On choosing

Tomorrow, I have to turn in a recently written poem

and I am stressing out, freaking out, pulling out
my hair as it falls in tufts around
unfamiliar pages filled with words that
sound somewhat like me,
but a different Me.

A Me who knew, recognized, breathed
those lines and smiled in each of their
conclusions.

This Me sees: the threat of words that
just. don't. fit.
beside one another,

as if stuffed in a jar,
through the neck of a bottle,
down the throat of a child.

----

Someone help me choose a poem to hand over to a strange professor, to slip beneath the eyes of
nine other classmates, as I--vulnerable, insecure, unsure,
inadequate--
watch them stare, frown, muse,

and pull out:

Nothing

from the Nothingness
of my poetry.

----
Your words can only mean nothing if they are nothing.

Kellie Parkinson
PO Box 9765
Oakland, CA 94613


DO it.

I'd like to punch a hole in the nearest wall

Just say that you ...

Oh.

Hi?

I surprised myself by clicking "new post" without knowing what to New Post about.

I suppose I could bore you with the normal, everyday, 'room's-not-clean' and 'looking-for-a-job'- type things. But that would be... normal. And Everyday.

Just like my day is not.


Make sense of that.

If you are looking to pray and don't know what to pray for, or to talk about, or to muse over, or to send happy thoughts towards--I am waiting for the 'ok' on a shift change in the Writing Center. Or for God to open up the skies and shout out directions. Or at least to drop a map.

And, you see, I would isolate that paragraph to a particular section of my life; I would give you specifics and lovely little details. But I reference my entire life. Every little bullet and sub-point on the outline of this chapter of my world could use a little Google map that says 'start here' and 'destination will be on the--'

Left? In the middle of the street? { like the crooked homeless man this morning who waved his sign on my windshield, shouting his "Veteran in need of" into the streaked glass. Wipers on. "Sheek, sheek." Still in need--but the "of" is blank }

like that slate we all reference and give a knowing nod toward, as if the same tuneless song dwindles through our (semi) conscious minds.

God, give me the right question to ask that makes sense of the answers I see-

[-k?]

Now that I adjust my eyes as you turn to leave

Well, I'm moved into Mills, even if still not completely set up. (Clothes strewn about the floor from wall-to-wall evidence enough of that). But I'm here.

Some things are exactly as I hopefully expected; and, some things are ... not.

I cannot decide whether the City is freedom or toxic. I do not mean the thick fog that lingers over the city of Oakland, burning off before the fog across the bay and creating a strange, pulling vortex toward that .. City as it sits engulfed in the still-sleeping clouds that weep on passerby's cheeks.

The City is San Francisco and I watch her fall asleep in the morning, waiting to wake hours later to spit crazed bus lines and clacking stilletos and grungy old men with their hair twisted all over their head and a week-old coffee cup shaking in the faces of the rich businessmen on their way to work.

The high-rise buildings are all gray from over here--gray and asleep as the sun leaks white light across their faces.

Oakland is not City: he does not have the heart like the City who sleeps across the bay. All night is loud, aimless sirens and all day is tired people walking from one block to the next: the migrant workers searching for work, the jobless mingling with the homeless so they all look soil and sweat and lethargy.

A city like Oakland cannot decide where he begins and ends: he blurs tokens through Berkeley, into Alameda, down the streets of San Leandro and up into the hills and along the shore of Lake Merritt. He feels non-committal, afraid, insecure.

----

I am drinking a cup of coffee brought to me from Africa.
I long for someplace exotic.

A Whole New World

I live in my room at Mills now. I can see the San Francisco bay from my window and this evening the sun painted the horizon a milky orange that matched the juice in my cup, which I sipped as I watched the city yawn into the night--then rise to life.

My foot is covered in mosquito bites from a hike Zak and I took through a surprise forest nestled above a street riddled with an interesting assortment of folks. The bugs bit three times. And I got stuck in a tree and almost fell off a hill. But it was a glorious adventure.

Excitement coursed through my veins as I moved to school, anticipating the poetry I'd write and the friends I'd make and the closeness to Zak.

Thus far, I underestimated the glory of having him so near. I can see San Francisco from my window. I can drive 15 minutes and arrive at his doorstep.

Praise God for opening doors. And now I live on a mountain surrounded by haunted looking buildings and crooked paths that lead to secret gardens.

My latest prayers circle around my job-less state. May He knock my pride down a few notches so I can humbly serve any need.

I have arrived.

On Friday night, I sat in a semi-circle with family and talked and listened through stories of past, present, future. My aunt's eyes glittered through stories of our ancestors, I laughed across memories of Ireland, Hayley pretended to half-heartedly muse about her future (though I know she's secretly dreaming on her own). And when Alyssa arrived, I sat in a huddle with my two sisters and felt whole: complete in a way only sisters can afford.

Early Saturday morning, I packed half my life in the car and began a road trip north with my sisters.

We sailed past Santa Barbara, stopping in Goleta for camera film and a tide pen (due to my spastic driving, Alyssa ended up with coffee all over her light shirt. hehe)

Along the coast, we watched the waves snake north and caught glimpses of gulls, tourists, vultures, and cows (to Hayley's delight).

After resisting the urge to side-trip to Buelton (where I hear you can feed ostriches), we reached SLO and jumped onto the 1, where the ocean again greeted us--like familiar friends.

Lunch in Morro Bay: a town riddled with lovely little antique shops and slow-moving old men, who smile when the occasional tourist winds into their path. Site to see: Morro Rock--a huge, impossibly out-of-place "mountain" of a rock, perched on the beach of Morro Bay.

We ate sandwiches and pizza from a corner-in-the-wall Italian place and got back in the car, heading to Hearst Castle.

Hearst Castle, with its gold-plated floors and its Romanesque sculptures and is Mediterranean aura, was breathtaking, if not a little out of place on the peak of a San Simeon mountain. Birds circled--what I thought were hawks turned out to be vultures--and the air was warm, but not sticky-hot like the beach tends to be. In fact, the heat seemed to radiate not from the sun but from the Castle beneath our feet--a heat begging relief in the clear Neptune pool or in a recline in one of the sofas of the large main house.

I really did feel as if Mr Hearst sampled the best parts of Europe and painstakingly molded them into the hillside. The man definitely knew his art.

After Hearst Castle, we stopped for coffee and ice cream in Cambria as we headed south to slide onto the 46, in an attempt to avoid the windy northern path of Hwy 1. Hours later (after singing at the top of our lungs every song we could find on Hayley or Alyssa's ipod) we arrived in Monterey. We waved at the sign for the school and drove around for a glimpse at the town before having dinner on the beach.

San Francisco saw us slouching into bed at 11pm in a hotel by the airport, exhausted but eager to finish off the trip in the morning with a drive through the city before I had to put my sisters on the train in Oakland. When I heard they'd been picked up in Bakersfield and were headed home, a huge part of me yearned to go with them. But that chapter has drawn to a gentle close: I turned city-ward, to where Zak welcomed me with an embrace, and the next chapter opened:

the poet now resides in the heart of Oakland, gearing up to start the next adventure at Mills. Last night I slept in an inn on the water, by Jack London Square. I can hear the waves whispering outside my window and I am at peace, even though the next few hours sees me moving onto campus and entering a nearly foreign world.

I miss my sisters. I miss my family and the closeness of our bond.
But I love San Francisco, and hopefully I will learn to love Oakland as well. I am overjoyed with the nearness of Zak.

hello, Home.

Another end of another Chapter

I'm leaving again.

The suitcase in the center of my floor overflows with the entire contents of my closet.

I have three boxes in the hall: my shoes lined in pretty rows with their heels sticking up; my books nudged against one another, their bindings matched to size; my bedding folded and vaccuum-sealed--the space-saver.

I don't know what parts of my life to keep, to tote along. I don't know what parts to leave resting in the shelves of my closet, or the corners of my desk drawers. I don't know what parts to pour into the black trashbag unceremoniously draped over my doorknob.

I don't know what parts.

No one ever packs it all.

I'd like to fit my sisters in this suitcase; the warmth of my mother, the heart of my father. But no one ever packs it all. Instead I have photographs and memories peppered with sunshine and salted with rain. This, then, is the beginning of another--heart break.

I wish the earth were flat, so I could always see everything. So that the only hindrance would be my inadequate eyes, and not the stretch of the world.

I thought I was eager to leave. But I find myself reluctant to put the key in the ignition. I leave my things strewn about, unpacked, waiting: in the choosing of what remains, what journeys, and what's thrown away.

Can't I be everywhere? At the side of my eagerly anticipated friend--Love--Zak AND behind the desk of a graduate classroom AND in the car next to my mom on yet another long journey, in the room next door to my still-highscooled sister. Can't I Be it all?

In the space between, I sway and play tug-of-war with the turning of the page.

On "Goodbyes."

A silly little red head rubbed the freckles on her cheeks, tweaked her braids, and dreamed up the bosom friend.

Decades after that literary child sprang to life, the spirit of her words wrap themselves around a precious few of my own comrades and draw them in a swirled etch on my heart--a pattern that sinks deeper with time and seems oblivious to space.

A true friend Listens to the hush of your core: nods along and slips in her own tune, so whatever melody you hummed blends to harmony, chants a rhythm, trills complete:

because without a round, Row, Row, Row your boat is just clumsy notes
and Ode to Joy, without a symphony, another exercise.

As I boarded the train today, the Santa Barbara morning was silver as the stars. Palm trees and tourists sped past the clouded window--

past Kelsey--the woman indistinguishable from the joy of the sun, from the wisdom of the earth, from the delight of the sparrow and the patience of the waves upon the shore.

While the beach town faded, I settled into my seat.


"I've always dreamed of having a bosom friend," said Anne with a sigh. "A true kindred spirit!"


For a friendship not bound by geography~

This should be framed with a smile

I am in Santa Barbara and the sky clouds gray like the whispers of fog that puff from your mouth on a cold night.

It's lovely. Kelsey and I head to the pier to watch the waves come in. Last night, we attempted to participate in the Fiesta festivities, but after half an hour of standing in line at Dargans, watching dead people zombie-walk through the streets with confetti freckling their black hair and hearts, we shrugged, escaped to Vons and bought chocolate cookies and milk. Returning to Kelsey's apartment, we curled on the couch in our pajamas, watched a good Hugh Grant flick, and dozed off while Santa Barbara burned around us.

I missed this city. Part of me will probably always--miss it. 

In the next few days I'll be loitering about this beach town. Emily's in town from Texas and the reunion of cherished friends has warmed a part in my heart that's shivered for a while.

Off to sand and overcast sun.

Can I be your Memory?

I really miss my friends. Mammoth has been wonderful with all its natural wonder and high school laughter. But I miss people my age. I miss the sidewalk of the VK courtyard and the dirt on the old track and the baseball field at night with its stars that stretch for miles while we slouched in the stands and grinned.

I miss Butterfly beach and the black waves after dark that crash at your feet as you dangle them over the ledge. I miss State Street in the afternoon, when Westmont students crowd the corners and wave "hello" even if you've never talked to them before because they're Westmont and you're Westmont and that makes you Kin if not Same.

And even if we didn't have much school pride, or enthusiasm for section events, or rolled our eyes at that one professor that droned too long (or the student that did the same);

Even if the campus crowds with bungaloes and tractors where there used to be trees,

The path still winds through the undergrowth: the one that Willis snaked around the perimeter, the one that's broken up with streams and rocks and wildlife and silence.


the path still creeps beneath the bridge and through the trees past Kerwood and in the center of the formal gardens to end at the

little: white: Chapel
that

Sings stained-glass hymns after dark, as a Somebody, a Same, the Kin, presses piano keys
by candlelight.