Day off

I had the best day today. i watched a little girl in a pink jacket and a blue backpack fall on the sidewalk because she was running too fast (that sounds sadistic to say right after I said I had the best day), but the best part of it was the she picked herself up, rubbed her elbow and sort of sulked along for a few steps and then RAAAAAAAN again for a second and then walked. her mom was waiting for her with the door open and she climbed the stairs to her little white house and her mother’s arm brought her inside.

And then I saw some little boys playing tag in the street. And then I saw a squirrel chase a bunny around and around in circles in the yard. They had a stand off for a second and then the squirrel charged. I think the rabbit jumped up in the air two feet.

And I took a bath this morning. My first bath in this house, in the clawfoot tub, my first bath in maybe geez 5 or 6 years. I haven’t had a place with a bathable tub in a long time. This one is on the brink, but good enough. I filled it with lavender sea salt and I swam in a white sea that smelled purple and listened to the Beethoven radio on Pandora with minor interruptions. And then I wrote and wrote and wrote all day allllllllllllll day. I rode whatever I needed to ride. I made roots to poems that scare me a little because they make me feel darkish and elvish and like I’m playing with goblins and I’m not sure where that comes from, but I’m trying to trust myself and not stop.

I got a thing (i first wrote ‘think’)  in the mail (I’m not sure who sold me to the mail devils) but I got a pamphlet in the mail about some big writing book fair in DC and I’ve never heard of it, but it’s full of famous poets and writers and singers and established people in the “literary world” and while I may in my lifetime be happy to read them, be inspired to read them, I want nothing to do with them right now. I threw it in the trash. I want poets untouched by what’s supposed to be. I want Emily and Sylvia and Anne – women who made it on their own in their own voices, not that they didn’t have help along the way, but I don’t want to be a part of anything popular or trendy. I just want to write me and develop me and swallow a poet’s poetry and not the outside world they’re feeding me. That’s what today meant to me.