Beautiful.
As a wave of wind through the fields,as light beckons, and licks the wounds,
the fireworks explode, a shimmer in the darkness.
Our words are heard by the mountains.
we are ushers, fieldworkers, migrants, a choir.
borders...are not.
She hugs me and wants to be part of the wave.
hot palms press toward future.
love letters for home.
their tears pave the way to the golden streets
for my mom, los vecinos, y todos.
Today is the day.
She is healed.
My heart is filled with love.
I love los angeles. I love my mother. i love my friends, my co-workers, my neighbors.
In child's pose i pray. would that we could be a vessel of light. I get distracted by ice cream, cigarrettes, by boys and tv, but OH! that i would be made up of light.
The light that binds up wounds, that makes pancreases produce the right amount of insulin, that remind the heart to beat quietly and steadily and the thyroid to be at ease. The light that scrap the scales off our eyes.
Help us to remain in your love that we might overflow,
like the wind in the field.
like the words on a page.
like the fountain at tabernacles.
like song.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Flux
My 10th grade (spring sememster) english teacher (Mrs. Jill Sullivan) said, all writers are trying to pin down flux. the state of change the world is in (and always will be).
I can't say I disagree. I see Pocahontus jabbing her tree-branch staff into the river, singing you can't touch the same river twice. That is flux. At the bottom of her staff perhaps a molecule of water got stuck between and wood and the river bed before squirming its way towards the future. Pocahontus didnt pin much of any thing down.
I am between things, but still very much here. I am thinking about how to change my blog once I move to Indiana, (the name will stay the same). I am thinking about shower curtains. And future friends. But I am still very much here. Los Angeles very much my muse. I find it hard not to be present focused when the present is ever startling.
Today, instead of biking to work, I took the bus. Yes. 2 sights I saw.
1) In the Morning. An older Asian woman SINGING outloud, not in english. She waves to the older black man walking behind her, rather coyly. By the time she gets to the corner, he is with her, holding her hand. At the gas station she sits down on the curb, he continues walking. He is wearing a hat.
2) A very LARGE black woman gets on the bus. I am but a thigh. I am wondering what it is like to be her. The world too small, but her pants fit her. When she exits the bus, with many excuse me's, she is with her son (?). A grown man, he tenderly attends to her shirt, pulling it carefully over her large backside. It is a habit. It is love.
I can't say I disagree. I see Pocahontus jabbing her tree-branch staff into the river, singing you can't touch the same river twice. That is flux. At the bottom of her staff perhaps a molecule of water got stuck between and wood and the river bed before squirming its way towards the future. Pocahontus didnt pin much of any thing down.
I am between things, but still very much here. I am thinking about how to change my blog once I move to Indiana, (the name will stay the same). I am thinking about shower curtains. And future friends. But I am still very much here. Los Angeles very much my muse. I find it hard not to be present focused when the present is ever startling.
Today, instead of biking to work, I took the bus. Yes. 2 sights I saw.
1) In the Morning. An older Asian woman SINGING outloud, not in english. She waves to the older black man walking behind her, rather coyly. By the time she gets to the corner, he is with her, holding her hand. At the gas station she sits down on the curb, he continues walking. He is wearing a hat.
2) A very LARGE black woman gets on the bus. I am but a thigh. I am wondering what it is like to be her. The world too small, but her pants fit her. When she exits the bus, with many excuse me's, she is with her son (?). A grown man, he tenderly attends to her shirt, pulling it carefully over her large backside. It is a habit. It is love.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Open Letter to Angelina Jolie
Dear Ms. Jolie,
I am writing you because I respect your work as an artist and as activist. As successful actress you have been given much power and sway in our society. I have noticed that you have used that power and influence in ways that reflect love for humanity and social concern such as your work with Project Hope International and other non-profits.
Recently, as I was waiting for the bus on the corner of my street there was the ad for WANTED, larger than life: Ms. Jolie brandishing a silver gun. The provocative photo venerated the sexy gun in your hand. I live in South Central Los Angeles—a neighborhood famous for guns, for gangs, for fear. There are many, complicated factors that have caused this neighborhood to have fallen into the destructive hands of guns and fear. But as I stood with mothers and children, with teens, and neighborhood drunks waiting for the bus, I was deeply disturbed by the glorification of the gun in the advertisement for your movie. As gun violence is seeping into suburbs with the massacres at Columbine High, Virginia Tech and other schools and as gun violence continues to claim lives in my neighborhood both by killing and wounding the victims, but also by imprisoning the people who have chosen to use guns, there is no excuse for continuing the glorification, the promotion, and romanticizing of guns, in public places. Just like cigarettes can not be advertised to children, or in public places, our love affair with guns should not be encouraged in public places.
As a mother, you know children are sponges, soaking up the words and images around them. Please use your power as a celebrity to stop using guns in advertisements in public places. The glorification, the ample use of guns should be in movies theatres where people have a choice to view or not to view gun usage. I realize you probably had nothing to do with the scene that was chosen to advertise your movie, but I am asking you, as a concerned citizen to use your voice, and your position to make a change.
Yours truly,
Alessandra S
323-***-****
p.s. I have been a fan of your since Hackers. =)
I am writing you because I respect your work as an artist and as activist. As successful actress you have been given much power and sway in our society. I have noticed that you have used that power and influence in ways that reflect love for humanity and social concern such as your work with Project Hope International and other non-profits.
Recently, as I was waiting for the bus on the corner of my street there was the ad for WANTED, larger than life: Ms. Jolie brandishing a silver gun. The provocative photo venerated the sexy gun in your hand. I live in South Central Los Angeles—a neighborhood famous for guns, for gangs, for fear. There are many, complicated factors that have caused this neighborhood to have fallen into the destructive hands of guns and fear. But as I stood with mothers and children, with teens, and neighborhood drunks waiting for the bus, I was deeply disturbed by the glorification of the gun in the advertisement for your movie. As gun violence is seeping into suburbs with the massacres at Columbine High, Virginia Tech and other schools and as gun violence continues to claim lives in my neighborhood both by killing and wounding the victims, but also by imprisoning the people who have chosen to use guns, there is no excuse for continuing the glorification, the promotion, and romanticizing of guns, in public places. Just like cigarettes can not be advertised to children, or in public places, our love affair with guns should not be encouraged in public places.
As a mother, you know children are sponges, soaking up the words and images around them. Please use your power as a celebrity to stop using guns in advertisements in public places. The glorification, the ample use of guns should be in movies theatres where people have a choice to view or not to view gun usage. I realize you probably had nothing to do with the scene that was chosen to advertise your movie, but I am asking you, as a concerned citizen to use your voice, and your position to make a change.
Yours truly,
Alessandra S
323-***-****
p.s. I have been a fan of your since Hackers. =)
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Like library books, my thoughts are overdue.
1. 20 dollars to recover my stolen bike.
Perhaps I should haggled, believed he was the one who stole my bike, called the police.
I could say I was trying to respect the dignity of the black man with my stolen bike, believe his story about buying my Motebucane for 20 bucks.
Or that I was just trying to avoid a fight, a scene between a college educated white woman, and man with six kids and six gunshot wounds on the corner of Adams and Normandie, to an audience of earlier morning commuters and drunks.
I missed the bus. I was already late for work. He showed up on the 37 bus I was about to board, with my bike locked to the front with a piece of chain. When I accused him, he laughed friendly, 'you from this neighborhood?'
I wanted my bike. I paid him 20 bucks. and didnt feel bad about the interaction until, when finally arriving to work, my co-workers giggled and laughed, not at the sheer luck of finding the man who was riding my stolen bike, but at the fact that I paid for my own bike. It hadn't seemed strange to until then.
2. Healings are like sunsets and sunrises.
According to Anges Sanford, author of Healing Light, the electicity of God is available at the flip of switch. The law of God, which is Love, can not be broken, like the Law of Gravity, unlike the 10 commandments which broke upon perfect inscription. But we refuse to flip the switch of faith, and to check the wiring when we do. We have placed so many blockades against this electricity, the law of love, this water, the living water from flowing to us, that healing are now miracles and not commplace glories like sunsets and sunrises.
I believe our God heals. We need to thank him in advanced for his healing work in this city, in this body, and pray with courage. We need not be afraid. Of failure. of sickness. The father of lights, who never changes, gives gifts abundantly. There is no scarcity of love, of healing, of miracles.
3. Somewhere over the rainbow in reverse. I travel to a place that is more just white than colorful, and there are tornados.
A hop, skip and a jump away is a place called Indiana (named for being Indian land) where are are no indians. I am going to move there. I hope running through grassy fields will replace the feeling of diving into the ocean. Of smallness and being held by God. I hope driving to Chicago to see a Great Lake, and driving to Kentucky to see how other people live, and driving to Wisconsin to visit friend will happen. I have started a list of activities I want to do while living away from California. Los Angeles. The city were nobody smiles unless they are on TV.
4. Sugar.
An addiction nobody talks about is sugar. The other white substance that is perfectly legal and leaves a slower trail of death when abused. Teeth decay and Diabetes. I think I was addicted. But then one day I was reading about thyroids and the do's and don't's and they said to give up sugar, and artificial sweetener. I started this experiment on a Wednesday afternoon. Cold Turkey. How I craved the cookies that were free and every where. but with a new found inner strength and thoughts of my thyroid, i realized, I didnt need these cookies. And they were not that good anyway. It has been one week and 4 days. I have had one Somalian chai latte, a jewish deli cookie (small), and a Margarita. After the chai, i felt sick. the bite size cookie was delicious, and I couldn't finish the over sugary Margarita. Tomatoes are sweeter now. Fruit more lovely. I feel not a slave to the mood swings of sugar and I like it. I never knew this was possible.
Perhaps I should haggled, believed he was the one who stole my bike, called the police.
I could say I was trying to respect the dignity of the black man with my stolen bike, believe his story about buying my Motebucane for 20 bucks.
Or that I was just trying to avoid a fight, a scene between a college educated white woman, and man with six kids and six gunshot wounds on the corner of Adams and Normandie, to an audience of earlier morning commuters and drunks.
I missed the bus. I was already late for work. He showed up on the 37 bus I was about to board, with my bike locked to the front with a piece of chain. When I accused him, he laughed friendly, 'you from this neighborhood?'
I wanted my bike. I paid him 20 bucks. and didnt feel bad about the interaction until, when finally arriving to work, my co-workers giggled and laughed, not at the sheer luck of finding the man who was riding my stolen bike, but at the fact that I paid for my own bike. It hadn't seemed strange to until then.
2. Healings are like sunsets and sunrises.
According to Anges Sanford, author of Healing Light, the electicity of God is available at the flip of switch. The law of God, which is Love, can not be broken, like the Law of Gravity, unlike the 10 commandments which broke upon perfect inscription. But we refuse to flip the switch of faith, and to check the wiring when we do. We have placed so many blockades against this electricity, the law of love, this water, the living water from flowing to us, that healing are now miracles and not commplace glories like sunsets and sunrises.
I believe our God heals. We need to thank him in advanced for his healing work in this city, in this body, and pray with courage. We need not be afraid. Of failure. of sickness. The father of lights, who never changes, gives gifts abundantly. There is no scarcity of love, of healing, of miracles.
3. Somewhere over the rainbow in reverse. I travel to a place that is more just white than colorful, and there are tornados.
A hop, skip and a jump away is a place called Indiana (named for being Indian land) where are are no indians. I am going to move there. I hope running through grassy fields will replace the feeling of diving into the ocean. Of smallness and being held by God. I hope driving to Chicago to see a Great Lake, and driving to Kentucky to see how other people live, and driving to Wisconsin to visit friend will happen. I have started a list of activities I want to do while living away from California. Los Angeles. The city were nobody smiles unless they are on TV.
4. Sugar.
An addiction nobody talks about is sugar. The other white substance that is perfectly legal and leaves a slower trail of death when abused. Teeth decay and Diabetes. I think I was addicted. But then one day I was reading about thyroids and the do's and don't's and they said to give up sugar, and artificial sweetener. I started this experiment on a Wednesday afternoon. Cold Turkey. How I craved the cookies that were free and every where. but with a new found inner strength and thoughts of my thyroid, i realized, I didnt need these cookies. And they were not that good anyway. It has been one week and 4 days. I have had one Somalian chai latte, a jewish deli cookie (small), and a Margarita. After the chai, i felt sick. the bite size cookie was delicious, and I couldn't finish the over sugary Margarita. Tomatoes are sweeter now. Fruit more lovely. I feel not a slave to the mood swings of sugar and I like it. I never knew this was possible.
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