Personal

Don't take it personal, they said;
but I did, I took it all quite personal -

the breeze and the river and the color of the fields;
the price of grapefruit and stamps,

the wet hair of women in the rain -
And I cursed what hurt me

and I praised what gave me joy,
the most simple-minded of possible responses.

The government reminded me of my father,
with its deafness and its laws,

and the weather reminded me of my mom,
with her tropical squalls.

Enjoy it while you can, they said of Happiness
Think first, they said of Talk

Get over it, they said
at the School of Broken Hearts

but I couldn't and I didn't and I don't
believe in the clean break;

I believe in the compound fracture
served with a sauce of dirty regret,

I believe in saying it all
and taking it all back

and saying it again for good measure
while the air fills up with I'm Sorries

like wheeling birds
and the trees look seasick in the wind.

Oh life! Can you blame me
for making a scene?

You were that yellow caboose, the moon
disappearing over a ridge of cloud.

I was the dog, chained in some fool's backyard;
barking and barking:

trying to convince everything else
to take it personal too.

-Tony Hoagland

"It is always what is under pressure in us, especially under pressure of concealment - that explodes in poetry."

- Adrienne Rich

One Place to Begin

You need a reason, any reason - skiing, a job in movies,
     the Golden Gate Bridge.
Take your reason and drive west, past the Rockies.
When you're bored with bare hills, dry flats, and distance,
     stop anywhere.
Forget where you thought you were going.

Rattle through the beer cans in the ditch.
If there's a fence, try your luck - they don't stop cows.
Follow the first hawk you see, and when the sagebrush
     trips you, take a good look before you get up.
The desert gets by without government.

Crush juniper berries, breathe the smell, smear your face.
When you wonder why you're here, yell as loud
     as you can and don't look behind.
Walk. Your feet are learning.

Admit you're afraid of the dark.
Soak the warmth from scabrock, cheek to lichen.
The wind isn't talking to you. Listen anyway.
Let the cries of coyotes light a fire in your heart.
Remember the terrible song of the stars - you knew it once,
     before you were born.

Tell a story about why the sun comes back.
Sit still until the itches give up, lizards ignore you,
     a mule deer holds you in her eyes.
Explain yourself over and over. Forget it all
     when a scrub jay shrieks.
Imagine sun, sky, and wind the same, over your
     scattered white bones.

On Better Late Than Never

It's just before 6 a.m. in Hawaii, and I'm sitting on my lanai (balcony) with a little tiny bird near my feet. Yesterday some birds flew into my hotel room, hung out for awhile, and then fluttered back out, all made up of calm and air and light. This morning I couldn't sleep because of the cacophony of the birds, the hundreds of these little singing featherpuffs living inside the tree near my balcony. This is sort of endearing, and sort of annoying, but mostly it's just different. I could curl up inside of anything different and live there forever.

So far, this trip has been sock-rocking. It's funny, I never want to go to places like Hawaii because I often feel they're overdone. Everyone goes to Hawaii, therefore, it's not special anymore, right? What a stupid, snobby way to think. Travel is the same (sometimes) as literature - there is a reason that certain places (books) are beloved. Maui is exceptional. It's so beautiful it's irritating. It's so joyously colorful and bright that it's stupid. I could live here forever and never grow tired of those mountains and that sea. 

The photos below, of me wearing a bikini on a beach, happened on day one, and I need to memorialize them here. I have wanted this moment since I was old enough to understand that girls are supposed to be beautiful and thin, and if they aren't, they have somehow failed at girlhood and should be whole-bodily ashamed. I absorbed that lesson young. Definitely before my teenage years, and possibly before I was 10. I have spent my entire youth loathing this body, instead of loving it.

I wish I knew at any point in time that the power to feel beautiful is always in your own hands. You can either find it by being healthy and fit, which then (as a little bonus) conforms you to certain societal standards, or you can buck all of that and just be confident with what you have, but either way - the power to feel gorgeous has always been inside of you. No one ever took it from you. You just gave it away. 

I'll be 32 in a few weeks. I had the idea that, when I lost weight, a svelte 19 year old body would pop out. Obviously, I've been wildly disappointed in that. My body is every inch of my age. But yesterday I walked on the beach for a few miles with my husband. Then I sprinted a quick mile in the hotel gym, then I lifted weights for an hour. Later that day I ate a big lunch, a huge ice cream cone, and drank a sugary tropical drink. Then I swam in the ocean. I feel bad about none of it. I felt alive and healthy and vital. Which is gorgeous. Finally.