I'm leaving for England in 19 days, and I don't believe it. I don't know if I'll believe it until my feet are squeaking across dingy LAX floors, with my suitcase, far from packed, rolling neatly along behind me. Maybe not even then.
Work is grinding me down in ways I didn't know it could. I fall asleep tired and wake up exhausted. I suppose this is what it feels like to be a five day a week, 9 hour (or more) a day worker. I don't like it. It takes something from me that I can't afford to lose. It takes my belief that creativity and joy are vitally important, that kindnesses will be repaid, that smiling can fix things, that everyone does indeed have time to talk, to enjoy one another. I keep struggling, trying to remind myself that those things are truths worth holding onto. That that is my reality. All the more, though, it seems unimportant. Silliness loses its power in the face of exhaustion, loans, obligations. It all piles up and its all I can do to keep treading water, keep my head high enough to breathe. I hope, desperately, that this isn't reality. I want to deny it, refuse it! I want to fight for something else, even if its only the shadow of a poem, a moment with friends, sunshine. And yet, as my fingernails scrabble for a hold, something, inevitable as gravity, pulls me downward.

Over the highways and thru traffic, to Grandmother's house we go

So I got a speeding ticket last Saturday. Genius! I suppose I've had it coming, being a perpetual leadfoot, but I would have felt better had I been pulled over for actually speeding, not safely traveling faster than the speed limit along with the rest of the freeway. Semantics, I know, but it was kinda unfair and definitely a bummer. Plus it just gives me one more thing to hold against the noble race of highway patrolmen. And before that thought continues I am going to drop it and float on the sea of calm that is my inner Shannon (can you tell that yoga is really kicking in?)

I did get to go kayaking with my Grandpa in Huntington Harbor, a maze of waterways lined with houses, docks and boats moored in the gently lapping water. My nose got red, my shoulders hurt, unaccustomed as they were to paddling, but it was lovely. The water was cool and salty, the air warm. I beached my kayak and swam from dock to dock, feeling the life sliming and crusting its way up the wooden supports. I jump off the bridge spanning the mainland and these manmade islands planted with houses grandiose and quaint, screaming until I am swallowed by the water; beneath the surface my feet sink into cold, bottomless mud. I paused at the top on the outside of the rail, leaning back into its concrete support, and looked down at the water. Nervousness creeps up my throat; the water glints like obsidian in the sun, hard. I jump anyway, without another second to give to my jitters. It's either now or wait until the fear saturates you; no one wants to climb back over the rail and creep, yellow, back to the waters edge.

One more day as a nonentity

Time is such a slippery beast - I can never get a hold of it, never wrap my mind around the concept. I want to slow it down, savor it by moments or speed it up, fast-forward to some other segment of my life. It, indifferent to my grasping, paces on; I, meanwhile, limp behind schedule bemoaning my fate, which happens to be universal and not all that bad.
This week constant swim lessons have started taking their toll. Jumping in and out of the pool, pulling out every trick - bribery, teasing, encouragement, threats - I wily coax these kids into swimmers (or at least not drowners). Maybe its the chlorine, but my energy is sapped, and yet I'm restless for something else, too. I'm also browning like a roast and have begun actively fearing skin cancer, which has morphed into some kind of mythological demon that stalks me. Yes, too much time in the pool shouting, "kick-kick-kick-kick" and "paddle! use your big arms!" and "put your face in!" and the ever-pressing "BREATHE!" has addled my brain. Also great.
On a more positive note, I have now become an accomplished "document destroyer," that is, I can shred large amounts of paper by hand. Every day brings new excitement and new challenges - can I rip apart 26 pieces of paper at one time? Bring it on!
Okay, sorry to be whiny, I just want to be exploring someplace, or going somewhere singing at the top of my lungs. And I will be. Maybe I will start that now and see how many people stare at me as if I'm a crazy person, or maybe I will just sing because what else can you do? Like what else can you do but wake up and praise the Lord and greet the sun and begin?

Amen! Let us begin!

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

Listen to carrion -- put your ear close,
and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap for power,
please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go.

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
Wendell Berry

Catching Up

I must confess I have gotten out of the habit of posting - but things have been busy! A wonderful week long trip with family and cousins up to the North of California - (try, Big Sur before the fires) with lots of camping in our condo-sized tent, games, hiking, beaches, a train-ride through the coastal redwood forest (big, big trees! and very cool too. they literally suck in the morning fog and then exude the moisture on hot days for their own personal airconditioning. yay for sequoia sempervirons!) We hung out at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk and rode the fourth oldest still running wooden rollercoaster The Big Dipper. We played about four games of Lord of the Rings Risk - the battle for Middle Earth could not have been more intense. We ate a lot. We went to the Monterrey Aquarium. We stayed at LimeKiln state park and wandered the rocky coasts. My cousin Nath undertook a miraculous rescue of his sister's shoes which were swept into the surf during an intense volleyball game (while less motivated people watched said shoes drift out). We climbed some trees, skipped a prodigious amount of rocks (Nath clearly won with upwards of 15! I was impressed). We spent a lot of time just together and even a few days out of cell-phone reception, which was rather horrific for our "attached" girls (my sister Lauren and cousin Moira) who hiked miles in an unfruitful search for reception. Lauren was even more pouty and despondent, but cheered up a bit after using a payphone that was practically a relic. All in all, it was really nice.
Since then I have just been working - swim lessons are picking up and its actually really fun, unless I have to dunk screaming kids or coax crying ones off the wall. However, it is really rewarding to have kids like Gracie who's 3 to go from crying to saying, "me want to go under now!" I am, as always, happy to oblige.

Sad girl

Her hands;
slender, efficient.
Her smile;
polite, perfunctory.
Her laugh;
timed, cautious, taught.
She is beautiful.
Her eyes caress the uneven ground.
She looks to the sky in her dreams,
and waking, sighs.

A walk with my sister

Thief stealing twilight
she runs like a dancer along curbs.
From the terraced gardens
a single rose leans over the wall.
I gently tug its thorn-webbed stem downwards,
I steal a breath of rose,
I stare into the turmoil of her petals and see myself.
Sister sees the blackberries ripening!
Easing a berry from its nippled stem,
I taste sunshine wine, darkened by cool nights.
We mourn the fallen berry,
crushed beneath clumsy shoes,
then skip away laughing,
eyes wide as the sky.
We leap over still, posioned water in the concrete river.
We blow the spores of grasses for good luck.
We sprint across deserted intersections,
following the path of star constellations
drawn out in abandoned coins.