oh, night

i should be on my way to sleep. and i am.

but i just want to tell you. about this rusted beating thing.

i went salsa dancing. I am not skilled. but when i danced and i messed up i just smiled.

and that was enough.


and now i want to commit as i have been wanting to commit to actually practicing, and getting better at dancing. salsa? swing? i will be there. i hope i mean it this time.


because dancing unhinges something in me that wants to be free. free to make mistakes, free to interact with strangers, free to say yes. free to say no. free to be called alejandra. free to have my hand in his hand waiting for his lead. it sounds so awful in this feminist world, but sometimes i just like those old-fashion roles between men and women. and sometimes i like to partake. to be the pretty girl moving her hips in time to the music.

Thank you God for salsa music. the brass section, the words, the rhythms, the dancing.

Elizabeth Bishop - poet

this is one of hers i found in a book of work that was never published during her lifetime

Aubade and Elegy


No coffee can wake you up. No coffee can wake you up. No coffee can wake you up

No coffee

today

i've been memorizing a psalm as an act of discipline. It is hard and good and I only have 5 verses memorized so far. But today as I realized in some ways i have been regarded as second string as a writer it has been helpful.


"You search me O Lord and you know me. You know what I sit, and when I rise. You percieve my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my laying down. You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, o Lord. You hem me in behind and before. You have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain."

Memorizing makes the weight of certain words more clear. The creator of the universe has laid his hand upon me. He knows, knows, me, discerns, searches, hems, percieves, me. I wonder what all the different shade of these verbs are in Hebrew.