Generate

It seems November has been a low productivity month for writing, but really, it's been a month for re-creation and planning, a removal from the spatial tendencies of my attention and a step toward a more linear, logical mind.

July through October has been, for the most part, some weird adult phase of self reflection and development. It also marks the first time in my life that I live alone. Not necessarily "on my own" but singly, without the distractions and warmth of roommates, friends, or romantic partners.

I have wanted my own apartment for two years, but it wasn't until this past July that I secured a gorgeous studio (almost a one-bedroom) in Chicago's Ravenswood Neighborhood, overlooking Winnemac Park.

I am reminded of recurring themes as I type this, of walking through Colonial Village in Amherst, Massachusetts six years ago with Pomerantz, saying I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, dabbling with the idea of grad school for arts administration. What I didn't realize is that somewhere in the not too distant future, I would be working at The Chicago Academy of Sciences' Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, in arts administration. I no longer work there, but I bring this up because it represents the tangibility of a dream, a simple idea expressed one sunny morning over coffee.

Similarly, three years ago I played a softball game in Winnemac Park with the amazing staff and friends of Early to Bed, the best sex toy store in Chicago. My hair was pulled back in pig tails, excited my batter's stance remained as strong as it did when I was 12, probably the last time I hit a line drive to second base, and scored. While playing, I realized that I loved the area, loved the park, and imagined living in one of the surrounding buildings overlooking it. In this dreaming, my windows faced west; where I live now, the three main windows of my apartment face north, I have a back porch, and roller skate on clear days through the labyrinth of trails weaving through green space.

It's refreshing.

This is an exercise on the actualization of dreaming, or maybe even a microcosm of an American Dream as I figure out what I need to keep, and what I need to lose, to get to where I want to be, or the importance of honoring the opposite:

"that we can't always choose
what we keep and what we
lose" (Adam Grabowski, friend & poet, from 'Borrowing Books' in mid-moment).

I have heard many poets and mentors and teachers talk about balance, and I think as we, contemporary America, get older and move from the blinding excitement of our early twenties into our late twenties (and later, into our thirties and forties), our values become more defined, or should, and what we forgive and accept become a necessary defense of who we are, or who we would like to become.

My hope is that the economy comes with me on this one, or that I learn to actualize the creativity and innovation that would enable me to own up to the progressive, feminist, creative person I am.

This might be an early discourse for a new year resolution, but it's a good place to start.

Because right now, on the verge of winter and Nikki McClure's November instruction to Generate, living alone means more time to organize, and more time to play with dream cartography.

but most of all the world is a place where parts of wholes are combined

The city never feels more urban than it does today, soft summer hum in the beginning of November, ruffled lace shirts and honey colored naked trees along side streets by highways. Gated stoops to doorways, floral blankets and my body rises to the warmth of exhibitionism, a solid place. Eyeliner pressed to natural creases, the dabble of friendship, charcoal pen damp to the touch of sleepy eyelids.

Women sip tea and coffee on Sunday in ceramic cups, the ones our grandmothers gave us, red berries and stained glass, sea glass.

Katie and I overlook Avondale, one of those city neighborhoods someone might live, but nobody ever goes. The day moves slowly, like the great molasses massacre, a tragedy so beautiful one can only reflect under the weight of something so sweet, so suffering. 

We talk about personal defects, the ones we expect to find. The regrets that seep through our pores, the architecture of our mouths when we find the right words, settling, this time, on no reinvention or pussyfooting, we are clear.

We are the daughters our mothers never told us they would have, our hair the temporary color of auburn. Today we blend, beauty recognized not for its uniqueness, but for its ephemera, my grandmother as she lets me crawl into bed with her on rare November days.

Photo by Adie Janci 

Pirouette

The day we picked apples on Michigan Avenue,

I wanted to kiss you.

A pirouette of pre autumn,

gawked at by the Galas, those friendly fellows,
or the tart little sluts you gave away.



Silver backdrop against a cloudless sky,

September is killing the pigeons,

and every discourse leaves 

a breath

of loquacious afternoons.



Bursts of amber! Streets west

of the water 

complement the architecture

for any composure.

I'm sure



anything will break
levees never built
for hurricanes, anyway.
Too steep for climbing,
the steps to Eliasson’s

Take Your Time
pause in the center:

a colorful black jacket.

You suggest aloe

when I tell you I prefer the Sun,
pomegranate hearts

on the wall.



Have I told you the fire trucks

are saving drowning swimmers?



What I should tell you

is I never did stop to find words

but to see picture,
and I know 

I dream



of a pulse so close, the moon, 

pressed against our bodies 

and the under voice laughs
a snow cloud

goodbye.