She says her name is Gallila, the woman fully dressed in the sauna, sitting on the top row, singing along with her headphones. As if unaffected, I lie on the on the lowest, a wet rag on my head. My mom sits near, we are barely breathing. I want to leave, I want to feel a cool breeze, but I make myself stay. I tell myself it's like a sweat lodge. I tell myself I need release. She sees my mom massaging her knee, are you ok? They talk about knee replacements and hyaluronic

it starts on the stoop, look for the lock box with a heart, says my daughter on the phone from work, only there is no heart, but there are five people sitting on the stoop, chill, on this steamy summer late afternoon, they are laughing about something and in the middle of a story when the man in a dark blue track suit asks, what are you looking for? I tell them a lock box with a heart and the lady with long pink nails says maybe the heart washed away in the rain, it r

I am certain I see him though the sun blinds my eyes, this almost afternoon amongst roses I am certain of that nose, sharp prickly, eyes I could see even in the dark, the mouth that at best grimaced and feet that shuffled down creaky wooden corridors I am certain though he is smaller, the monster I called father who was not my father, hunched over, wearing that same white bucket hat and same dark blue track suit I am certain of the racing heart and frozen blood the floo

we gather to heal, we gather to hear sounds, feel waves, reconnect, start anew on this longest day I say I have no expectations I lie we lie on mats covered with fleece blankets and warm socks, we spray rose water and burn palo santo, the scene is set we are ready a ripple of sound, chimes tiptoe in, like stardust sprinkling, I can feel the peace like a weighted blanket like clean mountaintop mist until a helicopter rumbles overhead, it circles round and round, I

I hit the seaside early, June gloom they call it but I don’t find gloom in the wind in my hair and clouds baby-grey close in embrace, they kiss my cheeks with salty mist I am held I walk alone, not even eight and this beach community has long been awake families making sand castles, riding waves, bikini wearers braving 63 degrees, catching rays on gravel turned sand by rough surf blinding in its infinite cleanness, cool packed sand, soft beneath my feet I am held

Life is so neverendingly cyclical; the end can’t be the answer. Yrsa Daley-Ward Suppose you say no. To the voice that returns at the most inconvenient times. That knows, just like that lover, how to pierce. Suppose you say no to the proclamations that you are hysterical, sensitive, over- emotional. Where is that sliding scale of normal? And why do they get to make it? Suppose you say no to the little one, the sweet innocent one whispering in your ear to be nice, the o

We start out early, already at 6:18 we strip off sweatshirts, my eyeglasses slip off my sweaty nose and find ourselves in a slow saunter on the sweet trail from the Visitor’s Center, under shade, past a creek and trees old and fragile with too many young couples’ initials carved into them Memories engraved. Mine less visible, equally invasive We trod on. And agree on two hours, I don’t tell her I am thinking less, much less, I am fragile today, waking with a shaking

Latin for, it is solved by walking There’s a labyrinth near Balboa Park, my mom says. Amother memory, familiar space—the places I spent time as a child. Another landing strip, I need feel the earth beneath my feet. Before I fly home. When are you going home? I avoid the question, instead say, I went to a labyrinth once in France. I think it was Chartres. Built into the nave. She asks what a nave is and I say, it’s the largest part of the church, comes from the Latin word fo

It’s just after 6am when we arrive, my mother points north that way to fortuna it’s a tough one, she warns but I’m tired of flat terrain staying safe, I’m weary of carrying the fear of hills and slippery rocks, I can no longer bear the weight of my secret so old I don’t know when it began its descent deep. maybe when I was four where do you feel it? my friend asked the other day everywhere it’s sneaky that way, it knows it must stay silent or else it all unrav

is it safe I ask before I begin my stroll, I grew up here, but never came here, even the name of the neighborhood is new my heart races you didn’t have anxiety as a child my mother says really? I don’t remember I remember holding my breath it’s safe she says so I go north I am greeted by smiling stroller walkers and pink and blue houses with rainbow flags and butterflies they say the indigenous plants bring the indigenous butterflies and rebuild the ecosys

walking south park after yoga, I ask my poet teacher where can I read her work, she says follow me to my poetry tree. So I do, a few blocks north past houses of liveable sizes, stucco and shingles salmon-colored with palm trees, some portray posters that say something about ending destructive capitalism with gardens of roses and indigenous cacti Butterflies abound, I read somewhere that butterflies represent resurrection These ones are orange and yellow with black spots

I dream of dancers, and my honeymoon nearly thirty years ago and that Flamenco performance on that stage in Spain. First the man. Then the stomping feet, beat of the guitar straight to the chest. They call it el duende. That je ne sais quoi, that wordless essence. Then she entered with her flouncy-bouncy-flowered dress, flapping. Stomping. And that je ne sais quoi. They did not touch. They looked, no pierced one another with eyes. Spoke with flicks of fingers, and oh the inti

It is a low tide today, my feet dig into packed sand. Seaweed dark and brown, long and stringy. Seashells few and one broken sand dollar. And just past the Lifeguard Station a jetty, all sharp rocks and long out into the ocean. The same jetty that saved me over forty years ago in a riptide. You grow up knowing about riptides but you never think think one will happen to you. Till it scrapes up your legs and leaves you frightened of waves. My toes now wet as I walk into the beg

The brush is dry, the air still. I am nearly alone on this walk around a lake, late in the afternoon. Most locals already home and out of the heat. But heat is what I seek. Sun directly overhead. Burning through. Defined lines of light and dark. My shadow follows me as I walk, with questions and look for answers in every bit of cactus dried by the side of the path. The buzz of cicadas, a crescendo of waves guide me. I am not alone. I listen to music by a band from Mali. I don

What seems to be said so suddenly has lived in the body for a long, long time. David Whyte, “A Seeming Stillness” The boardwalk is packed, the sun still young. Stroller pushers and dog walkers. Retirees with insulated mugs and long hair and surfer-swag sweatshirts. Barefoot, they watch the joggers and roller bladers. And laugh, with their arms. My heart pounds, not from the flat smooth sidewalk. My heart keeps the beat with my feet. It is release I seek. I breathe salty air

We did not come to remain whole; we came to lose our leaves like the trees. Robert Bly I am walking past John J. Pershing Junior High, though now it might be a Middle School. I am listening to jazz, something inspired by Gurjieff. Something sacred which takes me to the long Petersburg afternoons that inched their way to night, sipping strong sweet black tea from the samovar, staring at the frozen Neva with Nina. Glen Gould in the background. Or Jacqueline du Pre. Digesting

Remember ‘I am’— whatsoever you are doing. G.I. Gurjieff The boardwalk has the perfect kind of wind, slight, just enough to warrant the orange sweatshirt. I borrowed from my mom, I think it says love, and I wonder if this is why I see so many smiles. This is my town, my ocean, got swept up in riptides, learned to swim, had many birthday parties here. Ate sandwiches with this sand. Rode this roller coaster and hunted grunions at night. Squirly and squishy and smores always a

Thus do I still utter the name and still feel the burn on the cheeks. Paul Celan, “A Song in the Desert” She says her name is Ketevan. Where are you from, I ask. Originally, catching myself, don’t want to be rude and she shifts her eyes. Hesitant, says, Georgia. Tbilisi? I ask and she is surprised, till I say I lived in Russia and she says she speaks Russian and we talk about lobio and khachapuri and Pirosmani—my favorite Georgian restaurant in Petersburg named for the pa

I’m walking through Balboa Park. To Spanish Village, in search of ceramics. Sculptures, mugs, plates. Blue. I want to gaze upon things made by hands. I pass the Botanical Building—a lattice masterpiece of redwood. Where green bamboo trees peek out. Where a guitarist picks Asturias. The first full song my son played. I see him now, sitting with Rodrigo in the front room of our San Francisco flat. And they play. And they smile. And I watch them from the shadows. Now I am making

I call her Lena, the white fuzzy bunny I buy at the shop in La Jolla. On the corner near a jeweler. It’s one of those shops that has nothing you need and everything perfectly perfect for that special occasion. For that special person. Who loves ladybug coasters or notecards with baby seals. And candles that smell of sage and myrtle and dragon fruit. And, soft cuddly toys. Where I find myself. Staring at the basket of dolls and bears and bunnies. Like the ones that found a hom