what i'm working to create

I'm still working on a blog post about my recent trip home. I work on it for a few minutes and then I get overwhelmed with feeling and quit. I haven't been in much of a writing mood lately. I get inspired when I wake up and the sun is on my bare chest and D's snoring on the floor. I feel sexy and young and deer-girl. Then I have to go with my mom to the Social Security office to get her crazy-checks. I have to watch the poor people beg for money in voices modified to sound weak and pitiful under big framed pictures of George Bush and Dick Cheney on the walls. My mom shakes and looks visibly mentally disabled and I remember the beautiful, young, confident woman she used to be and still is in the old pictures I carry in my diary- and it hurts so bad. The man behind the counter treats her like shit and I burst into tears. I lean in over the table until he has no choice but to look in my eyes. I tell him he hates the poor and he's judging my mother- making us choose between feeding her or keeping her checks coming in on time every month. He is shamed and moved by my tears. Maybe he's moved by my beauty and how he made it weep. He hands me a tissue. He apologizes profusely. He promises me that he cares, but he sees so many people every day and it's hard for him to be caring while being professional. I tell him it's hard for us to live. It's hard for us to wait in line and come kowtowing like peasants to these people who are no better than us and treat us like we are diseased. He says yes, he understands. I walk out trembling, holding my mother's arm. We go through Wendy's drive-through and I scarf down some fast food and wish I had enough money to be healthy- to eat organic. I had to hand over my summer savings to some rich Boss Lady at the rental office to keep my mother from being evicted and I am once again broke and feeling overwhelmed with the reality of my lack of choices.

I'm hurting. I'm mourning on so many levels. I miss T. and I'm so sad that we weren't who we thought we were- strong healers and shamans smart enough to rescue our precious friendship from the fires of misunderstanding and stress. I'm sad that so much of my time is consumed with worries. I am sad for all the poor people in my life and the world who cannot get ahead. I am sad for the way I don't smile as easily as I used to. I'm sad for the way I am always afraid someone important to me is going to die. I'm sad for the way I need help and healing and I don't know where to begin.

I go with D. to the mountains and I let my dress fall to my feet and I walk barefoot and naked into the river. This is a place of serenity and it never fails to wash me clean. The water is cold and crystal clear and as I swim deep in the canyon, dozens of spotted rainbow trout come out from under the rocks and swim around me. Little fish, maybe their babies, come and bite at my toes. D. and I watch them and laugh in a "to see the kingdom of heaven, ye must be born again" kind of way. Heaven all around us- I feel lightweight and I come awake in the smallness of my frame and the delicacy of my features. I am who I always have been and when I walk out of this water and back into my life, the demons will attack- the spirits of bad thoughts, low self-esteem, insecurity, anger, and fear. I want to start talking back to them. I want to remember that, even if I'm always poor and never have a real home or insurance or a chance in the world, I can be healthy and aware and kind. I can have lovers and love and self-discovery. Right?

If I had a magic lamp I would rub and rub and rub and wish for healing. I want to stop feeling so class-angry. I want to "lay it all down, sword and shield, lay it all down by the shore and learn war no more." Like Baby Suggs, Holy, tells Sethe in Toni Morrison's Beloved- I want to lay it all down and learn war no more. I want to sit and laugh with my friends without cringing every time they say something that throws our class differences in my face. I want to enjoy a walk in the park without watching people walk by with dollar signs in my mind hanging from every skirt, every hat, every finger. I want to have my differences heard and respected and find more friends who are willing to listen and have patience with me. I want to find a feminist therapist and a class-conscious therapist to help me through this difficult time of becoming and learning and growing. I want to find books and literature and music that I can relate to in this struggle to stay class conscious and vocal without letting class anger consume me whole. I want to write poems and essays and books that will help other class-angry and hurting people to heal and be proud, to speak their experience with confidence. I want to write things that will confront class-blind people with power and honesty, yet with enough love to make it a lesson they can swallow and live with instead of just turning them off and away. I want a lot of things.

I want a "friend for the end of the world." Somebody to hold onto during that final moment when the nuclear bombs blast through the world and the intensity of the light leaves our images in white outlined on the photosensitive concrete walls- I want the survivors to see me with another, holding on, loving until the last moment because what else can you do and what else can you hope for?

The world is incredibly scary sometimes. I take refuge in love. I take refuge in sex. I take refuge in wild carrot and tom yum soup and cherry lip gloss kisses and cemeteries at night and the smell of my lover's sweat and crying in twos, threes, and praying to Jesus even when we don't believe. I take refuge in rainbow trout in the mountains and brief, holy moments of real communication between friends. I take refuge in crows cawing and colors and coming. I take refuge in writing. I take refuge in found feathers and everything beautiful and free (priceless.) I have no other choice but to be happy. Too many before me have been sad and they put their everything into the DNA that created me. I have to do right by them, in honor of their hardships.