papillonmuse

******EDIT*****

In my previous post I made the assumption, from my pathetic Portuguese, that the rioters lit the bus on fire with the 30 people in it, when in fact, they politely asked everyone to get off the bus and THEN lit it on fire. Well, at least they're considerate rioters. But that makes things a little less disturbing, a bus can be a replaced but a life, not so much.

So I have decided that one of the most interesting jobs around would be being a taxi driver...incredibly dangerous I'm sure and I'm sure not a very well paying job but you get to meet so many interesting people. Drivers in Brasil are out of their mind. I think I have heard similar things about the Italians but I have seen my life flash numerous times before my eyes. They drive crazy fast and there aren't any lanes or if there are no body pays attention to them. Even when the light is red they still go and being a pedestrian here is almost a death wish. I'm not even sure these cars come equipped with turn signals. Honking, however, appears to be a favorite past time although it is used more of a locater than out of anger. Mostly it is "Just so you know I'm riding on your ass now" or my favorite "HEY LOOK AT ME!! I'm going to "politely" cut you off! Have a nice day!!" My usual mode of travel is walking and subways and busses and stuff but Maria seems used to a different standard so living her kind of life is a culture shock, let alone being in this city.

So. Rio de Janeiro is turning out to be one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. However, with everything light there is a dark, naturally. Ipanema, where I'm staying is one of the wealthiest and safest districts but the majority of the city is a favella (slum). On the streets here, even in Ipanema, there are Brasilian soldiers walking around, there are guards by every business, restauarant and residential street. I have been walking around by myself through Ipanema and not felt any threat at all. I know enough pidgen Portuguese to manage...pathetically but still. However, while talking to Maria, our host, I am learning a great deal about the reality of many countries outside America. There is a constant warefare ensuing between the militar and the people in the favella's. A few days ago, a military helicopter was surveying the favella's for crime and someone from the slums shot the helicopter down and the crew died and so in turn they military on the streets of the favellas killed the asassin and then yesterday the people of the favella's rioted against the military and burned a bus with 30 people on it. Apparently, the riots between the militar and the people in the slums is constant and tense. Yeah. Um...HOLY SHIT??? Although there has been a shadow of such things in the U.S. (i.e. Rodney King), I think for the most part not many Americans have experienced this. It is hard to know who is in the right, the militar or the people, or if either of them are. It seems they only know how to communicate through death and ammunition. I have travelled through poverty before but in Rio, it is very different. A sense of fatality beneath the glamour. If one wants to see an extreme case of all this, City of God is a movie about the housing development of Rio which is what i'm talking to to a Nth degree.

So, today my mom's friend Maria took us on a tour of Rio de Janeiro with her favorite taxi driver and we went around doing all the touristy things like drinking coconut juice on the beach and driving through the Florista Tijuca which is a beautiful rainforest with waterfalls and windy roads. Also, however, we went to Cristo Redentor which is the statue of Jesus that can be seen from almost any point in the city. I'm not catholic but it's really impressive. It looks like this: http://www.velardez.com.ar/BRA/RIO-01-Cristo.jpg Anyways, after we took pictures of all the mountains and the city I walked down these stone steps and I'm just kind of meandering around this stone railing and all of a sudden this monkey jumps down next to me! Naturally, I try to maintain my calm composure but really I ended up being like Im "HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!! A MONKEY!!! LOOK!!! A MONKEY!!! WOW!!! MONKEY!!!" and I'm all excited now and our hostess, Maria, is laughing hysterically at my excitement because apparently monkeys are like squirrels and they're all over the place, and sure enough I saw about 5 of them in the next 10 minutes..big ones, little ones, but oh my god they're adorable. It was hopping around and then some guy (damn tourists..:) ) handed him a piece of a banana and he had these tiny little hands and grabbed it and shoved it all in his mouth. He was black and white with these little white tufts of hair around his head. Anyways, I'd never seen a monkey before, and the ones in the zoo don't count. Then we went through this fruit market with people just everywhere offering us fruit to try and yelling out to come try their fruit and it's like a typical farmers market on crack. This one guy was dancing with his fruit and someone else was singing about their fruit and it makes one have fun no matter what seeing everyone else have fun. Anyways, the monkey was still the highlight.

arrived in brasil this afternoon...no words really. there aren't any to describe. it's just beautiful...foreign and different, a dream i didn't know could exist. it's a city that sprawls and curls around these green peaks that rise out of nowhere and the Christo Redendor (or something) watched the entire city. i'm jetlagged and delirious...24 hours, 5 planes, 4 countries and I'm here...Rio de Janeiro, adventures to come...

"The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world."



dawn
tea leaves are settling at the bottom of my cup
blue lady tea
i can't get them out of my head
gypsies
close my eyes
just for a second
but i lose myself in everything. do you see it?
it's there. she knows.
pulsing.
the world breathing.
I keep tracing lines with my fingers.
corners of desks.
time malingers

Here we go...our favourite adventure..

Done with school, spent a day or so at the beach. Bolinas, the little beach town north of San Francisco that's still stuck in 1969. The locals took down the signs saying how to get there. It's the place I go for closure. Brought along an old friend, a last hurrah before he progresses forward. The rain came down as we wandered on the beach, cold, shivering, soaked, wet sand between my toes. Took cover in the Coast Cafe and warmed with clam chowder and black tea, the sugar settling on the bottom. Retreating from the cold and rain we found an afternoon nap at the Grand Hotel, not really a hotel, but an old dilapidated beach house with a thrift store in the living room and two attic rooms for guests...I watched through the window at the Cypress trees dancing in the wind and the sheets of rain moving across. Early evening found us trekking across the mesa and down onto a hidden beach, the tide moving quickly in, taunting our courage. The sand littered with hundreds of purple and clear jellies I scream in surprise as I accidentally squish one between my toes. The sun falls down and we're in the kitchen making thai stir fry, something so satisfying about putting effort into a meal with someone else...the meal fades into wine upstairs in the two stuffed chairs talking, remembering, sharing. Wine fades into sleep and morning. One last walk on the beach before returning. Anemones, sensitive to the touch, in clusters on rocks, the tide washing over them. I perch precariously on rock trying to examine life so oblivious to ours. Responsibility urges us on and we pile back in the car, heading out. The smell lingers, dill. It haunts me as I climb twisting turning up Highway 1. Deja vu. Closure.

THIS SITE RULES!!!!


http://www.storewars.org/flash/

be careful
it's not as solid as you think
a knife could cut it
the veil between us and them
between here and there

be careful
there is more than this
more than you and me
there are seas between us
with water whose world is treacherous
jump

be careful
i'm not as solid as you think
i fall into dreams too
i fall into you
we reverberate

My roommate and I have had an unwanted guest living in our garage for quite some time. This guest is small enough to be inconspicuous to the common eye but large enough to give me the heebie jeebies, has a shiny black bottom decorated with a red hour glass. Her name's Gertrude which seemed fitting for a creature who murders her husband and then enjoys the hours of spinsterhood. Regardless, Gertrude is often seen behind the door in the streams of cobwebs she's decorated the place in, and then sometimes she's not there which makes me think she's probably somewhere read to jump down my shirt and murder me mercilessly. Well, maybe not, but her disappearance is unnerving. I prefer to know right where my enemies are. Now, granted, I am okay with my arachnids and usually perform the usual Buddhist ceremony of cupping them in a paper towel and freeing them to the outdoors unharmed. Gertrude, however, is exempt from this rule, because she's hideous and just give me the CREEPS. Naturally, my sweet, endearing roommate is useless in this situation (bless her heart, she'll probably read this) so the duty of extermination is left up to me. Now, I'm in a dilemma which I leave up to the reader to assess. I have considered letting her remain in our garage out of pure fear and avoidance, I have also bought insect spray which I was intending to spray and then run out of the garage screaming like a little girl and flailing my arms. Or, really, my most favorite plan was to employ some manly man who's in desperate need of proving his testosterone level to free Gertrude into spider hell in whatever way seems fit. So naturally, I'm posting this for volunteers. Oh come on, you know you want to get your revenge. I'll cheer from the sidelines and provide lemonade. Any takers? Anyone?

*****Note to self and readers...I have now managed to waste 15 minutes of my life during finals week when I should have been studying and writing essays, writing a diatribe about our resident arachnid. This is when you know you're good.***

So I'm standing at the MU waiting for my trusty W bus to come take me home when a flash of yellow catches my eye. I look up and see a man wearing a banana suit yelling "Waaahooooo" running through the bus terminal, which would have been weird enough but chasing him was a man in a gorilla suit yelling "aaooooggaaa"...............this totally makes me appreciate my university.

I'm wondering if I've crossed the line from pleasantly nature loving into a wild Bachaeian lunatic. Aside from my gallavants into the hills I have decided to examine my trusty subaru contraption-in other words my car. The piece of shit tin can miraculously has turned into a biosphere all on it's own due to my lack of concern and most likely my tendency to store random items ranging from claypots to books to hibachi grills, mittens, and of course strange Brasilian pottery given to me by exboyfriend's stepfathers. I mean, who knows, I might need to beat some lusty boy off with it. Regardless, as I'm mindlessly putting groceries into my car this afternoon the glittery gleam of spider silk catches my eye and I lean a little closer into my backseat and notice that not just one, but a family of beautiful garden spiders have moved into my car and are living quite happily decorating my backseat with beautiful streamers connecting their intricate webs. Actually, I'm quite pleased that they've decided to accompany me on my journeys around in my shitmobile but I'm sure my passengers will have something quite different to say. Anyways, as I arrive home, my curiosity gets the better of me and I wonder if maybe I should examine the back end of my car and see what ecology I could possibly be supporting. I climb in and raise my eyes in amusement as I see the pile of gardening soil that got dumped out months ago after I was carting around some plants, supporting a beautiful green seedling of god knows what. Naturally , I leave it undisturbed and climb out. So now my car is creating it's own existence and soon will be it's own greenhouse. I'm sure I ought to clean it out or something but I can't help but be impressed with how well the natural world adapts to our presence. Afterall, it's sort of claiming us back since we've tried so hard to separate us. Regardless, if you see a naked woman gallavanting in the hills with leaves in her hair and muttering some ancient druidic language you'll know who's finally gone off the edge...

"Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is symbolic as well as actual beauty in the migration of birds, the ebb and flow of tides, the folded bud ready for spring. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature-the assurance that dawn comes after night and spring after winter." ~Rachel Carson

Up with the dawn. Throw on some cords and pull on a sweatshirt. Grab my keys and head out into my car. Get in and I'm driving far away, into the hills, leaving behind all my obligations. As the apartments and houses fade into wide open fields being tended by farmers early in the morning the constraints and mechanical hum of the car fade away and I am taken back years into memory. Childhood. Lying in an alpine meadow above my house, the jagged peaks of the Mission Range in the background, and above me, as I'm splayed out beneath forests of wildflowers, I watch the Redtail hawk turn circles in the sky, emperor of the ether. Slowly he wings above me cogniscent of every movement of prey below him and I am nothing, insignificant, just melting back into the earth. I even wish that the wildflowers would begin to grow over me and return me into the sweet incense smelling earth. The memory fades and I wake in a new one, a few years later. Driving in my dad's pickup truck, his quiet stoic presence directing us as we go. The jangly contraption always smells like fresh tobacco, the kind you buy in twisted bundles for medicine and spiritual rituals. Everyonce in a while, my father mutters under his breath, some quiet observation or statement about what our people used to do in the area, the spirituality that permeates the area, the waterfalls, the trees that whisper secrets we ought to remember. The road dead ends in an enclave cedar trees, their scent wafting from the branches above. We are deep somewhere, people and civilization are so far away I have forgotten that they exist. Nothing is happening besides this moment. It's quiet, despite the roar of the waterfall rushing next to us, it's a kind of quiet that makes sense, that reverberates in your bones, that reminds you of something ancestral and familiar although your consciousness makes it slightly out of reach. Dad and I crawl onto a boulder next to the rushing water and he tells me coyote stories and points out different plants and hands me my medicine bundle, the traditional step for my tribe into womanhood. Opening the rough leather bundle I hold a stone Grizzly fetish with a turquoise arrow tied around it's heart. I run my fingers across the edges, memorizing the shape. In this instant I have become part of my people, in their eyes I am an adult and I have been given my name which is a personal reflection of who I have come to be. Woman Who Hears Twice. For there is a world which we hear with our ears and there is another world which we hear with our soul, our body. I fade back into reality, into the present as I pull my old subaru into the gravel pull off. I grab my backpack and head off into the hills. I stand at the opening of Cold Canyon gazing at the California hills which have faded from their lush green into golden fields. I take a deep breath, taking in the scent of dill and grass. My mind wanders once more to my father, now rendered a shadow of his old power by a severe stroke. His memory of his childhood and even Vietnam have become fuzzy and gray, but there is a light, a gleam that arises in his eyes when I mention our adventures deep in the Mission Mountains, a place so beautiful, that there have been time when I have dropped to my knees and sobbed into my hands. But I know that somewhere, my father is still there, haunted too by memories that echo.

i want to be irridescent
and blue
i want to shiver to the touch
i want to be your everything
your world
make it real. make me real

i am living waking dreams
all these experiences
all these thoughts

sometimes i think about wings
and i imagine pulling feathers from my lips

but in my mind i burn
i burn crimson red
and the nubs of my wings bleed

http://gprime.net/video.php/patchesthehorse

all i gotta say is whoa...

Up early this morning. 5 am coffee brewing. Feeling infinite and beautiful this morning. This happens when I wake up with the dawn. I only slept about 4 or 5 hours last night but it feels sufficient. There's always napping anyways...which is a favorite pasttime too. Yesterday, I laid in bed curled up under my down comforter and looked out my window at my murky fish bowl and closed my eyes and let the breeze blow upon my face and it felt good and for the first time in a long while I felt a sense of happiness and contentment. I have the theme for cider house rules playing now and I'm quietly typing away at AIM and it's so quiet now. I love the quiet. I'm probably going to call Michael in Spain soon and see what he's doing. I got this book of poetry called "The Cliff's Edge" which is astoundingly beautiful.

A Dream Lies Dead
~~Dorothy Parker

A dream lies dead here. May you softly go
Before this place, and turn away your eyes,
Nor seek to know the look of that which dies
Importuning Life for life. Walk not in woe,
But, for a little, let your step be slow.
And, of your mercy, be not sweetly wise
With words of hope and Spring and tenderer skies.
A dream lies dead; and this all mourners know:

Whenever one drifted petal leaves the tree-
Though white of bloom as it had been before
And proudly waitful of fecundity-
One little loveliness can be no more;
And so must Beauty bow her imperfect head
Because a dream has joined the wistful dead!

I am making a collage on my wall of black and white photographs that I have taken. So far they're mostly of me, my family and the palace of the fine arts in San Francisco. It makes me feel like i'm surrounded by people that love me. I am contemplating my place in the night because lately this is where I come alive. Here in my room, my haven, my sanctuary, I explore the world through the electronic wonderland of the internet and plot and scheme. But I feel infinite. I am beginning to travel through Nor and Fayre again-the worlds in my head. Nor is a place of light and Fayre is a place of darkness. Occasionally I flit through Nor but I try not to stay a while because Fayre always follows Nor and I'm not ready to go back there although I'm flirting with it these days. When I'm in Nor everything is fantastical and beautiful. I feel it especially strong at night. I transcend realms. These worlds are beautiful but treacherous too for I know only I exist there and that it does not involve the rest of the waking world. In a way it's lonely there too because I can't find a way to invite others in. There are creatures that exist there though, that are only part of those worlds that are not found in this world, this waking life. It is hard to exist in the waking life, the nothing, because everything's duller than in the other worlds. When I'm in the nothing I have a hard time telling that I'm real. That this is real. Is this real? I need some validation for my existence but I'm not sure how to find it. I found a book of poetry written by a schizophrenic. I'm not sure it's safe for me to read it but I delve in anyways. I wonder what's safe for me to do or what will send me into the deep end again. I'm swimming slowly there now but I can tread water without diving down. The darkness ebbs and flows and I move with the tide.

"I fall into shadows, the midst
of things broken down"~Pablo Neruda

I fall to dreams. I fall to pieces but I am not shattered. I spent today working and passing the hours through thoughts. I am teetering on the edge again. It's always like this, this sense of falling apart. It's quiet and not destructive just a falling apart. Things fall apart but sometimes they fall apart in your hand and you can put them back together and sometimes they crumble to ash. I wonder if it is always going to be like this. This struggle with reality and dreams the way I fall back and forth between the two. After all, it has always been this way. I am caught in memories and dreams and held fast. I have stumbled across some fascinating new people who all have really good souls and I feel very safe and comfortable and I feel like there is much in common. I am caught in dreams tonight. There are so many fantasies that I want to live. I think I am going to throw a party to celebrate Beltane with little lights and music and have everyone bring a dish of food and I will wear my wings and celebrate the God and the Goddess.

"Have you ever seen the face
You know the one i'm talking about
Have you ever been to that place
You know the one i'm not supposed to say" Cat Power



Sometimes I want to die quietly...or just fade away from all this chaos. I told her. She knows. She knows and I am sure she would be okay with it..maybe we could fade together, although I'm sure we have our own separate existences. It's like that movie "what dreams may come" where you create your own heaven out of your own mind and soul. Mine would have both light and dark places. There would lots of mountain spaces with people with wings and stardust but there would also be dark corners with peope in cloaks and lanterns. I saw my brother today and it just added to the dissonance. we are so different. he is in the military and has learned over the years now to forget his mountain time in Montana, the way we used to roam the hills and explore for grasshoppers and frogs in the ponds. he knows only now how to give commands and direct people around and he treats me as if i'm part of all that too but it's a world separate from me. It's like we're trying to communicate to one another from our separate worlds but there's a glass plate in between us. I see his every move but I can't understand the process behind anything, it's just movements to me there's no compassion no feeling. just movements in space. i had a panic attack this weekend and I just allowed it to consume me. There was no feeling just anxiety and numbness and I just slipped into it. I was at the coast with my mom and dad and I finally told them about it even though they knew something was wrong. It isn't what made me burn myself but it's definetly part of it all. I just can't function and my mind goes into a different dark place when it's all happening. There have been a lot of dark places recently. I don't want to go back to them but they hang on like a ghost limb...I just cannot shake the memory.

" Wakening from the dreaming forest there, the hazel-sprig
sang under my tongue, its drifting fragrance
climbed up through my conscious mind
as if suddenly the roots I had left behind
cried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood -
and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent." ~ Pablo Neruda

The storm is here with full force and power. I leave my window open to let all the cool air into my room so I can hear the rain pouring outside and the wind moving through the trees next to my window. Soon I will curl up under my blankets and drift off far off into dreams. I finished today with my first term back at the University. I feel like I'm doing it, like I'm existing somehow in this universe despite it all. I know that I can do it and that it jsut takes a certain kind of existing to understand this world these dreams the way the energies flow here. We are all just this burning balls of energy that exist outside our bodies somehow and we're always interacting with the world through energy. And there are so many different kinds and colors and feelings from this energy. I feel like I'm beginning to understand the energy of this world, this place where I have felt so foreign and separate I am beginning to understand it's energy in me and where I can exist too with my worlds and my mind and dreams. I have two weeks offf from school now that I can retreat into my mind and gain my rejuvenation to do it all over again. I am meeting more people in my major and finding some incredible minds that exist out there...some people even think my mind is beautiful and we exist somehow together pulling in strands of idea into this common ground between us. The people in my major all seem to have a similar kind of philosophy and love for the land....it's this deep connection with nature that just courses through us all. Maybe my madness can exist here too and be a part of all this instead of something I keep as separate-maybe this is the link between me and all of these people, showing them that other worlds do exist and you can access them through nature. but i am scared for not everyone has the strength to let go of this world so easily. i wax and wane...the night pulls at me and I am beginning to fade into the darkness.