this or that

One day I'm thinking about training for a marathon in Hawaii
and the next I'm wondering if the next two years should,
instead, be spent building an eco-conscious
bed & breakfast inn and retreat center in northern California
or somewhere cheaper, like New England. Which takes me to zoning laws
and solar panels and whether or not I will be able
to play perpetual hostess, and away from the laps
around the track I've been accumulating over the week.
And then I remember: what about building houses for
Habitat for Humanity, or traveling around the world
taking photographs, or becoming a basketball coach
or an English teacher? What about walking across country for a year,
or hiking the Appalachian trail or bicycling across Ireland
or becoming a Big Sister to some sweet but troubled girl
living on a shoestring in East Oakland?
Can I squeeze in a songwriting career and a stint
with the circus and when will I learn to really play the guitar
and take voice lessons, and what about that idea of
going back to school and will there be marriage
and children and if so how will I find the time
to be advertising copywriter and come up with
culturally significant taglines like "Just Do It"?

three miles in

three miles in
and something has already begun to change.
for one, I am resisting the urge to race,
beat my own imagined time, surpass the mother fitting in laps
between feedings of her baby boy, show my still-young stride
to the soccer team practicing before supper.

three miles in
and I have already stopped caring how long it takes
to make the rotations on the outside lane,
and why the old guy with the knee brace is still in front,
or how my shorts, riding high on my legs, bare such a lack
of good and proper muscle.

three miles in
and I have forgotten what it is I'm here for,
lost in the rhythm threading through earphones,
the sweat balancing on shoulder blades, my forehead,
the friction of my thighs, the collision of foot
on asphalt, foot on asphalt, again and again and again.

three miles in
and my body is alone at last,
free of all its delicate words and precious sentences,
lunging forward—simply, hungrily—
into the next gulp of hot and heavy air.

try something else

don't worry what day it is
or how many weeks it's been since you've written something good.
don't count the pounds you haven't gained or lost
or the books you haven't read or the New Yorkers
gathering dust on the night table.
don't think about what you would look like with better hair
or fewer blemishes or polished nails or nicer clothes.
don't muse about the days when all you needed
was a bed and a desk and a toothbrush.
don't worry anymore about the lovers you left
and the stories you might have ended
and the memories you might have soiled with
your fanatical, unkempt heart.
don't dismember the choices you made,
the decisions you sealed shut with your
determination, your obstinate yesses and no's.
don't take back what you said.
don't keep what you don't need.
don't heap upon your already sore back
any more of your punishing criticisms.

try something else.
try napping.
try limiting caffeine intake to one really good latte.
try to mediate
and if you don't meditate,
try screaming in your car
in the thick of the late-afternoon bottleneck.
try to apologize simply by apologizing.
take out the trash with the recycling.
devote five whole minutes to the dog.
lavish your toast with butter.
indulge your hunger.
admire your capacity to ask for directions.
believe in the wisdom of rain.
open your mouth to the kiss
that has been waiting for you all along.

nowhere to go but here

as if there were a doorway to slip through
a bright palette to cover over all the dark spots
a silly, lilting melody to sing through the potholes
of every little sadness
as if there were a magic trick
a pill
a sweet fruit smoothie
a tropical drink with a flotilla of orange slices
as if there were a velvet rope,
a bodyguard, a dizzying spotlight evading capture
as if there were words, a gesture, a buoy in the storm
as if there were a white flag, a cardboard fort,
an apology that could heal and replenish and compensate
for all the long-lost absences
as if there were a wool blanket, an opaque curtain, a wall,
a veil, a mirage, a miracle.

I keep thinking I'm doing it all wrong
a set of instructions I didn't read properly
arrows and passageway lights and translations
I somehow missed in my over-attention to the road.

But there is nowhere to go but here
and no matter what, this spot on the map
is mine.

what we hold

family recipes
directions
favorite t-shirts shriveling at the sleeves
we hold prayers, small, slippery beads of hope
we hold desire, impromptu, irrational, whole
as a mountain
we hold entire catalogs of memory
forests of unmistakable want,
wide plains of wisdom.
we hold toothbrushes
hands
open doors
we hold our tension in the limbo of our lower back
we hold promises
secrets
deep pockets of potential
we hold our keys
our gaze
our breath
we hold the necessary baggage
we hold our balance
we hold our ground
we hold our eyes wide open
we are holding everything we can

alright

it is alright to be sore some mornings, to want to lie there forever,
to look at the sun and say, "Pfft," to need to rest, to sleep, to be still.

it is alright to not want children just now, to be patient, even as the clock ticks, to let the women around you love their babies, to sniff your nephew's neck and fall in love with him, it is alright to love children and not want to have them just now, to wait, to think even about the possibility of not having them, to contemplate that, or to think about adopting, or not, to think about other ways in which you might have children in your life, but not have children, maybe, possibly, to not know about any of that just yet.

it is alright to remember that your dogs are dogs, not people, and that if you are not always nice to them, meaning not playing with them all the time, or making sure they get exactly the kind of exercise to wipe them out, if they are restless and you get irritated, close your office door to bar their entry, if you move them off the couch when you want to watch television, if you tell them to stop barking and raise your voice when they don't, if you get tired at the dog hair threading its way into all of your black clothes, if you want to have a vacation without them, if some days they are getting just the basics but not anything extra, it is alright.

it is alright to not be able to be everywhere at once, to disappoint a friend, to miss a commitment you really believed you could make, to let things go when it's impossible to keep them together, to make a mistake, to step on toes, to have to apologize, to be wrong, to be sorry, to be unable to quite make it up.

it is alright to be angry, to fume and agitate and disassemble.

it is alright to want more.

it is alright to do the work, to stumble, to fall, to pick yourself up again, to scrub your knees of gravel, to mend, to heal, to soften, to want, to ache, to look, to join, to love.

it is alright to rise up, to angle toward the light, to have the best possible intentions. It is alright to wait until you are ready, to pace yourself, to take better care, to keep trying, to take as much time as it takes, to be careful, to want to be good.

it is alright.