मेलान्चोली डे.

(weird. again on this other computer - the title in arabic...)
anyway, having a harder thanksgiving than I thought i would.
have been so solid and thankful and happier lately.
ah well.
felt though i had to find a quote as an offering of some kind so maybe I can come around now.
so here.
(for me: the many colors of the falling roses.)




‘Lost in the woods I snapped off a dark branch’
VI From: ‘Cien sonetos de amor’



Lost in the woods, I snapped off a dark branch

and, lifted its murmur, in thirst, to my lips:

perhaps the weeping voice of the rain,

a shattered bell, or a broken heart.



It came to me, something out of far distance,

deeply concealed, and hidden by Earth,

a cry, defeated by immense autumns,

by half-opened moistness of shadowy leaves.



But waking out of the wood’s dream there,

that hazel branch sang under my tongue,

and its vagrant perfume rose to my mind



as if suddenly roots I had long abandoned

searched me, the lost domains of childhood,

and held me, wounded by wandering fragrance.

god I love it here!

guess i never thought about the planet being lit up in the universe.
most lovely.

where have I lived and how

does it start with the suitcases?
I don't think so, but it's a serviceable cliché.

anyway, I'm in a place they call Aspen (I might be lying). It isn't really Aspen, but there is some kind of nice hotel there, I think. I'm just waiting outside.

ohoh I know why I'm resorting to lying - because I've left out the whole first part now: the school in the reverse amphiteater - students on the bottom (of which I'm one) and some guilty bit about a substitute who has done a fantastic job checking the work. I appear to be the only one with notes next to my name: missing work or missing comprehension. whatever. I forgot that part of the dream (just like they probably thought I would).

Okay to 'Aspen' - just a stop for me, a destination for many others. I'm waiting for the train to stop. I hadn't realized there was a Amtrak coming and now want to board it, for, as I was waiting, I tripped over a backpack (is that mine?) and another (is that my brother's, my neice's?) The bags have been there awhile, sloppy and half open. They are on the verge of mildewing from being left out. I gather most of them and now need to take the train as (Yes, Freud, damn you - can we get another metaphor on the set?): I've now got quite a bit of baggage.

Only the crew is left on the train and I ask them if I can catch it, just for a little bit; my house is just down there. (I can even see the dip in the road, then another, then the curve where it should be). They tell me just to walk and of course I should, can and do.

When I approach my house, I notice many things at once. It's really old: American old anyway, Old West old. It's front is only vaguely painted (I'm painting my actual house this week). Only the slightest color shows. Has it all dripped off? Gotten rained off? The old boards don't take the paint. (or, old broads - is this my worry?). Anyway, also, what seemed to be the facade of the house, dilapidated as it is, is just the face of the building that now has a courtyard of sorts - still of the same Old West variety, but - how to put it? - what was outside is now part of the inside. As always happens when I dream of my houses, it is revealed to be soooo much bigger than I thought. And, though there was more about being both shocked and impressed with myself that I had been so bohemian as to live in this (oh goodness!) ghost town, painting up one little facade and living there alone way before single women did such things, now - in my absence (I have no idea how long it's been) others have moved in and are, in fact operating a lively bar/restaurant (Plan B??) in the courtyard.

A kid comes up to me, asks who I am and takes my order. I say,"I own the place actually and I'll have a beer, no glass". He says, "People who drink are so much more fun!" and sets off. I notice on the shingles, patches of color have been laid down. They are about to paint. I think the red will be good. The bright red, why not?

In the meantime, my phone rings. It's _____, who never calls. He is calling though, in earnest just to talk and perhaps to schedule more phone visits as he's finally gotten his sentencing, and though his life is going well now, has to go to jail for I'm not sure how long - not longlong, but over two weeks. He is scared, needs connection. There is a lot of dead air on our phone call. Sometimes I forget he's there. I'm looking over the new table cloths in the restaurant, touching the edges of the rotten wood on my house. "Oh, I'm sorry. _____, are you still there? Are you worried? You should take my number." Maybe the whole time the woman is talking me, the phone connection is left open. Part of it anyway.

So, the woman. Who is she? The waiter has sent her to me for further inquiry. She is pleasant, beautiful, running the operation. She is cautiously patient with me when I say the house is mine. I can't offer much proof, but I remember being on the second floor. I think there might be someone there who can testify for me? A husband maybe? Or maybe my stuff is still there. We go in, up the fallen staircase. The door pulls off its hinges. The parlor looks so familiar - but darkened. (this, perhaps, for all my obsession with The Old House). Anyway, there is no one there. Nor evidence of me, my possible husband, my past life, but I'm more and more sure I'm telling the truth. This is MY house.

The woman says, "Perhaps you'd like to look outside. Perhaps that will help you remember." I say yes and right out from where we are standing is an open field - on the near top of a hill, with another rise off to the right and back.

I walk into it and the breeze fills the eucalyptus trees. Its leaves spin in a soft light. The grass is high and wet. A pheasant startles out and flies overhead. I say, "Yes, yes! This is my home. This is natural. It's where I belong. I've lived here. I live here" To the left, there, where this woman is staying now, that is the best place. I've spent happy years here. But when?... There is a clearing, a fire pit. I know the bedroom, the stucco floors. How easy it was to sweep the place, to feel beautiful there, how the breeze would circle, lightly, in the hallway. I think, now, she is Penelope. I'm not sure, but she seems okay on her own. She has lovers when she needs them.

I see, as I walk deeper into the space, a fountain or a large sculpture, up to the right and back, up one other rise. It sounds stupid now, but it is of a giant, peaceful dog's face (a cross between "Dog's Head" in Vermont, Zoe's beautiful face and the Jeff Koon's puppy in Bilbao).



It is then I feel certainty and arrival: this is my house. I walk determinedly forth and it all happens at once. I remember my painter, Keith, telling me - did I really want to fix up the house;it's near near a pretty ugly development (Sigmund?--now what??) but as soon as I'm sure that THIS part is the part that is mine, I see the giant - what is it? I think it's a Mormon Bank. Some collassal, clean, utterly unromantic modern monstrosity. It's right next to my house which, ah-ha, is actually painted - nicely but ugh.... to get to it I have to walk up a small street that's basically a tacky pedestrian mall with garishly lit shoe stores, dollar stores full of useless crap and other stores with the doors open, music blaring, air-conditioning spilling out.

The woman walks with me. I go into the house and notice the fine, painted detail. Yup. This is it alright. It's small. It's clean. It's not what I remember, but in the small upstairs, there is a folder. I am pleased, just to know I'm not mad and that I did something right, that in the back of the folder is my certificate of purchase. There's my name, my client number, a picture of the dull, little house.

So, it is mine. I was so sure it was the bohemian one.
But no. Maybe once - before the Mormon Bank was built.
In any case, I've been gone so long that this place has been turned into a kind-of donut shop. I watch another woman through the window serving coffee in the kind-of harsh yellow light. Business looks okay. For a minute, I get excited and think I could change it a bit: make it stylish, serve the great pastries they make now in the restaurant of my old house. But the hip-hop blaring from the clothing store next to me kills my enthusiasm.

I want to go back to the open field.
I don't know if I do.
I wake up instead in my little house, modest, half-painted, but mine, for what it's worth - and write for a bit too long before getting to my yard work.