Grey day

Today is grey and kind of gloomy. The kind of day you stay in bed for with a good book under the covers. I am coveting my pillows. One for my head, the other my arms.

It is 4:00 the worst part of my day. My lunch is settling in like an anchor pulling deep into the depths of sleep. A world impervious to my supposed office duties.

I can feel the pressure growing on my face, my eyelids, my cheeks, encouraging me to succumb. My entire body, turning itself off. I am fighting with out much intent to remain awake like a lone sailor trying to navigate a large yacht who has lost all crew.

I protest quietly while i feel myself slipping irrisistibly away. I just need a second.

Almost mugged on the E line

I was almost mugged standing in the Subway. It was overcrowded and I felt as if I was being unnecessarily leaned into. I move around to adjust my position to create more room, but he is definitely leaning into me and it seems intentional now. I switch my bag to the front of me and squeeze my bag feeling for my wallet. It's there. I look at him to see what kind of person, he looks thuggish. I have my wallet and my cell phone, I start focusing on my exit so I can make it as quickly as possible through the thick unyielding crowds. I go to the rest room at my office and I notice my bag has been ripped open with a knife.

I go back to the platform and they call officers to come and meet me. They take down his description and show me tiny pictures on laminated cards. He is not on their cards.

I seem to be an oddity for them. Remembering the person, providing a description, and not really having had anything stolen. They grow to a group of 8.

Maybe it's my stance. I am not ranting, or crying, but determined. Cops seem to be judgemental creatures, it's their job to assess people quickly, and I feel as if they are not quite sure what to make of me.

They take down my info and I thank them as we part.

St. Barth Tomorrow

My ex tenant has moved out and has left me wood bar stools, a desk, an antique kitchen scale, some more furniture, candles, and a fat cat named Meow who and which I will see for the first time tomorrow.

My brand new taupe bags are not yet packed because I ordered them late and are expected to arrive after I leave which is of course not beneficial to me. My cousin has lent me his suitcase but which i have thus far refused to pack as I optimistically hold out hope that my luggage will arrive today. Speaking of which, I can't help but feel as if he is harboring some jealously or animosity connected to my leaving.

My lengthy shopping for my mother who is in St. Barth is completed.

The house has been cleaned, the garden trimmed, and the lawn mowed.

Everything I plan to bring is stored together awaiting with an expectant air for their future bag.

Yet I have this anxiety that I am missing something which will come to me only once I am on the plane or perhaps, I am just anxious, anxious about seeing my house again, or the trip, or leaving all my plants in my father's care.

Yesterday, I was so anxious, I had to remind myself I could stay if I wanted to. Which I really can't, I suppose, as I will need to work on my house. But I mean, it's strange to be so anxious without a definite reason and since I was not quite sure what I was anxious about, it was difficult to reason with myself.

Blue jay killed

We had an accident in my backyard. A bluebird was killed. There was a cat lurking under the trees that ran off upon seeing me. A guilty cat.

The blue jay was majestic. Its feathers, what fashion designers fail to attempt, untouchable breathtaking beauty. A mixture of grace, grandeur and humbleness. A quality of frailty and strength.

Its blue striped feathers dotted the lawn like the scene of a tragic opera. Looking at it lying there, I felt helpless. There was nothing I could do. The story finished before I could interact or intercede.

Touched, I went to retrieve a little box with tissue paper. I dug a hole. It helpted to do something. Gently placing the bird in the silver and white paper, then in the box, which seemed inappropriate for something that seemed so pure and blue, like a piece of the sky broken off, I placed him in the ground and covered him with dirt. I found blue flowers which I placed at the site.

Life seems quite ambivalent to it's little creatures.

Walking away

I'm going away for one month to take care of my house in St. Barth. I am not sure returning to NY is such a great idea. I am not really invested in my job, which is thoroughly unfulfilling, nor do I have an apt I need to hold on to, nor do I have anyone here to return to.

I can just walk away...

SWIM

I want to submerge myself in clear blue water and swim until I can't move anymore, then i want to devour cheese puff balls with Heineken, and collapse in a white hammock, focusing on my rhythmic breath.

Study of the unwitting development of evil

I once had a subway conductor who would seemingly, intentionally, and quite cruelly refuse to leave the stations in a timely manner. First he would fuss for ever with the doors, then once closed, he would wait a full minute to 3 minutes before launching off as we all held our breath fearing the doors would pop open once more. This, while rush hour is in full swing and everyone has run in a frenzy to make this subway so they can make their train, which will leave you behind regardless of any sadistic conductor you may meet. Our eyes glancing in a repetive tick-like motion to our watches our faces a combination or resignation, frustration and anxiety.

Having missed my train, I leisurely walk up to his window and glare at him, he takes off right away.

For a very brief moment, I had an insane, yet repressed desire to take on a gypsy accent and say I curse you, your family, your children, their children, their grandchildren, their great grandchildren, in fact I realize I am cursing all of humanity, which is probably in a small subtle way what this conductor is attempting.

I exhale and go for flying saucer ice cream.

Leaving for St. Barth in 2 weeks

I still don't have luggage. I still don't have any capris which are so very necessary there (pants being too hot, shorts too casual, dresses to fussy, capris generously leave mosquitos that window at their disired ankle area for them to gnaw on). My house is still not cleaned. My shopping is still not done. I am still fussing over the baggage requirments and pondering the possiblity that they may really make me pay excess baggage from St. Martin to St. Barth. I am caught between the desire to play it safe and bring the only 40 pounds per traveler permitted and sneaking in extra pounds based on the fact that the airline is generally pretty customer friendly and has allowed me to do so in the past.

I am caught one foot hovering in mid air, the other staunchly anchored to the ground.

I realize that this is also a very accurate description of my life. This perpetual over sucrutinizing of possibilities that I lack enough information to make a logical decision about coupled with lots of unfinished business that may never be attended to. So I stand perplexed, not moving forward, yet also not moving backward, a foot in mid-air.

Leaving for St. Barth in 3 weeks

I am leaving for St. Barth in 3 weeks to take care of my house. My tenant who has grown into the habit of habitually paying late and is presently 3 months behind has promised that if he were not able to provide me with the full payment by the July he would leave. Which I suppose I should be grateful for as it didn't require legal intervention to have him removed. He opened a restaurant which apparently is not working out as he expected so I can only be understanding, these things happen and he said he would pay me the past months in increments.

Then just as I thought I was becoming use to this idea and make plans to visit my house for renovation and enjoyment, the neighbor who borders my little pool and the back side of my house, has recently taken to massacre the native palm trees that divide his property and my house. I am thankful I am not there to see those poor trees that took decades to grow in harsh dry land lie helplessly on the ground looking up at the sky wondering what they did to deserve this. My privacy vanquished, my house standing there with large multiple doors open allowing the birds to fly through is now also on display for these neighbors.

The natives on the island seem to suffer from a strange affliction, of chopping down all the trees on their property and sometimes even on other peoples property that borders their land. Then they complain that it's hot, it doesn't rain, that there's no water to be had. Try to tell them that trees provide shade, maintain humidity and encourage rain and watch as they look at you like you mentioned that they need to plant magnets in order to make refrigerators. I won't mention to them that trees are attractive, I am sure to get a look of pity.

I am building a wall. I may not be able to stop them from destroying their land, but I will preserve mine and the wall, which holds humidly and will reduce the wind that batters my trees will serve to protect them. It will also thankfully separate me from those people.

Grandmother Florestine Left

I woke up early this morning feeling something was amiss. It was too early to wake up and I had gone to bed sinfully late. But, there I was looking at my watch, struggling to make sense how it could be so early when my body felt like to move, roam, run, eat, and move forward with my day. I feel a slight anxiety, an obscure excitement. The phone rings, I hear my cousin speaking from the other room where the answering machine is. I am amazed he would call me so early. I think about getting up to check but my sleeping mind cannot put together any possibly alarming scenario that would warrant depriving me of possible sleep which might come to me, which I would appreciate later in the day, like a traveler lamenting the weight of his bags but thankful for the contents later. I twist and turn. I worry about my not being able sleep. I am generally a good sleeper. Something is not right. Something, but what. I run over in my mind my day and fail to find anything that would cause me this flighty feeling.

Later when its time to get up I play the answering machine, apart from my cousin's call, there are 2 other messages on it from my uncle. He sounds very sad but does not mention why he calls. I think about my grandmother. My mind draws up an image of her in her wheel chair, thin, sad, but perhaps worse than these, she is resigned. I wanted to visit her more often but that look and the fact that she couldn't hear me stopped me from visiting as often as I wanted. She tells me about taking care of my teeth. My family reassures me that this is what she says now.

I remembered how she like to wear pants when everyone else on the island her age only wore dresses. I remember appreciating how she kept her house spare. Giving away things that took up room. All these years I had thought it was the architecture of the house that appealled to me, but having returned their later, I realized it was also the way she kept it so that air and sun could flow through. It was all simplicity and lightness. I share with her the way she liked to garden and see things grow.

For years I avoided seeing her because of some issues we had, when i returned, she was gone in a way and now she has left entirely.

I will light an candle for her tonight so that she may find her way.