Tag: creative non-fiction

Collected Strands

Restless a.m.

I

Ayes running through my mind’s eyes like little cottontails scrambling into the brambles.

Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

Robins bobbling around for worms.

The only animals appearing sleepy are tethered. A dog walking a human.

⊙

A clot of hair collects about a nail head that is pounded into the railing.

I suppose it is mine.

Strands tugged a’loose like feathers, after the daily ritual of:

arrive home, sit outside, and, let the waves down.

Like little feathers lost only to be reassembled into

a new configuration.

A merkin for the metal.

Hosting Flaneurs

The chill in the air smells like the last time I fell in love.

Knitted woolen leg warmers donned. Chestnut brown and unraveling from overuse.

My sister gave me three pairs, last year.

“You want, like, Flash Dance legwarmers for your birthday?” she asked.

“Yeah, I am standing on my toes these days.”

An hour ’til I walk to the restaurant.An hour of coffee, words, and nicotine.

I will pluck my heavy comforter (trans. duvet) from storage after work.

⊙

I seat a one top.

Coffee?: I ask

I insist on it: he says.

We have that in common.

No cream. Bring white sugar if you have it: he says.

White sugar?: I think.

Kat, do we have white sugar already on the table?: I ask, unsure what white sugar means.

Bleached sugar, you mean?: she asks.

Smiling, I say: dunno. He wants white sugar. Those words.

Well, we have raw sugar, nutrisweet, sweat n’ low, and truevia in packets on the tables. We have Splenda packets here, just in case. Brown sugar for breakfast…:

The dishwasher (who provided his own sobriquet [call me MC BlackCoffee: he told me, when I first started] ) interrupts her.

He wants this: he says, holding a shaker the size of two coffee cups stacked on top of each other.

What kind of sugar do you call this: I ask him.

The good kind: he says.

We need to reevaluate your nickname. Sugared coffee is not black coffee: I tease.

Don’t change the color, does it?: he nods, smiling.

⊙

Server T. touches my shoulder: the guy at table six has a book for you.

Oh, word. I was hoping he would make good: I say.

How do you know him? He wasn’t sure if you were the right person. Plus, you just seated him.: he says confused and a bit irritated I had let one guy sit at his four top.

I don’t know him. I didn’t recognize him: I reply.

He shrugs. I smile.

Two nights ago, I discovered this server knew philosophy as well as, if not better than, me. And, he discovered a coworker that could keep up with him. We had discussed the very book table six has brought me. He seemed happy.

~

I met table six when he came in for breakfast a few days before. I noticed him reading a Martin Gardner book.

I dig that guy: I say.

This seventyish year old man looked up at me. I recall one eye not opening all the way, although both eyes appear open today.

I found Hofstadter, Penrose, and Feynman through him: I say.

He stared at me.

He wants to be left alone: I think.

I walk away, after offering: I’ll leave you to enjoy.

As he left, he stopped by my hostess post and asked: how did someone your age find out about these guys.

Well, I was ten years younger in Alabama selling collegiate clothing in a boutique and I got very bored.

~

I go up to table six. He has brought me his second copy of Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, thoughtfully wrapped in plastic as it rains heavy. This was a gateway book for me and I lost my copy during my move from AL to WA. I am thrilled a copy has found it’s way back to me.

What kind of restaurant is this? You and my server is a philosophy graduate.: he says, looking quite serious.

One that is open to hiring ex-academic flaneurs: I joke.

I have him sign and date the book.

By the way, your server is also a third degree black belt: I mention.

~

Server T says: Don’t you think it’s funny we were just talking about that book the other night?

Ha, I am surprisingly unsurprised. Things like this happen a lot to people like us, don’t you think?: I respond.

Well, I think there would be some observer bias in such a thought: he says, quite rightly.

But, observer bias is unavoidable by definition because we are observers at every moment. What are your thoughts on metaphysics?: I push him.

I try to avoid metaphysics. Too messy.: he says, walking away.

Yeah, yeah. That’s what all you philosophers say these days. Too messy and too close to mysticism: I call out as much to myself as to him.

A ghost ship at full clip

Fighting-as-discipline haunts me with every new face I meet. (Invariably they are black belts, INK’D athletes, ex MMA fighters, etc.)

Cannily uncanny. It may be inspiring my clip this morning. I certainly find the trend personally inspiring. The same way the numbers 93, 13, 11, and 777 hook my attention. Do I see them at every turn because they occur in a disproportionate amount or do my expectations simply enliven significance?

My feet carry my brain to work, propelled as though by the will of something outside of my conscious thought.

I walk too fast. I don’t know why. Mind still foggy from tying one on with the family last night.

Damn. I can barely keep up with my own pace.: I think, walking.

Click, click.

Click, click.

Quick.

Oh well, the energy required to change my momentum seems more consuming than just continuing to walk along, too fast.

It is a grey sky morning.

Have I actually woken up?

°

The sun finally arrives and beats the cloud cover into smashed splinters. It makes the day seem real. I feel my heart finally kick start, keeping rhythm with the coffee coursing through my system.

Howllelujah.: says the newly given up ghost,

in a whisper of surrender to this new day.

Almost a double ewe.

The British invasion occured today, at the restaurant.
A delightful change of clientele in town for Birdfest.
Aside from the accent, the nearly, overly polite manners gave them away.
Along with the ability to smile and make kindly eye contact despite not having had their morning caffeine.
Who cares if they mean it.
Such civility for the sake of simple decency resonates with my Southern background. The South has little else to offer, currently. Hence, my leaving a few years ago.

(Serving people who have arrived to have their first cuppa in our dining room is always an intimate moment of raw honesty. Coffee, tea, or booze).

They enjoy my accent as much as I enjoy their’s. They laugh when I say ‘y’all’.”

I say it a lot. Habituated.

“Most practical pronoun in American English. Much better than ‘you all/guys’,” I tease.

Server P over hears this.
S/he snags me by my shoulder and, laughing, tells me, “I like ‘y’all’ as much as I prefer ‘they/them’!”

It makes me giggle. It makes me feel good to hear this.

Until today, coffee out ordered tea.
Eight to one.
We run out of tea pots to distribute, for the first time ever.

I convert our decaf urn to a simple pot of hot water, to meet the refill demands.

¤

A solo diner arrives.
I wave as I approach from the rear of the dining room, so he knows he has been espied and will be assisted as fast as my heels can click my steps toward him

“Oh gee, hi there. How are you? It is just me, I am afraid,” he says to the hostess (me) before she (me) has even greeted him.

I break into my you-are-dear-to-me smile, immediately.

He was not British, though he held the manners and demeanor.
He had me in age by at least one and a half decades.
Long lovely fingers, nearly sky eyes but not quite.
Like a mockingbird’s.
Like a seagull’s call, cackling at me, because I kept wanting to mistake him for someone else.
We swap a good moment.

He looks a bit bewildered when I tell him I can seat him at a table or he may sit at the bar.
I have put him on the spot and he does not know which he prefers. It makes him genuinely squirm a bit.

Most American folk are most happy to be asked for their opinion. People love to let you know that they think “this” about “that.”

“Tell you what, our best server is bartending today. You should enjoy her service. Let’s go the bar.”

He blushes, nods; and, again,
I want to mistake him for someone else.

I lead him to
seat 35, specifically.

I watch him as I work, this sweet, little, mockingbird.
He watches me working, when he thinks I am not looking, but my job here is to always be looking.
I watch him try to subtlety watch me.
I avert my gaze, at times.

Eventually, I can no longer refrain.
I walk over to him and say, “I just want you to know you have such beautiful eyes. Exceptional.”

He gives me a look of shock and discombobulated confusion.

I touch my palm to his shoulder and walk away.

‘Exceptional’ because he recalls someone shamefully impeccable.

Viynl Track Intro

I notice

a bonfire,

(alit via a couple of cotton balls, a lighter, and a tube of

lip balm)

burning high,

(especially when being properly blown into)

sounds a lot like a needle, with

a diamond tip,

sliding around and around,

a viynl record’s groove.

Shhhhtshhht.

Right before the song starts.

Still/s

And,

still,

I howl.

What is this extraneous energy I feel coursing inside me?

Whose is it?

I need some wing-wo/man to deal with the secrets

people impart to the queen of magnets.

You said: she get it from her momma?

I said: eff right off.

{Not you, doll.

You look fine.

I love your snarl.

You are fine;

yet, I, still, worry you run cold.

I don’t get cold.}

I don’t exist in orgiastic ecstasy.

I exist in an ecstasy of sincerity that happens to be orgiastic.

And, yes, it seems like an eternity.

{An eternity for which I am already too late.}

Last Open Table: Trade Secret Talk

Hey Aimme, I only have table 18 open…: I say, hostessing.

Oh, the four top, newly remodeled to a three?: she says, jokingly but without a smile.

~

{trans: yeah, that guy that joined table 19, without a word, stole the fourth chair from table 18 and has blocked access to table 18.

/Some men appear to need to take up an unnecessary amount of space. The cunt in me thinks they are the same men who feel compelled to drive large trucks with flat beds they will never use/

Additionally, the small dining room of this restaurant is filled with only tables for two and tables for four. This makes table 18 a hot commodity to a hostess. Especially, a patient, thoughtful one working Sunday morning.

But, push has come to shove. I won’t run a waitlist for him, this joiner, unless my server says she thinks they deserve it.}

/some posers know how to tip/

~

[She should have been cut an hour ago.

We should have dropped to two servers already; but the gal closing told her: yeah, we could cut you if I wanted to work harder.

I overheard this. It disappointed; but, there may be reasons such a statement is more reasonable than it may sound to my ears.]

⊙

Am I cleared by you to do my thing with this guy: I ask?

She nods immediately. It is louder than words to my ears.

I wonder if she noticed I kept seating her out of rotation, when a table in her section became available. I made sure she did not lose a table because of the joiner.

I don’t mention this.

⊙

A table for three arrives.

One moment: I say, wearing a smile, for them alone, that says “I’m gonna let you in on a trade secret.”

I take two steps over to table 19 and begin with

a big, genuine (“here goes no-thing”) smile

{In a way it is my job to do so. /You see, hosti are notoriously flighty. /otherwise they’d be servers, right?/ giggle}

I say: hey there!

[I do panto, panto, panto, then a little soft shoe.]

{Sic. Hosti trade secret}

The entire family at table 19 laughs.

Me and the five year old are now waltzing in a tiny square.

The people standing, waiting, start laughing,

for a different reason.

We should get out of your hair: says the dad at table 19.

{This family had finished eating over an hour ago. We call such folk [campers].}

Well, I do need to get access to that table over there, to seat these fine folk: I say, motioning to actual humans waiting.

Table 19 kindly slide themselves aside while making small talk with the family I am about to seat at table 18.

I am now waiting on the waiting list.

The best kind of professional inconvenience, to me.

⊙

Table 19 leaves.

Table 18 is seated.

Thank you: says Aimme.

I am immediately and acutely overwhelmed by deja-vu.

I grab Aimme by the arm and say: I just got the most intense deja-vu I’ve felt in years.

Because, I experience the feeling not infrequently.

Because, Aimme is empathic, too.

Because, it feels so strong it calls into question scales of magnitude.

She stops.

You must be in the right place: she says before springing back into action.

…

I dig the gravity of her spontaneous response.

Over her shoulder, she calls out: thank you for making sure I got as many tables as the others.

Pyre-amid Dream

I dreamt I was not quite a teenager.

I fed ducks in a park on a bench, with a Holocaust survivor. He was a mean man, and we got along well.

We did two things:

1. Feed ducks bread crumbs

2. Play a game.

Starting with A, we would name diseases/ailments in alphabetical order all the way to Z(ed).

Alzheimer’s

Bunyons.

Canker sores.

But, repeating was unacceptable.

Ex. Next round:

Acne

Boss eyes

Cataracts.

He always won. I did not care.

He taught me what floaters were but could not tell me why sometimes I saw white ones, like the sprinkles of 4th of July sparklers, and sometimes I saw indigo ones.

He only saw the white ones.

⊙

But, before that,

in the same dream,

I dreamt that

the crest of your wave foams white in its churning.

My c-heeks go red.

Eyebrows arch up high as your brow furrows.

You slide softly and I run nails over your rib cage.

I kiss your nape.

⊙

But, before that,

in the same dream,

I dreamt that

I went on a walk.

My arm swung by my side like the pendulum of a grandfather clock.

Wafting leaf smoke like incense in some ceremony.

I heard two staccato strikes against strings of an amplified guitar,

in time with my heels’ clicks.

Labouring in Unkind Kindness.

A day I play like Cool Hand Luke.

If you labo(u)r, you probably do not have Labor Day off.

You are probably extra busy with your labor, in fact,

because of all those non-physical labourers who do have the day off.

No judgement, just observation derived from experience as someone who has been on both sides.

This is pure assumption: I can tell if you have ever worked on your feet, by how you interact with me when I am running a waiting list for the restaurant.

Open secret x: I am the hostess. I want you happy.

Open secret x’: you will not piss me off nor will I say anything unkind.

You know why?

Because, nothing pisses cranky people off more than someone who will not take your anger bait.

Killing you with kindness quite literally, you silly folks.

This is where the Tao of Cool Hand Luke comes into play.

You trying to put me down on the ground?

I just keeping getting back up with a giggle and a smile.

I have been through far worse.

I can do it until you are uncomfortable.

Every now and then, I can even make you smile.

Score.

I appear daft. Too stupid to realize I am being insulted.

I appear sugary sweet, but I speak in a calm, deep, resonant voice.

Just so you get a grip on the power of my gravity.

Unkindly kind.

Slow Train (feat. Cate Le Bon) KEVIN MORBY

No rights: homage to a favorite in the house KC.

/I am barely on the ground/

/train/train/release the fire out of me/

/I don’t wanna burn/

/from the inside/

/n’ I dunno my name and I dunno my purpose/

/I just know my place on the slow train./

⊙

Slow train coming.

I’ll be ’round the bend, this backwoods gal, from Alabama.

Boy, without a doubt…

There’s a slow, slow train coming round the bend.

⊙

I nice dreamy song for those of you with a long weekend.

Or a burning heart.

I still remember

/Standin’ on the platform waiting for that train/

/Son, you are too late now/

/Train already came/

/waitin’ on a train that’s already come/

/come/

I checked.

Last night, I looked it up.

Chameləons are cold-blooded.

Also, kind.

Colorful transformers.

Octipi kindred spirits.

I cherish.

Suiting the moment and not making every moment suit them.

In the former, you may see much.

In the latter, not so much.

Authentic moment to instantly.

TOOL – Pneuma (Audio)

No rights: homage.

Merry TOOL eve. To each and every one of us.

Per first comment: https://youtu.be/x7lk_iucgw8

Dream of the Rocky Siege

I dreamt I was under siege last night.

Like Bell Rock.

But ages before.

The rocks were boulders of dingy khaki and earl gray.

Choppy and round, not leveled and smoothed.

But, they too, like the current iteration, remain cool to the touch,

despite constant exposure to the pressure of the sun.

I do no know why I am here, nor why I am being fired upon.

I wear a sleeveless red, knee length dress which renders me a sitting duck visually, per se.

I have on my “clown shoes” as I call them in this reality.

The pair of red, canvas slip ons are not conducive to scaling mountain goat terrain quickly.

Rocks, boulders, are being launched at me by wooden catapults operated by an unseen foe.

I hear them screaming through the air before my eyes can see them.

This is the best advantage I have.

I can look where I am going while feeling assured I will hear the threat.

No need to look for the threat.

I drop to the fetal position under the precipice of a nearby boulder, if available.

I think. If I had an umbrella in the colors of the rocks around me, that might be handy.

Such umbrella appears in my hand.

This is a dream: I think.

I try the umbrella method during the next assault.

They lose me in their scope.

I believe they are hopeful they struck me down and thus can no longer see me.

I leap to feet

too soon,

spoiling the very advantage I just created.

I hear the next rock scream.

Howl. Bad bit of terrain beneath my feet.

This umbrella could deflect the projectile: I imagine.

I open it, crouch down.

My braced arms withstand the pressure of the incoming’s rock momentum.

It bounces off the imagined shield.

I feel like I have won the battle.

Energetic Exchanges

I wear all black with saddle leather boots, for work.

Straightened hair business.

As I walk, I unfurl my energetic wings.

My mantle.

Cold steel blades slide out through my shoulder blades.

Clinking.

I shake them. Loosening.

They respond when I dress this way.

I take care to align each blade so they will fold away properly.

Inappropriate for the task at hand.

I call forth the other side.

gossamer feathers.

Carefully unfurling.

One flies a’loose, fluttering into the breeze like a shining bit of a spider’s web.

The feathers still smell of you from last night.

From when you came to my mind with your pain clear in your

energetic, non-corporeal eyes.

Come in: I told you silently.

You stepped behind my back.

Squared with my shoulder blades.

Your pain began pouring out.

I collected you in my steely wings. Making a box.

A safe place. An unobservable vacuum within which you may thrash and wail.

I dropped down my feather mantle for you.

Draping the steely interior in celestial down.

Those who would prey upon your moment of weakness

slay themselves upon my well-honed metallic feather-blades, trying to break in.

Ships, at night, on a rocky coast with no lighthouse.

With each slam of your energetic body against the walls of my wings, you felt nothing but goose down envelope you.

I took great care to ensure this.

You fell asleep inside. I opened the space, covered you, cupped your hipbone, and slept aside you.

Dream of a band

You and I went to an afterparty for a band called The Passé Posse.

It was in a place named Electri-City by an ocean.

But, there was only candlelighting.

There were water slides being used as public transportation.

Part of the city’s infrastructure.

I visited here previously.

As I took you by the hand to take you to my bed,

You said: You maybe too physical. Too physical for me.

Like the song?: I ask.

I do no know if you were kidding

because i immediately awoke.

Humbling a Tuesday Hostess

I say: I’m sorry, did you just ask if this wine pairs well with beaver tail?

He says: Yep. Nice top.

You’re lucky I’m the kind one: I say.

This is 9:30 a.m.

⊙

It will be a ten minute wait for a party of four: I say.

Can we not sit there?: she asks, motioning to a table behind a divider over which she cannot see.

No. There are still are people eating at that table: I say.

It does not look like anyone is there: she says.

I smile. It is much easier for me to seat people and not run a wait list.

I promise I would seat you if I could: I say.

She finally attempts to confirm her assumption by walking around the divider.

She sees two people still seated and eating.

It looked empty from this side: she said

In realization.

Thank you for your patience: I say.

⊙

Would you like the table by the window (sic. best table in the house)? I ask.

I know how you do. Sit me here so the place looks busy, right?: she asks.

I’d wanna sit here if I were eating: I say.

I realize she is joking with me, by virtue of her kind reaction.

I stop. Let myself take a deep breath. Let her see myself smile

In realization.

One of those mornings: I say.

⊙

Shelia and Don arrive.

I am Dimples to Shelia today.

I get a hug and a kiss on my cheek.

You are my surrogate granddaughter: she says.

My heart feels warm.

Half a mind two

When I am all these fathoms afar,

breath is rest.

I sleep with my eyes open.

My eyes close upon waking.

A nap is a blink.

A micro-sleep.

A relative delusion.

The pull of fo/u/rces enlivening me.

I am force moving through time and space.

Or, maybe, that is you.

Perhaps, I am your optimal conditions.

Your ideal ether enabling materialization.

I see from the vacuum of the abyss.

It is lonely but I am not alone.

Tactile not tactical.

Marco Polo is not a game but a call and response song.

Electricity and light.

Lidar and blackholes

howling in algorithmic keens.

Your mind is a cheshire, Schrödinger’s cat.

Punctuated Equilibrium

I watch talented women sit silently aside who they championed.

They simply sit and smile.

Power move: says my optimistic soul.

The strength to stillness.

Empowered or powerless?

⊙

I do not always know how to look for what I want.

It is no matter of courage.

Feeling lost and found because I don’t think there’s anywhere to go.

These places are just places.

Amazing and mundane.

Simultaneous.

Does anyone say what they mean?

⊙

And, everywhere, everyone finds a reason to use the word /cassette/.

It shatters my heart on impact into my ears.

A heart for a heart.

Who is your audience?

A hopeful foundation

for a handmade looking glass house.

Espy patience feeling impatient.

⊙

“A common woman goes far,” my grandmother told me.

“And, a comma can change entire meanings,” she said without saying.

So I repeat myself:

“Æ pay attention to your punctuation.”

Inviting.

I watch white butterflies flutter by.

The local feral cat dozes under a nearby bush.

As with the boisterous Stellar’s jays who I feed peanuts, the cat accepts my presence now.

S/he gives me a lazy, sidelong glance.

I focus into those two eyes and blink my own very slowly.

The cat returns my slow blink.

This means we are still cool. I speak cat, see.

I am poor but I am elitely wealthy in simple luxury.

So, I suppose that I am rich at the moment,

to my mind’s eye.

In scenery. In being able to walk to work.

In being down with the local flora and fauna.

I smell bursts of flowers’ blooms from proficient gardeners.

Blasts of fragrances from local shops with open, front doors.

The day invites me.

35 going on 77

A sawtooth comb for newly brittle hair.

Almost raking the wet curls.

A mind sulking over some lost piece of life, perhaps?

Everything is easier under the cover of my clouds and stars, dear,

including your lucid waking and dreaming.

⊙

I take the long way home.

I pause.

From outside the pub, I listen to the band play.

I consider going inside.

I see someone eyeball me and motion to an empty seat.

I smile and shake my head.

He cannot take the place of the one on my mind tonight.

I do not seek distraction.

I will enjoy my own smouldering.

A game of patience.

A study in control.

A tyre pyre burning.

⊙

I pass a man followed by a woman.

He has his hand extended behind him.

Fingers shifting in an effort to convince her to hold his hand.

I wonder why she didn’t take it into hers.