It's Me, I Swear.

I’m writing these words to you. When you read them and hear my voice, whether you know me or not, you learn something of my mind. You know a bit (but not everything) of what makes me tick. When I write I shake up my failings, my joys, my tendency to drift off into the Otherwhere. I’m not trying to sell you anything. You either twig to my choice of words, my syntax, all these commas, and yes, the dreaded em dash everyone is avoiding now – all part of my unique code – or you don’t, and you turn the invisible page with a flick of your pointer finger. This is the new book, the phone that we carry everywhere to have access to all information, false and real, and to document our lives. To prove. 

I’ve been trying to use my phone as a phone. Why do we call this object with no discernable receiver or snug earpiece, or long coil of connection to twist around our fingers, a “phone?” I crave a proper word for it. Yesterday as I chatted with a friend on my “cell” (who uses that term anymore?) I experienced that phenomenon where for a moment you can hear an intrusive echo of your own voice. Everything I said was parroted back with a three second delay. My head was so crowded by my echo I couldn’t think to continue the conversation. We paused until whatever caused it passed, and I could speak again without me talking twice. 

Maybe phonecho is the right word for it. It is an auditory, hallucinatory, visual canyon we shout into, our words bouncing off each other. Whoever shouts loudest gets their message across.

I can’t write or read on my phonecho. I’m in awe of people who do.  I write best by hand, or on my computer. I comprehend what is read from the pages of a book, and I sluice what is read from a screen. 

I also dream a lot, offline, and remember many of them. These dreams are not on my phone, or yours, or anywhere, really. Are they in my blood, soft tissue, nerves, pons? They are the rucksack of images I have processed throughout my days, hauled out and handed back and forth between the here and there. 

Last night in my dreams I had a winter glove on my left hand, and in the palm was a strip of masking tape, and on that tape were some handwritten numbers. The numbers changed like a padlock code. I understood that I had to press the center of my palm when the sequence was correct. I had to unlock the code to be able to communicate. No matter what sequence I chose, I was never successful because the code was constantly changing, its language bending toward AI sameness. 

Clipped numbness. 

False humilities. 

Whispered truths.

I made that last bit sound like AI, but was me, really. Trust me. I mean it. These are my words that I am writing to you, words I’m not sure I can prove.

Viewfinder

I wake.
My soul spent the night
resting on an eyelash.
It slips into an iris, 
ready for duty. 
I hear my heart 
beat again, feel 
the smoothness
of pillowcase, lift
the whole corporeal canister
to reach for my glasses.

Cool arms curl each ear,
a bridge arches nose, 
lenses tighten the resolution 
of each scene — everything 
obscured or enhanced 
by the tip of my nose, 
my fleshy cheeks. 

Our private viewfinders
draw us like dogs with cameras 
attached to our heads —
lovable goofballs
lumping through life,
gusto noses 
leading the way.

Where is my soul now
that I am awake? 

Ribcage,
liver, 
duodenum —
in the darkest places,
out of frame,
editorial.

--

I've kept an index card with a scribbled note on it on my desk for several weeks: "noticing your cheeks, heartbeat, breath, end of nose, frames of glasses." Yesterday this poem arrived. 

Procedure

They expect me to sit in the chair in the corner. Human behavior in this room with nothing but a chair and a mirror is that the person will sit in the chair. It's the expectation of a calculated system.

I wait with the door open. My phone is locked up. I count all the objects in the room, including fixtures and outlets and door handles (both sides), and I include myself sitting in the chair. Forty-eight. This number is pleasing because it is divisible by eight. I do some neck stretches. There's the play I'm writing that I could think about, but when I'm away from it all the characters lead other lives, separate from the play, like they have day jobs and my play is a diversion.

Some song by Rod Stewart is playing through the tinny speaker on the ceiling (object #14), and I'm reminded of how much I don't like his voice, but he had that jazz album that wasn't bad. Didn't my friend Danielle sing one of his songs in a high school choral concert? She was on the homecoming court. Maybe the song was part of the event. There's a connection between her and Rod Stewart in my brain.

The blouse I wore here is a size six petite, too big in the waist, too short in the arms. Another Alice in Wonderland item of clothing I thrifted. It has gussets and placket buttons, and cuffs that fold back to reveal my wrists and two inches of my arm. Dan said I looked skinny in it when I left for this appointment, noting the looseness. None of my clothing feels right on my body. I prefer the outlandishness of costumes, where proportions are malleable. 

The carpeting in here is dark shades of greens in a pattern of varied circles that touch each other and remind me of lumps of moss. The hallway has a thinly striped carpeting of lighter shades of green. The patterns do not match. There is no door threshold strip, and some of the weave has come apart, spiraling up like a weed from a sidewalk crack.

I watch the shadow of another woman as she gets dressed in the room across the hall. The shapes and patterns the shadows make are as beautiful as watching leaf patterns on the ground. This thought strikes a low gong in me. All the leaves are falling now, and the leaf shadows will go with them. Bare branch patterns, arterial, will replace them. I wonder about the life of the woman behind the door, the woman in shadow, who nodded to me a grim acknowledgement as she left for her procedure. Why is she here? I hope it's routine.

I kick my feet to the music, tick-tock them, then move them in opposition. I do the same with my shoulders. This has taken some practice for me to do. Getting mocked about it in a theatre class started the practice. How urgent all the younger-than-me students in that class were. I resented their futures, and loved their enthusiasm.

Didn't I have better thoughts when I was in my 40s? Why can't I just be content sitting in this chair in the corner, a half naked human being with an ill-fitting blouse waiting for her? It seems all my friends who are in their 40s now are leading shinier lives than mine but I know this isn't true. My 40s weren't all that great. My mother was in decline. Helen will be in her 40s in ten years, and I will be ...

The math of that thought is a dark corner I avoid by observing the empty chair in the other room across the hall. It is a nicer chair than this one, I decide, because it's lines have an elegant mid-century modern style. It's arms are polished wood. My mother would have commented on that chair.

Now I am uncomfortable enough to stand, unlock the closet, and rifle around my bag to find my phone. The phone, that devil that promises to connect but divides me from the real world. I'll text Dan to see how he's doing. 

The lab tech arrives to walk me to my test. She's probably 42 or so, thick dark hair, big brown eyes. Lovely. "Hello Jennifer," she says. This week I talked to a receptionist who told me my full name was the same as her best friend. Jennifer Hill. 

My astrological chart reminds me that I am not that special, and my karmic lesson is to learn that others lead lives that are different from my own. Even the other people named Jennifer Hill.

Everything for me right now is 8, 16, 24, 32, 40, 48, 56, present, and accounted for, part of the system.

That Emerson Feeling

As a child I was comforted by the crackling reception of my grandfather's Emerson radio which was gifted as a hand-me-down electronic. Whatever my childhood imagination was up to in the moment -- setting up a set for a TV show, creating a beauty parlor in my room, or writing a short story from the back of my closet, fuzzy AM/FM radio programming was my companion and guide. Switching it on and waiting the half a minute for it to "warm up," was part of the magic of my theatre.

As my parents aged, they kept a radio in their kitchen which was on in the morning and evening. It was always tuned to their local PBS affiliate, WITF. When dad read in the evenings at the kitchen table, he listened to classical music and then would complain when John Diliberto came on with his show, "Echoes." That was his signal to stop reading.

Last week I asked Dan if we could get a radio for the kitchen. I felt like it was our turn to start listening to WITF in the morning and evenings. I'm tired of bluetooth connections and algorhythmic listening. I'm getting older, and I am discerning. I prefer print to digital, face-to-face interactions to online, and I'm loathe to admit I find a strange satisfaction in solving jigsaw puzzles now. I want to turn on a radio and have it fill up the room with songs or stories.

The radio we got also has a bluetooth option (of course), along with its ancient AM/FM capabilities. It is now sitting between the coffeepot and the tea kettle. I have learned after a week of listening that WITF is now all talk radio of some sort or another. There's no programming like Echoes, or classical music. 

I think what I wanted from this radio is something it can't give anymore or its funding gets cut. Free thought. The beauty of cellos on an otherwise empty Tuesday afternoon that lift your spirits and carry you through the rest of your workday. 

At this point, our donations keep the radio voices barely breathing. The knee of the administration is on the neck of every outlet that doesn't applaud it.

My addition of a radio in the kitchen was a way for me to keep the memory of my parents alive. When I switch it on, I find myself grateful that they aren't around to hear what is happening in the world.

I'm listening to a sample of Echoes on my computer's tinny speaker now, a track called "That Shore," from a band called "Pineapple Thief."  I can imagine my father closing his book, switching off the radio, and standing up from the ladderback chair. The caned seat squeaks and then he switches the lights off, the last note in the room an echo in the dark. 

Wyrd Bird Always Looking for Seeds

Well, hello. It's In-betweenween! My favorite time of year, when the leaves sing opera, and the crow visits the Hackberry every morning, and the eye of day squints longer at the start and earlier at the end. Reflection requires some darkness, and silence. This time of year provides it, but you have to be willing to slow down to receive it.

Several months ago, when we were in high sun time, Dan and I stopped at an antique shop in New Hampshire. We both saw the giant letters on the porch, but he was the one who spoke up about them. "What do you think they spell?" he asked. That was just what I needed to hear (he knows me), and we were up on that porch rearranging, trying to figure out what they once read. We found enough intriguing anagrams to buy them, and then drive for hours with giant metal letters squeaking in the back of the car until we were home. We rearranged them several times before getting them to be tolerably squeaky. They wanted to talk! Probably excited to have a new home.

For awhile, the letters sat on the ground by the fence, and we had our turns anagramming. 

A couple of weeks ago, Dan built a shelf for them that is slightly tilted, so the letters won't fall off, but we can still play with them. It's genius. My favorite full anagram of these letters is SOOTHSAYER. It's just right for In-betweenween, which is also my season of life. 

*Note visiting trickter raccoon in photo below:

This past week I completed a HarvardX course in Divination practices. It was fascinating, and illuminated a lot of the work I am doing right now creatively. I'm beyond excited to share some of what I've learned, but am not quite there yet as I am building some pieces and parts. (Don't worry, there are no sheep livers involved.) But I'm verified!

The other day my instincts told me I should spend time in my little attic treehouse after work, and I did, digging through old journals trying to find an answer to a question, and also to look for an empty book to use. I found my answer, and an empty notebook, and I was also gifted with an entry in my journal from last year, where I wrote about the origin of the word "weird." It was originally a noun, and spelled wyrd.

noun: wyrd

connected with fate.

noun: weird; plural noun: weirds 

a person's destiny.

The "weird sisters" of Macbeth were not odd, they were the three Fates. Well, they were also odd, so it was doubly good. Shakespeare was like that. A wyrd bird.

The Quiet Work of Showing Up

Last week, I performed The Sensory Circus of Small Wonders at Schreiber Pediatric. I’ve visited there for several years now to perform, but this time was different — a softer, more surprising experience built around sensory play, movement, and imagination. I designed it with accessibility in mind, to welcome people with varied learning styles, as well as anyone who thrives in sensory-friendly, creative spaces.

Together, we explored a world where feathers drifted, scarves floated, and sounds happened gently around you instead of at you. It was one of those rare moments where the world narrows in the best way. Where connection doesn’t need to be loud.

Honestly, I think I designed it for myself, too.
It was a circus of wonder made by everyone in the room.

Meanwhile, the Foolbright Scholars are back at work on a new show. And as one of the scholars with credentials that are certainly enthusiastic if not exactly verifiable, I can say with complete authority that this is Very Very Important Work. I spent time in West Philly over the weekend devising with my pal Chris, soaking in the neighborhood art, admiring the fruit trees neighbors plant to share, and jumping when a rat rustled through some recycling.

Have you ever been to Bindlestiff Books? You should go. And get takeout from Mood Café while you’re at it. 

What about the Little Free Library Storytimes, you ask?
Well. The first one was rained out.
This month, I planned for sun. Walked to the park. Waited.

One adult showed up. He was “walking off a big lunch” when he stumbled upon me, sitting on a bench in bear ears and a birthday party hat. No children. Just the two of us.

And so we went ahead. He wanted to hear the story. I read aloud. Did all the voices. Turned each page like it mattered. Because it did.

There’s something strangely beautiful about offering everything you’ve prepared, even when the “room” isn’t full. Maybe especially then.* He was such a generous audience. So open. 

I’ve been writing poems. And reading them.
Writing them feels like making a map I can't carry.
Reading them feels like finding a map someone else made and wandering through its territory for a while.

The most recent collection I've read is This Costly Season, a crown of sonnets by John Okrent. You can find it at Arrowsmith Press. The collection made me grateful for the moments of connection I've been able to have lately, but also aware that we’re still in a costly season, in so many ways.

That’s my brief update.

None of it is particularly glamorous. Much of it has been quiet.
But there’s movement under the quiet, something forming that says, “Keep going. This matters. Even now. Especially now.” 

--

*  Footnote Memory: After my first book of poems came out, I was scheduled to give a reading at a local bookstore on September 13, 2001. No one showed up. Understandably, given the events of two days earlier.

I waited anyway, with my young daughter beside me. And then a woman came in. She said, “God sent me.” What do you do when someone says that? You read your poems.

You Are A Poem

Poetry is feeling, and you are a poem. “Hold on,” you say, “I don’t like poetry. Poems are confusing and metaphorical and dense. I got a C- on the poetry unit my senior year in high school and I’ve never looked another poem in the eye again.” Poetry refuses rubrics, and you were told you didn’t understand well enough when you did.

You are a bewildering, symbolic, and complex poem because you feel. Poetry has been and always will be inside you. When you show how you feel, you are your singular self. There’s no way to copy paste, Google search, “Buy Now with One Click,” or AI generate the poem of you.

When you know, when you think, when you believe, you are exercising all that has shaped you by way of environment, culture and instruction. We carry that influence everywhere we go in our bindlesticks, briefcases, fanny packs, and pocketbooks for when we need it most. They are the useful tools we need to survive in the world we’ve created. We put on the suit of belonging and walk to the offices of productive citizenry each day. 

The poem of you is in your body, speaking each time you laugh, dance, cry, seek out eye contact with another, stare into the clouds without interruption, trace the invisible air with your fingers, trip on a sidewalk chunk, flail, fail in public. Poetry is a physical act of emotional expressions we were taught not to trust and to hide instead.

I think a lot about how students in public school systems respond when a teacher steps out of teacher mode to share a secret silly skill, or they make an obvious mistake and respond rather than ignore and move on, or they reveal a side of themselves that isn’t a part of the lesson. Those are the moments where the teacher becomes the poem, and the students experience a role model being vulnerable, and the lesson becomes the poetry of humanity. 

When Chris and I go out as Foolbright Scholars into public spaces to sing spontaneous songs, engage in rankling delight and invitation to feeling as we dance with uninflected balloons, we show what it is to feel and to be present with the folly of feeling. We shape an image or story in a short period of time, something brief and real. We know nothing and anything can happen and we are full of feeling. We remind others that feeling is what we are, it makes us living poems, and it is what connects us. We see the audience, and let them in. We are everything and nothing, all of the time.