I used to want my own radio show. I would play records and talk a little bit between songs. Try to talk with a smooth radio voice. Once in high school I joined the radio club and did sports reporting at a track meet. It was nerve wracking.
Now I have this and I love it when people text me or call me or comment about anything.
I was trying to remember a word from the 80s the other day that sometimes applied to a style or people and we liked it but when trying to tell the story to my friend we both forgot the word.
We passed words back and forth, guessing. It was fun.
ambidextrous.
neutral.
asexual.
anthropomorphic.
monochromatic.
monogamous.
It was androgynous. We both liked this word. This term was used more back then than I hear it now.
I went out and canvassed again for our recently elected mayor. I wore Carhartt jeans, a purple rayon plaid shirt, and small silver hoop earrings. A pragmatic, semi-earthy appearance (perhaps androgynous).
I don’t like going alone very much. I get nervous. When I get nervous I sing random songs in my head. Recently, I started out with the Beatles, You never give me your money, you only give me your funny paper…
I went with Larry this last time. We talked about Rumi (we met a cat along the way named Rumi). We talked about Islam. He read a book about it. Democratic races, past and present. How to be amusing and why it is helpful in many situations.
I couldn’t believe how many beautiful peonies and roses we saw. Like, giant!
Some days I’m a switchboard operator. I’m sitting at a wall of inlets and I have to plug the wires into what is best corresponding to the needed frequency. This image came to me, it wasn’t me, but it was an actual switchboard operator in black and white, connecting a large wall of outlets, criss-crossing, making connections. I’m still thinking about it.
I think about my placement in everything. Because the other day I was without my dog and this brought some focus around relational space.
My dog was out for nearly the entire day. She needed dental work. She is about 14 years old and 12 pounds, and deaf and sleeps a lot, but you can’t believe the empty place she leaves when not here. I was telling my 90+ year old friend about her, that she is still alive but old, and my friend said, that is me, I am still alive but very old.
I wanted to take the dog out for a walk but there was no dog. The house felt very empty. My cats were away with their own schedules.
My animals, each of them, serve as moorings, holding the space, balancing the web of gravity. They are like my tent stakes.
I waited to get the phone call to go pick her up. I thought about her while at work, wondered how she was doing.
What are things we have to track where we are in space? How we are in our place? I like to be rooted, to be in relational sonar, a mutual pinging of support or understanding that we are aware of each other. It’s comforting.
Lately, like today, I went for a walk, one I do a lot, and I know it well. But I looked at things as if they were new to me. I noticed smells, like, the fresh cut grass. I practiced feeling the wind whooshing through, hearing it in the trees.
On this path, through a meadow, just for a little while, I practiced not thinking through things, planning, organizing, analyzing. When I do that it can block my tethers, holders of placement in times that though, seemingly basic, can be briefly divine, can embody a current, a moment, put in place by the cosmic switchboard operator.
Relational sonar