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.

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.