Is starting to connect with audiences and collaborators in authentic ways. Becoming more about-- That knocked me off guard. That unsettled me. That spoke to me directly. My work doesn't define me but is a primal factor in who I am. Me as writer, as playwright, as artist, ingrained into my DNA. I no longer have to prove -- hey look at me I write I'm a writer not just prop master or stage hand or sick person, not that there's anything wrong with that. But this ink is the air I breathe. Getting more confident with my experiments, more courageous and bold. Coming into my true voice that resonates with the young writer me, what I tried to be/make/sound like. I still feel very young. Like I know nothing. But I know something. And I learn more every day.  Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash knees buzz hummingbirds inside freshly hatched stir up from eggs million wing-beats per minute permeate TV snow washes away to bring clarity underneath heat in legs/heels/ankles belly, too echoes way down deep in gut a glowing magma spills out from cracks below ocean at the edge of earth's crust itching out this volcanic self this blaze thundering dinosaur late night retro-Japanese horror mouth large and looming ghost haunting phantom contains breath from my belly to beyond  Photo by James Wainscoat on Unsplash I blubbery salamander working way through creek transform as I go. Extend hands reaching out, form body against algae. Thank you, bits of green under toes, soft and wet your coat of mud between webbed fingers. I duckweed up above shine like granny smith. Cover the density of me against water surface like blanket. A spidery silken scarf drapes overhead amphibious mess. Beneath my rubber leaves --that look slimy but are not-- watch frog/tad beauties and salamander friends --that are slimy but look slick like rainbows. Wrap ourselves inside ourselves. Forever protection. Watch friend salamander coax down grey rock. I myself have faster swim. Spend time in stillness zip along racing through creeks. Bend legs and arms quick switchblades. Swish tail, turn bulbous head burrowing in lacing mass. One day will emerge. Spend days on stone on pad. Rapid plops in/out water, flash tongue shooting, six-legged bite will make up for now slow underneath.  Photo by Niharika Bandaru on Facebook |
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$1, $10, $100, whatevs :) Heidi KraayProcess notes on a work in progress (me). This mostly contains raw rough content pulled out of practice notebooks. Occasional posts also invite you into the way I work, with intermittent notes on the hows and whys on the whats I make. Less often you may also find prompts and processes I've brought to workshops, as well as surveys that help me gather material for projects. Similar earlier posts from years ago can be found on: Archives
May 2022
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