a pieced and quilted life

letters

i b k :: offering my thoughts, wip

i seem to live 

between 26 symbols 

that string together

art

for me

i get absorbed 

 

i b k

 

living between the curve of

an a

and the slant

of an l

sleeping in the hiccup

of c's and the valley's

of y

blowing like undulating wind

in the waves of

's

sunbathing on the green hills

of m

sheltering from the

rain of life in

e

 

i b k

holding an armful

of sentences 

and

mouthfuls of

paragraphs

 

--- end poem ---

i hope each and every one of you has had plenty of thanksgivings this year. i hope so much so that it wasn't shared only on thanksgiving...but that you woke up each and every morning, or went to bed each and every night and gave thanks

for something.

even the simple like rain and sunshine, that is quite complex. or the complex -- like love and life, which is really simple.

i'm not painting anymore.

i'm not quilting anymore.

i'm not making bags anymore.

i'm not creating visual art anymore.

at least right now. at least for a while.

and i am thankful.

i'd much rather brush stroke sentences across wood. not paint. 

and i feel like it is me. 

finally. completely me.

that is my something. my something simple and complex. my something grand and minor that i am grateful for.

words.

i am grateful for learning how to use words like colors, textures, and staccato melodies. syncopated melodies. 

i am happy to understand the meaning behind punctuation and

line breaks

and opening up the possibility of structured poetry, along with

my prose.

i am happy for 

words and language and syntax and punctuation

---

untitled :: the poem that flew by, wip

if i could turn all these floating letters that look like colors into pictures 

(and maybe someday i will)

lay them all out like a palette of nature

i'd be painting

 

what trees sound like and how mountains are in constant prayer

and the way moats dancing in sunlight reminds me of

my granma's sleeping pallets and my daddy's funeral flowers

and how i believe we (or at least I) can

swallow cumulus and altocumulus clouds

and learn to float in the sky

with dandelion seeds

and fall gracefully back to earth like

free leaves

 

i would assign the color yellow to e

and paint the sun

which is the color of honey and my dead father

i would call g blue because g is the first letter of god

and georgia (my granmother)

and both are the back drop of this life i live

like sky

k would be the color of brown birds

because the i that is me

inside

flies like owl colored birds

i would give a the color green

because beginnings are fertile 

like earth

yet fragile like leaves

 

my mouth would be

the listening canvas wild and wide

like wildflower fields

my words would be

indigenous 

--- end poem ---

i'm really scared to write poems, more so to share them. and thinking that no one reads this (blog) i do it here to get comfortable with the idea. the prospect.

sometimes i just let them fly by, too lazy to catch them, or too cold to fill the breeze they bring. but these days i try.

i started by catching them, when they fly by, like the spirit of my granma, and letting them know they are safe in coming out my mouth.

poems are tender i've learned. they are like me. they need to know someone is listening. is still. and is attentive and patient to learn what they want to say.

they are the shared soul that passes through all of us. how else would the words of one touch the many?

it is my lesson to learn of stillness. i need to be still. available to the whims.

and so these days i wait. and listen like i'm trying to catch the lyrics of black thought or kweli...trying to hear what the soul says.

maybe one day there will be peace in painting, or quilting so i can share this space.

but if not, i'm grateful to have letters for colors and armfuls of sentences and mouthfuls of paragraphs.

this is what i have today.

writing love,

ki

yellow shade :: a simple poem about art

gone.

and it feels like forever now.

it feels like never again

it can be

like rainbows that dissolve in sunlight

 

i can be sick about it

cause it feels threatening enough to my life

my happiness

like loosing hope

 

gone 

as if u forgot how

it was

as if stolen glances had to be

paid back in bouncing checks

of a broken life

as if it was only a phase

 

life imitating art

art playing life

a frida and diego living that passed

without painterly affairs or

big stone necklaces

chocking the neck of it all

 

abandon the it of it all

and stand it there like dried out paint brushes

unable to be soaked, cleaned, and shaped again

 

leave it to film like skins...gloss and matte

but mostly matte

cause living, u do it dull now.

 

u used to have ferrules for fingernails...

ur hands were like brushes...leaving brushstrokes

in my life

 

what are they now,

ur gone?

 

beautiful pink halfmoons writing

about what u can't paint

 

dream of hansa yellow hearts falling

between partly phthalo blue cloudy quinacridone skies

love (yellow shade) is there

---end poem---

today and the past few days i've not written much...but this poem wanted to come out, so i let it. i miss painting, quilting, art making...

but the drive to write is stronger. to tell this story i know like a song. a beautiful one.

it is difficult being a person who lives in color and not finding the time to stroke it across a wood panel, or stitch it together with limp, and soft fabrics.

i try to write artfully. let all the art my eyes see seep into the words, shape the letters, and paint my sentences into scenes...

but sometimes, like today...it isn't enough.

i imagine it is like the necklaces frida kahlo wore, thick around her neck, choking her and making her beautiful at the same time.

i need to find balance...a peace with this bilingual way of living.

i feel like a philandering artist when i write, and know that i am doing it well. shouldn't i be painting? no this is what i should be doing..i respond quicker than i can speak it.

but doesn't the paint, the fabrics miss me. my hands? my eyes? my way of seeing color and relationships between things like i do. this way of speaking through art. telling stories and writing poetry with needle, thread, and old washed up fabric.

if i paint then i feel like i'm cheating on my story. ignoring the fine craft of writing for paint brushes that are worn in and broken the way i've chosen them to be. 

where is the balance? 

i think today i may just paint...and while i paint think about my story...see what a scene would look like in art. or maybe i should play with fabric and quilt the background of a scene. i could switch back and forth...telling the story in words than in color, than in words, than in fabrics...till

it all makes sense.

maybe.

paint or quilt today?

luv, ki

month update. personal ad. & nanowrimo goals.

i know, i have not been kind to my blog during the month of october. it has been a month full of classes, writing, workshopping, reading, and you guessed it - more writing.

i'm taking 4 writing classes currently. yes. four. i could probably handle that alone and the blog, but add to that school schedule: homeschooling, volunteering, sistering, daughtering, and wifery duties (which have leaned towards more writing, but more on that later). it has been a busy, busy october month for me.

i've tried to sneak in a little art making, but, that too has puttered along and given way to writing. i've made progress on the doll...she's for the most part complete...but the rest of her...her story, her setting is not. sorry to you all and her for not finding the time to complete her. she's been patient though, waiting atop a pile of washed, and folded clothes that needs to be put away on my dresser, for me to give her a home. i hope it will happen soon, but i'm making her and me no promises.

have you ever taken creative writing classes? do you (creative) write? i'm knee deep into my 5th, 6th, 7th & 8th classes and man its a whole lot of things at once. you know what it makes me ask most? why don't i know any other writers? i have artist friends for days...creative, artistic, blow your mind blank visually creative friends, but wordly artistic friends? i have none. are you all hiding? from me? your writing? or is it i've just cultavated a group of friends staggering on visual genuis only?

could be.

anyway. i'm learning a lot in my classes this semester. i'm doing good, will probably get high marks in all of them (more a testament to my writing tenacity than to my ability - most upper-level writing teachers grade more on your quantity, or the fact that you are doing the work, than on skills. because let's face it - creative writing is an art, and who are we to judge someone's art).

three of my workshop classes include workshopping my work with a group, and it has gone interestingly well. my writing has been called literary (great what i love), my style has been appreciated (always good to know readers like reading your work), but...i've been told i tend to overwrite.

not a surprise.

i'm long-winded and i accept it.

i've learned that it is for the most part okay, as literary writing tends to lean in that direction...but,i'm going to need to trim, trim, trim, trim.

my instructor last week told me...the bad thing is its all good...that's going to be the hardest thing...trimming what is beautiful description, writing, metaphors, similies, etc.

another instructor (after reading 15 pages of my work) wrote: do you write poetry, plays? is that a hint ej, all pretty words but no point? yes i do write poetry, and i would love to write a play.

sigh, i already knew i'd have to wrangle with the cut and delete feature. i'm just waiting till the first draft is done to tangle with the scissors.

but that leads me to something. i need a writing friend. a buddy. a fellow writer/reader who is as in love with the written word as me, but has a little more balls when it comes time to getting to the point.i tend to take the long, tangent route, to explaining anything. my writing is everything short of plotting.

i need to pick up the pace, and plot. move the story along. i need a writing cohert...someone to help me (gently) get to the point,or better yet stay on the point.

i also just want somebody i can relate to...writing is a very solitary sport, but it is always great to have someone to share the mental exercise with.

so, i believe that the universe is always ready to provide, so i'm putting out an ad...in nothing other than the 'nets...

my ad:

i need a literary partner. someone who is interested in liteary writing, with a huge bent towards poetry, descriptions, metaphors and similies. a person who loves toni morrison, sandra cisneros, ntozoke shange, alice walker, and zora too.

someone who doesn't mind stories light on plot but heavy on sentences that just sound pretty and tell you more about character, setting, and time than who shot who, or why.

someone who thinks the ghetto can be beautiful and thinks that ordinary people show us the most about extraordinary living. someone who believes scars are sacred when healed, and should be displayed like holiday and seasonal flags hanging outside suburbian homes.

this partner should love to read...perhaps write too. and it would be most helpful if they loved music, and can hear the lyric quality of words tap-dancing across a page.

now, this someone should also be capable of "mean" of course, with love. the kind of mean that says, "ki you tripped...girl you know that don't sound write" (pun intended) that will smile and say, "girl, stop it...you can...you will...and you must... or I'm gonna..."

someone who will cheer me on, root for me, and help me dust off my knees when i fall.

i need someone who will jive with me, in a writerly way.

(note: any takers should not mind misspelled words, abusive use of commas, and sentences that are structurally sound but are the literary equivalent to skyscrapers)

any takers?

something else to share...i've joined nanowrimo and have officially signed up to participate. i know...a novel in a month. who dares to be that crazy? me and hopefully one or two of you who will be willing to take the challenge and sign on with me.

come on...it'll be fun.

my goals are not too lofty. (and yours need not be either) i just want to get a whole lot of writing done...on one large piece of work...in this upcoming month.

my goal is to write 50,000 new words for my novel. new fresh words. for the "contest" i'm only counting new words, so i will not be cheating. technically i think. the great thing is, no matter how many words i write...it will all be an addition to what i have so far. so failing doesn't exist.

here are my goals:

biggest? by nov. 30th have 76,091 words written on my novel. which means writing 50,000 new words.

smallest? by nov. 30th have 50,000 words written on my novel, which means i have to write at least 23,909 words

e has made me a (surprise) spreadsheet to track my progress...i have sections for each chapter, the number of pages and the number of words. i have a seperate spreadsheet that will just track my daily word output.

we figured i need to write:

1,786 words a day to reach 50,000 by nov. 30th (i'm leaving out 1 or 2 days for holidays and life to happen)

and,

854 words a day to reach 23,909 by nov. 30th.

in case your wondering, i'm guessing my complete manuscript will be about 100,000 words (many which i know will get cut) when the first draft is all said and done. which should be about 300 pages.

lots of pretty words huh?

the majority of the 26,000 words i've written so far have been done over the past month, so i know it is possible.

i want to use my blog to hold me accountable during the next month, so i'm going to try (my hardest as if my writing life depended on it) to update daily through the month of nov. my word count, how its going, challenges, successes, etc.

should be exciting and fun if i can just get a hold on my time.

okay...enought writing...as of this sentence, i've written 1281 words that could of gone towards my ms (manuscript). sigh.

off to watch dexter, season 3...than carve pumpkins, roast seeds, bake cupcakes and make some sort of creepy halloween dinner....

writing luv,

ki

1315 words.

 

 

do u read toni morrison?

i have a lot of back posting to catch up on, but somehow between the boiling heat of last week, and the heavy chill of today's clouds I've become lazy.

at least tonight. this second.

so i'll just jibber-jabber.

to be truthful i'm backed up in posting about life because i've been so busy running and living through it. i'm currently taking 3 writing classes, and will be most likely adding another within the next week. in addition to that, i'm volunteering on my off days...and homeschooling the kids has been ratched up.

but mostly, this second i want to share that i've fallen in love with toni morrison. real love. i find her writing to be so...challenging, in a good way. so deep and full of things i need to know and read. i really just can't explain it so well now.

but maybe it isn't just mrs. morrison, its reading and books again. like all the love i collected of reading and the written word has collected and spilled off my mind like an angry rain storm falling off a slanted tin roof. gushing it is this love. and loud with tink, tink, tinkering words and phrases.

i am sure it has to do with writing. of course it does. my writing. all the writing up of my soul i'm trying to do week in and week out.

wanting to be a better person has led to wanting to be a better writer, which has made me want to read better books. i literally have a stack of about 30 books around me, and i think i should admit i'm trying to read them all. at once. right now. and write. and study the craft.

i wish i could share with you all that i'm writing. i wish i could just sit here and talk on and on about the plot, the characters, the settings and descriptions...but i can't, and i think that's why i'm silent sometimes here. everywhere really.

i've found that i need to be more quiet. i have a whole 'nother world taking place in my mind and well its quite hard to not talk about it. sometimes i'm so deep into thinking about my characters, their lives, what's happening to them that i feel like a time-traveler...jumping back and forth from "reality."

i could be schooling the kids and i'll think about something someone needs to say or do. i can be showering or washing my hair and a description will fall out of my mouth and i have to scurry around the tub to catch it before it goes down the drain. i could be washing dishes or baking cornbread and i will see them sitting around having thanksgiving dinner, or maybe its christmas. i wake up and they are first on my mind. before i go to sleep i ask them to visit me in my dreams. last night it worked and i woke with an idea...about division..math division and how it could work in a scene.

i'm truly living with these characters, they plead with me to tell their stories and understand them...and i have accepted and obliged them...promising them that i will honor their voices, their stories.

i hope i am worthy. i do.

when i write i feel like the little girl i used to be, with the vocabulary to express everything I ever saw and dreamed of the world...and how it all felt inside...that i couldn't say out to the world. how pieces cut and others adorned. how somethings scratched me raw and others made the world smell sweet like orange blossoms. i was such a daydreamer, a hoper, a believer and a feeler.

i guess i'm just trying to set that little girl free...break the rubber bands on her ponytails, unsnap the barrettes and tell her, "go ahead swing those twists from side to side" and let it all fly out.

well...i hate to post without pictures...so i won't go on and on, even though i already have.

peace and love,

ki

so question?

do u read toni morrison? what is your favorite, where do i go from the bluest eye? i've got jazz next to me, and sula on the way, love on my night stand, beloved on my bookshelf (next to tar baby) and paradise on my kindle. its all so much...the desire to read, understand and digest her works all at once. where do i start?

what looks like crazy on an ordinary (writing) day....

this morning i called e at 8:16 in the morning crying.

really crying. hard. furious, eyes closed tight crying. i imagine he was on the other end of the line wondering what happened in the last 50 or so minutes since he left me sitting in the bed, my itty-bitty squash netbook in my lap, my glasses slipping down my nose and my intention set on writing.

it hadn't even been an hour.

i just kept crying to him, "baby, its gone, its gone...baby its gone."

when he was able to navigate my flood of tears and understand me...very calmly he asked me.

what's gone ki...what's wrong.

"it's...its all gone...i looked and looked and i can't find it, and..."

and i started to cry again.

he waited patiently, and then asked again.

"ki, what's wrong, what's gone?"

"my words, my words are gone, baby their gone...and they...they were so good, and i looked and looked and i can't find them. they're gone gone...and i loved them...it was the right way to say it..and it worked...and the voice was different...and..."

and i started to cry again. harder.

if that was even possible. real harder. like the snot was rolling down my nose and down the back of my throat and my eyes couldn't see anymore. they were flooded. and i couldn't see or swallow clearly anymore. 

"what happened?"

"they're all gone and..."

more crying.

"did you look in different files, on the other laptop, the mac. it can't be gone."

being my husband he knows without clear direction or explanation what i'm crying over.

"they'regoneandilookedallaroundiopenedeveryfileandsearchedanditwasthebestwriting...

*breath*

andthevoicewasanewvoiceanditwasgreatandilookedbabyilookedbabyilookedeverywhere...andirememberwhatisaidbutjustpiecesandican'tputitbacktogetheranditwassoright....."

that has to be what i sounded like. 

"did u look again, which piece, maybe i can find it for you, calm down"

more crying.

"itsgonebabyitsgone"

i knew one day it would happen. i held it in the back of my mind and rolled it around my eyes a few times, wondering what my face would look like the day i lost a piece of writing to technology.

i tried it on for size and would say aloud to myself periodically, "girl, you know you betta not loose none of these words."

i started talking about writing while writing and about words while writing words, saying how each one was a color, particularly hansa yellow and magenta blue. i started giving the words their own color identities so if they ever became lost i could paint them out on wood panels, and hang them up around the house with writing that said:

have you seen me? missing since 9/23/10, 8:16 am. last seen painting a scene in ki's mind's eye.

and then i was sure, i was sure that e, or maybe mykey, or maybe even yali would find the words laying around the house. maybe they would trip over something beautiful, like the way granma said:

"i sholl do 'preciate it sheila."

or maybe while the kids were stirring up the natural peanut butter they would stir together a group of letters i could fish out and unscramble...you know and piece together the sentence they fell out of.

but no. i can't paint this piece and put it on the wall.

"ki, did you try looking through all the files maybe it was combined with something else"

e was still trying.

me? i was sitting in the bed with my glasses at the tip of my nose, sliding around my face in tears...looking down at nothing. realizing that i finally met my writer's day.

"i'llcallyoubackbye."

and i ended the call. i cried for two gasps of breaths, picked the phone up and sent this text:

'i'm sorry baby i can't talk right now. i have to mourn those words and cry.'

a few seconds later i called him back.

"i don't ever want to talk about it, don't try to get them back. forget about it. don't ever bring it up. i want to forget this ever happened."

"okay"

"i'm going to get back to writing, i'll call you later...bye"

and that was it. i went back to writing. the first few minutes i cried while writing. but soon i found a stride and rode it out.

and you know what, nothing that i wrote was as good as the three pages or 1500 words i lost. those words i labored over for days. the new words today are new...they haven't found their place and fell into line yet. i haven't flung them around the room enough.

but they are close to being there.

---

as the kids were starting their online classes and i had to take charlie the bird back into the bathroom (for silence) i caught a glimpse of myself.

i had white tracks going down my face underneath both eyes and underneath my nose. those underneath my eyes stuttered in and out, not clear tracks...those underneath my nose were clear and steady.

this is what i would look like the day i lost some of my words, i thought. 

---

i've heard writers speak of their words with endearment that begets children. love. pure love. i've heard them talk about laboring and birthing their books into the world.

i am now one of them.

and loosing my words is like discovering your loosing a new baby in your womb.

words are not just words. they are more than a collection of letters/symbols that together make the sound of a thought.

to each writer it is different.

to me they are pieces and fragments of colors and shapes and lines.

imagine seeing a coral and yellow and magenta triangular shaped rainbow of thoughts with intermittent streaks of cobalt blue and phthalo blue (red shade) burn up in front of your eyes...never to be seen again.

---

i was sitting in a writing class tues. night and we were talking about writing, the writer's life and one guy shared a quote from another (famous) writer that read something like this:

"to be a writer you have to be mentally ill. there has to be a defect in the brain to allow someone to be a writer"

i rolled that around my mind. i sat with it, daydreaming for a second. i imagined myself and what color i'd look and sound like if i was crazy.

could i be crazy? if not that meant i would not finish this so very important to me book.

and i thought. i can be crazy. i can.

and still be sane.

--

so here i am, forgetting and not forgetting. moving on but stagnantly mourning the loss of 1500 words or so. words that seemed funny and serious. words that spoke of characters and people. words that flew out of me once a crowd of crows that transformed themselves into a flock of hummingbirds.

they were great. but i will move my writerly self along.

with luv...and colorful words,

ki

(a little bit crazy and a little bit sane)

wear your heart on your sleeve? i do.

 

 i think i have the best blogging community on the 'nets! don't you ladies agree? you all are amazing!

okay, so i finished the dress (rushed it and it didn't fair so well in the rushing process, though e and my moms and the kids all said i was beautiful - isn't that their job?). It was hot as the dickens here in the i.e. so i rushed out of the house with no jacket, thinking i looked cute....2 hour drive later, we land in the south bay (the beach area) and oh my land! it was cooooold! i had to wear my brother's leather flight bomber jacket. not a good look. or smell. i ended up smelling like my brother (he isn't stinky...it was just his cologne) all night. thankfully he has good taste in cologne, but um...yeah i couldn't help but wonder how many girls are loving the smell of his cologne....ewwww!

so booooo me, i didn't get pictures, i was just shivering too much, and yeah...brother's jacket.

but! i did make a really, really, really, really cute (to me) bag that i've been dreaming about for years! i originally made a painted anatomically correct heart bag to wear to an art opening years ago...(because i was wearing my heart on my sleeve that night)...

well i've been wanting an updated version, a more simplistic version. and yay it came out just the way i pictured it in my mind!

 

i'm so excited. the only "issue" is that it is so big and awkward its hard to photograph. i love it though. i love love love love it! even if the pictures don't do it justice -- i'm just proud to wear my heart on my sleeve!

 

so this brings me to something else. 

i'm not sure if i mentioned here, our on fb, or somewhere...but....

i've been taking classes at ucla extension, and have "enrolled" in their writer's program. it is amazing! i have the best teacher's in the world, really. i am growing so much as a person, writer, and am discovering a new me. or maybe the old me, just wiser?

it is really because of this that i want to move away from art and use writing as my creative vehicle. my teachers have given me the most insane support, i'm so grateful, i often cry (yes i'm that sensitive). the writing community with my fellow class mates is nourishing, supportive and very rewarding.

i don't know if i want to write creative non-fiction or fiction or poetry or all. the great thing is a don't have to decide, at least not right now. 

i've realized over the past 2 months that i've been immersed in this program/class that writing is very much as artistic as creating physical art. i actually feel free in a sense, as i'm able to write and fly in my writing the way i wish i could fly in creating physical art. 

often times i feel like my work doesn't really catch what i see in my mind's eye, but with words i'm learning how to do just that. it feels really good.

its scary, but its great. 

i've enrolled in an "intro to fiction" class this summer, that is intensive and runs 10 weeks and i couldn't be more thrilled. 

writing to me feels like exploring the recesses of your mind and being able to put the intangible, the unbelievable, the indescribable into reality. 

its funny to me that 11/12 years ago writing was my life, and one day i just stopped. not bitter, not upset, just stopped and never looked back. here i am so many years later and it feels like i've been writing all this time. i think i have been writing in my mind, with out knowing it. e would definitely say so. i'm an over-thinker...he says.

will i be making stuff? well, yes and no, and maybe so. i actually think i may have more mental space to make stuff...like quilts, etc. because the focus to "make art" will be off...and i'll be doing these things for pleasure...for fun...not for "business." i don't think this means i'll never show artwork again, it just means it won't be my first priority...or second, third, or fourth. if it happens...it happens. 

i will be gardening more...using that as my creative outlet, hopefully making quilts...and hopefully making some bath & body products for us and maybe to sell down the line. i will still be selling the bags as that is the only, and i repeat the only way that i will be able to take classes. 

when you buy a bag, you'll now be investing in me. i hope that doesn't sound "ugh" but its the reality...it will be the only way i can pay for my classes and continue to grow as a writer, and person. 

don't you just love life and the way it organically unfolds, again and again and again. life is truly a living process....in more ways than one.

wish me luck!

luv & peace....ki

p.s. what is every one else planning on doing this summer? is anyone else feeling any major life shifts? any astrologers out there with some celestial insight? 

p.p.s. also, my social networking will probably slowly dwindle...i don't know how much i'll be on fb, just a huge black hole of time, and twitter...well i don't feel like i have a community there anymore and don't feel like working hard to build another one up again...i think i'll try and keep touch with my 'net community through blogging...here and on yours. so please leave me your blog addy's in the comments...i'm planning on re-doing my outdated blog roll over there -------------->

and if all that fails...i'm much better on skype, phone and text...so if you have my # call me...real voices sound so much better than fb voices...

i'm baking a vintage caramel cake from scratch to celebrate this...

i’m sitting in my bed, legs crossed and enclosed in freshly washed sheets and a wild-flower printed duvet typing and watching the rain fall in light sheets over my earth.

the rain in may falls like gossamer politely nourishing my outside beds and me in my inside bed. i have to be still to catch it.

i have to be quiet to hear it.

i have to be sensitive to feel it.

so i sit. i sit with my hips planted firmly, my elbows resting on my knees…and my fingers dancing in front of me on a tiny keyboard.

this is my happy life.

gossamer may mornings…staged underneath grey clouds surrounded by green beds.
sitting in fresh, pale pink sheets underneath a down blanket covered in a 10 year-old, wild flower printed ikea duvet cover

i am happy with gossamer grey sheets.

i have to sit still…look out and watch. i must be still and listen.

listen to my voice…listen to my words and the conversations i type out.

if i’m still i can catch a drop…and watch it travel quickly towards the bed and into me.

this morning i woke up early  laying on edward’s pillow. i started to write poems in my head for him:
                                   

i wake up and find myself laying where u left...even in sleep i seek the heat of you to warm me and rub my aching hip joints till i fall back to sleep.

I smell you even in freshly laundered sheets...i can feel your slick shiny black hair tickle my nose.

when i'm up a 3 am and your laying facing me...intently breathing in and out...quietly snooring in your own way...i whisper "i love you and you say "i love you more"

how can you answer me in your sleep?

i'm just content to lay my head next to yours and feel your hair on my cheek.

when i'm cold i stretch out my legs and let them wonder to the east, where you lay...you let me rest my cold knees on your hips and twine my feet and toes between your legs.

you warm me and i tickle you.

so i'm still. i lay still so you can sleep.

you are my sun and i am your cold earth...you be summer and i be winter.

we together are a cycle of sames and differents.

we are nature -- a landscape mix of nappy and straight, amber honey and white dandelion sap, tall stretching trees and short wide squash bushes.

we set out runners in wild earth sprouting our hybrid seedlings who grow different from us.

we are the riot and violence of nature tucked beneath the warmth and cold of earth peacefully growing. if they sit quietly they'll see us put on a show.

                                           -------------------------

our bed faces north. every morning mon-fri. i find myself laying on edward’s pillow…laying in the east with the rising sun on my face waking up cause he’s not there. halfway in slumber i sort of wake up as soon as he is out of the bed…searching and moving east to find him.

he tries to get dressed quietly, brushing his teeth with the water off…quietly removing his pressed white shirt and tie from hangers, and slowly getting dressed. he combs and slicks his hair back in the downstairs bathroom…where charlie our bird sleeps. he doesn’t want to wake me, but i don’t want him to leave.

if he sees my eyes are open, he’ll come over and kiss my forehead before he leaves the room.

“bye babe.”

i still hate it. hate that everyday is not a weekend morning that he is here when i wake up.

i love him. but he says he loves me more. i want to take offense to that but after 12 years of going back and forth i don’t.

i’m just happy that he helps me grow.

i’m happy that he talks with me during the day from work and listens to my housewife drama.

i’m happy that he comes straight home from working overtime and plants my blueberry bush and helps me cover my new herb and flower bed with tree bark mulch.

i’m happy that at the end of the night, he lets me pick out all the splinters his hands gathered, even though he’s too manly for doting.

i’m happy that he allows me to nurture him in this small way.

i picked out the tiny, invisible splinters with his big pink, calloused hands in my small, brown, soft slender hands and thought, “i love the care and keeping of you” quietly to myself as i twisted his wide right thumb back and forth looking for more slithers of wood. i looked up to see if he knew what i was thinking.

“ki, i can just wash them out” he answers to my eyes. i insist on picking them.

my hands are softer, yet his collected all the tiny pieces of wood. fitting. this is how he always protects me. this is how he always has an answer to the question of me in his life.

“i love you more.”

-ki

creating today.

alto.

i well up 

   digging in with my toes...while perching myself on my tip toes

feeling...

    feeling the fly of "in love"

i happen to stand on my tip toes when i'm cold....excited or in love.

i reach up tall 

    vertabrea...after vertabrea

to kiss u

alto.

my toes make me soprano...climbing up to notes perched high.

whilst on the tip of my toe bones...sun kissed and wind burned

 high in magenta blue backgrounds and white cumulous cloud props

u 

over whelm me.

i settle in.

point my toes out

and write soliloquies in the yellow sky.

------------------------------------------end poem---------------------------------------

i'm in the studio, creating...and it all feels good. the smell of leather...the rush of knowing how you want to say what you feel...finding truth in your hands. understanding purpose. feeling joy.

<3 ki

longing/spring

yellow marigold 

a poem for spring:

longing/spring

i've stood on my tip toes, teary eyed and head-ached peering over rain drenched windows

    wearing tear stained faces, warm house clothes...

           socks and sweaters

layers

layers of winter and mourning

    layers of bedding, layers of pants and tees...

layers of warm words and thoughts i tucked away

saving them

saving them up for spring.

new life...growth and green...windy days...healing and sun beams...

colors...birds...bees and bugs...long days and cool short nights.

    warm words i can throw out

like green and yellow sun

creating magenta blue skies...

maybe i'll find myself standing still...

allowing the sun beams to grow on me and germinate a new color of my life

in the company of weeds and vegetables...growing up between my cold toes...contributing shadows for snails and earthworms to 

to just     be

earth warms me

---------------------end poem---------------------------------------------

i want the poem about growth to continue...despite the wintering inside me.

i feel the beams coaxing leaves and green from my bare winter roots...tangled beneath dirt...mourning

the sun like spring pranced and i'm trying to dance within the rays of life...

mourning like winter is a tough season to weather.

but like spring...renewing life and growing with the seasons is so necessary.

rejuvenating...its when we grow, sprout and truly germinate.

so i'm trying, still.

speaking of growth...i've been on a little path myself for sometime, and after trying to ignore it (perhaps for the past year and a half or so) i've decided to embrace it and to just actively meander along the path.

i've always been a writer. maybe its because i talk too much. 

my university "career" started off with me majoring in english, writing for the newspaper...and trying to inject creativity as much as i could into every article. i was full of similes, and metaphors...when just reporting the plain going on's of the campus. of course i was always gently chided for being to "colorful" and "creative" when reporting the news...but i still insisted...and just dealt with my articles being printed without the descriptive words. chopped up as i'd call it.

but i still wrote. daily. soon enough the words were just not descriptive enough...so i turned to art.

here i am full circle...13+ years later.

i'm going to take some writing classes at our local university extension, they have a fiction writing certificate program. truth is its about telling stories. art=stories, writing=stories, telling stories creatively...colorfully...artfully.

the other truth is my memory. it seems to be of the bionic sort...just like my ears...holding onto and remembering minor minutia and grandiose things alike. my brain stores memories in color, scents, tastes and textures...i need to learn how to channel and utilize it all.

my plans aren't too big...just to follow, learn, grow and create. 

follow the path

learn what's in front of me

grow into who i'm becoming

create what i feel, experience & see

i'm learning with life to actively meander along. i say active because there's no success with lack of action....u have to step up to life and then go the path...your path.

in addition to going back to school...i'll also be "working" as a volunteer for the university extension...my payment will be increments of money towards classes...i've finished the interview...it went really well. i'm just excited and ready.

remember, i remind myself:

just actively meander....see what u discover.

i have a lot to communicate.

luv & peace,

ki

sometimes i miss the train...

 

sometimes i miss the train

cause i tend to daydream 

and wrap myself up in clouds and yellow skies.

its true. i'm always late coming to the party...and slow to catch on to witty jokes. i'm not slow...just daydreaming.

singing a tune to myself...smiling about a previous conversation...thinking about baking bread...imagining colors to mix...wishing i was making something...

so i'm late in discovering a few new things. new to me.

particularly these this week:

jersey

knitting garments

ingrid michaelson

sara bareilles

short poems

i think it takes a small catalyst sometimes...to get us out and discovering.

i discovered adele late, about january, 2009...and well she was my catalyst for ingrid and sara. short poems? thoughts that stop instead of rambling...i used to not record those, i prefer to ramble... jersey...well...i've just been afraid of it for all these years...knitting garments...again, fear. sometimes fear itself is a catalyst.

i'm still waiting to discover or "re" discover some things...like keeping my fingernails painted like my granma used to...and the time in a day to nap...again, like granma did.

something about looking down at pretty painted fingernails...even if just occasionally.

and naps...well i ♥ naps.

 

i've been just really knocked out the past 4 days with this cold. i think i'm being tortured. its like itching profusely..its just torture.

bed. 4 days? really?

that's why i'm germaphobic. honestly. i have no time or patience for sick.

but while laying incompasatated for the better part of a week...i thought..and just blew thought after thought out into the sky...and coughed up more and more and more...and just let ideas settle around me like:

ideas for new bags...hand stitching clothes...making art out of jersey...making crostini...imagining myself as a singer....making time daily for naps....appliqueing as many things around me as possible...hearts...scheduling my time...

i know this is just a ramble of a post...but remember...i said i just blew thought after thought out...and well...i like to ramble.

i have managed to find something to do while laying in bed...hand stitching. its somewhat done...but i want to wait till its done and i'm well(er) for some better pics...shouldn't be too much longer...at the rate i'm layin in bed these days...soon enough.

lastly,

i'm also late on the train of loving blue. sapphire blue...yum.

*imagining myself baking bread now...*

 ♥ ki