After the Storm

The spire for Erie Community College is currently topped with a flame of rainbow cast from the dress hem tatters of passing storms. It is seven in the evening, with sunset imminent in a sky fading to the translucent purple of dreams, the light still filtering its way through horizontal promenades between city buildings and through the tiny remnants of glassine floating in the atmosphere. After rainfall, after mist, departing cloudlets shake off those last drops which act as prisms

Two pillars of rainbow color appear as the droplets break lingering rays into myth, the larger, inner piece just landing above the gargoyled steeple as if it were lit by a fantastic, gaseous mirage. It hangs there, shifting as the sun settles under earth's edge and into the wilds of the zodiac, for at night our sun becomes part of some constellation imagined through the magnifying lens of dissimilar galaxies. Sunset is a see you later, do we know what our yellow star does when we aren't looking? You think the sun is visiting China as we sleep, but out in space it has another name from another set of eyes and perhaps assumes the shoulder point position in the celestial image of some alien babe. We may even be a nipple. Eek.

As the sun goes on to other things, the pillar of rainbow blanches to a little ghost which floats away as light ends and colors shift; only a dim miasma blinks with a last glimmer of hallucination in fading spectrum. Then sunset, dusk, twilight, and black; then begin changing back around three thirty in the morning when the darkest part of the sky somehow changes to a navy blue and so on. Anyone who has driven through the night recognizes the change of the clock without a dial.

Dawn is usually accompanied by yelling birds and any night critters scuttering for their burrows and nests. Just before the grand entrance by Sol, and if you are driving through civilized people, coffee smells emerge along with toast, egg, grits, and bacon aromas that make the steering wheel turn into a giant pancake and usually the car needs gas, too. So, stop already. Make everyone happy. Go comb your hair and splash your face awake. And besides, eggs are good for you.

The small, meditative rainbow has evaporated, the rain has sluiced into gutters and drains, gardens and pools filled with calico fish, puddles for sparrows, crevices of leaves for the tiniest to sip, and into creek, stream, river, and lake. It is a rainwashed evening, the cooling air of night cleansed by drops hurling through troposphere to ground.

We humans appreciate the cooler air, and flop ourselves down to sleep without the constant whirr of a fan or air conditioner droning its propellor mantra. Quiet, after our day of noise and conflict, we would like a dose of quiet, please. A night cool enough to use a blanket so that we feel protected lends to this hypnotic recipe for a simple, deep sleep with dreams of meadows, roads, or flowing currents.

Turn the key, close the door, climb under, fall in, lights out. Good, clear night.

Garden Walk 2010

Every year is an opportunity to be filled to the gills with amazement and splendor by the ingenuity of the city folk, and by the stirrings of Old Buffalo becoming realized once again. Not to say that we are looking stubbornly backwards in theory, but that the original design of parkways, trees, and gardens is emerging in the individual expression of the citizenry, and they are kicking up their green heels.

The Garden Walk opens neighborhoods with maps leading the inquisitive to paradise islands of malachite, aquamarine and jade, splashed with sunset colors seen once from the end of a tropical key. It is summer in voluptuous exuberance, a come-along-and-see invitation from neighbors, a public opening of quirky art, and deep rooted admiration of the urbane. We lucky duck visitors were allowed to tread grass into mud, impose our big selves upon tender shoots, and poke noses into deliberately arranged crockery. There were books for visitors to sign, and bits of melon to refresh; there was a cooler of free water, and one little girl sat on a cement step with a pitcher of red drink who would sell you a cup. James the Ice Creamcycle Dude had free raspberry sorbet being offered by his assistants at different posts throughout the Walk. Everyone pitched in, we all enjoyed the benefits.

In past years, I had visited neighborhoods surrounding upper West Side Ashland Avenue, Pearl Street in Allentown, the little Summer Street cottages, and Brantford Place off of West Delevan Avenue. Today I cast my direction in the area of Prospect Avenue and Rabin Terrace, the lower West Side that laps at the edge of downtown. Was I surprised, for the area one street over has a littered history of some roughness, gangs, and of hardworking people endeavoring to keep their neighborhoods safe.

It's where I shop for groceries and get sundries; there's a Mcdonald's, and several successful small businesses. Further up are several Asian markets, D'Youville college, and pockets of the hundreds of immigrants this city receives each year. It's an area of hope and struggle, so I wasn't expecting the colony of old hands in residence on this street in one of the oldest sections of town. Some had drawn chalk arrows on the sidewalks, hypnotizing you into their yards.

Oh it was fun. I saw "The Garden of Lesser Effort" next to its impressive neighbor, each a combination of art and humor. The sidewalks are broken and tilted, so you have to watch, but there are trees from before plastic rolling giant roots over blocks of slate and brown conglomerate cement. Italianate homes rise tall and narrow, a large butterfly bush behind one attracted both people and a Regal Fritillary butterfly with cobalt colors resounding in infinite flowers. The owner told of how she had moved that bush and talked it through regrowth, waving her hands as if to draw the essence of life through the ground and into the roots.

One home was not participating, but it must be shelter for a couple of enthusiasts as the wood siding was taken down to a bare surface and glazed, trim painted in black and red. A string of pumpkin lights hung from porch eaves, and a large, black metal cobweb spoke volumes, as if the owners decorated by reading Steven King. Fabulous is the word.

All owners were dog tired but proud. Glad to answer questions, patient with an occasional, accidental homicide by foot, generous in information. You could see the stars just pouring out of their chests, grateful for the wonder on the faces of the visitors. Well, thank you right back. It couldn't have been more.

I am tired right now, but burgeoning with the sensation of now. Now we are here, now we have these ideas, now there are people in this often downtrodden city saying it isn't so. Come over. They are people with tables and chairs under vines in their backyards, grills and ponds and window screens strikingly painted with immense blossoms. A sense of art, of the sublime in living. Of goodness and arrangement and peaceful coexistence with plants, the earth, her people and animals. Like cats.

There are always cats. For example, as I was leaving one home which had industriously raised garden beds, a woman was leading the home cat in harness from inside to out, coaxing the not reluctant animal with a "Come meet the people. You want to meet the people? Come along, then." Large, grey, and swish-tailed, the cat did come along then, and met its admirers, absorbing oohs and ahhs as any cat does, with agreement and belief.

The day held well, no excessive heat or rainstorms to thrash viewers or gardeners, and pleasantries were given and received at all compass points of the city. I am revived by both the greenery and the people, and how pleasing it is to live here inside city limits where inventive, hardy folks hang pots on sturdy branches retrieved and reused as trellises. Each yard was so close to the next, some blended with paths into one. You might find a metaphor hiding in that one; myself, I am worn to a nub and want supper.

Tonight there is a breeze coming into the city from the lake as the sun hits just above the horizon. It was a fine day, and will be a good night to sleep. Sleep well, sleep peacefully, we have taken another step forward in being the bearers of good, in being grateful for the things we have. Good people, good night.

Snake Venom

Sure, I sometimes watch Animal Planet. I like the Animal Rescue series, but that's about it. The channel also points out how tiny jungle animals want to kill us and leave us moldering upon the tropical floor for the jaw-snapping ants to render into ant-size kibble. Have I ever benefited from animal medicine? Didn't know, unless you count the lucky we have penicillin fungi kingdom, which lays between animal and plant world. Didn't know until today.

As yapped about previously, the resurrection performed by my CPAP therapy was a wonder. Oxygen levels went up to 96% while sleeping and I was anticipating all sorts of living when it was found that the blood pressure med I was on was doing nothing but creating scary sausage feet so swollen that shoes became an option. So, a different sort was prescribed and since taking it I have become loopier, sleepier, and stoopider than ever.

Last weekend, my cousin had a party for her now twenty-one year old daughter. She lives in West Seneca, New York in a home that I have been to many, many times. I got to the street and could not recognize her house; walked up and down a few times past driveways full of cars until I saw her pool in one of the backyards. I called the doctor.

She lowered the dosage by half, and I am breaking tablets into quarters but lord almighty this med curtails my life. I can't walk to the car without staggering, memory is laughable, and it feels like I am wading through a deep pool, forcing arms and legs to move. I look up the side effects of this ACE-inhibitor, and hear a brown spotted snake who lives in a drawer on some laboratory farm, laughing.

This med is based on the venom of a South American pit viper, the jararaca, who eats small mammals and birds and is responsible for 52% of snake bites in Brazil. It can cause death and the little red spots now on the bottom of my lower legs, and I am being slowly poisoned. I can't tell you how grateful I am for the sleep apnea diagnosis, but the end of medicine that throws pills at you is an industry little better than dry-clean only designer clothing. Trendy, but hell for the consumer.

The doctor said that because it has lowered blood pressure to acceptable levels, my body has to adjust to not getting enough blood up to my brain. I have lots of weight to lose, yes it's got a great deal to do with the thyroid stuff and the antidepressant stuff, but I worry that soon, like maybe tomorrow, that I will not know where I am and be found wandering in neighborhoods seen in the movies. This is so discouraging after getting good results with the sleep studies.

I am still young enough to have a busy life, to contribute to whatever we call real. I hate this stalling, this waiting for a solution, this arise and go sit on the couch because walking is a series of acrobatics, the depression exacerbated by the constrained flow to the brain. I stopped the antidepressants over a month ago with fingers crossed; the sadnesses have begun, but I am chalking those up to another mentioned side effect of this pill. Usually by seven or eight at night energy returns, I am again guessing, because the dose of medication is waning.

I looked up an acupuncturist today. How could it hurt the situation? I have two honored, intelligent friends who benefited from this science, and I myself completed an introductory college course in Alternative Medicine. I can't sit still and watch my life dissolve into this continuous crumbling wreck.

Bed has become a season of normalcy from dusk to dawn, an orange sun descends, a pink one arises. In between, the dreams have again become forgettable, but they are there. Awakening in the dark happens only once or twice, and usually there is a guardian cat next to me as the machine hisses life into spaces unseen. My legs try to run, so night-anchors are tied to my feet in the form of folates and magnesium. When sleep comes, it is like falling back into a lap, aproned and enduring, with memories of a hand from long ago smoothing away bits of the storm into nothingness.

Sleep then, lay down among purple winds that run light silhouettes upon cheeks and eyelids; lay safe under the cover of the night skies that hum with the soft flutter of moths and wingy bats. Hum with the shushing of leaves on branches, with night frogs calling and crickets a-trill. It is all a dance, a forever dance extending through decades, centuries, ages. I'll be fine. So be us all. Sleep well.

One Way

I dreamt I moved into a loft apartment overlooking the Lake. A storm whipped the water into translucent brown and whitecaps, with thick roils of grey clouds pushing through the sky. The wind shook this apartment like a dog with a rag, but in the dream it was fascinating rather than frightening. My cats were with me, and were adjusting to the Asian decor of mats on the floor; I had painted the eyes of Buddha on the wall, omniscient and all-seeing. The shaking of the room from the storm wasn't pleasant to them, but they joined me as I lay on my stomach to watch from the low window the iron ships on the horizon cut through waves. There was a knock at the door.

It was my boyfriend who wanted to help finish moving my boxes in, and build something of wood inside the apartment, don't remember what, and then trot off to temple. I was dressed in plain Asian costume, and thinner. Go me. Who knows. The sensation of shaking and the violent waves has stayed with me, at least till the next jolt of life cycles by. Curious.

Ordinary Sunday, ordinary paper, cuppa coffee, shredded wheat, can of cat food popped open and divided. Son went to Ocean City for the weekend, just where those sharks were sighted offshore. I have received no calls, so I assume that no passing mako has been adopted and brought back to live with him and Dana.

The humidity has let up, appreciated by all except green growing things and the mushrooms. A storm is predicted tonight, and the winds will bulldoze this shallow lake water towards the eastern end of the basin, crushing the water against the stone structures of rip rap designed to manage the flow into navigable channels. Rip rap, $1.88 per ton in 1905.

Pay attention to sleep. Do something to promote a calming environment, even if that is only putting a feather you found into a glass near your pillow. This is your foundation, your rip rap to build a structure upon within an area that takes care of you. Clutter makes people nervous, so keep it down. No pictures of your parents. Insulate into a cocoon of nothing except that which forms a solitude woven of wood, of water, of stone, of air, of spirit in breathing in and out. Good night, good night, good mystery of unconscious night.

Short Entry

You see, I said to my dentist, a chair fell on my head when I was picking up the classroom floor after the kids were gone. I haven't been able to close that side of my jaw completely ever since, but it's only been about two weeks; he had been telling me to tap the new crown into place and it hurt like sixty and after my brief story, he looked at me as if lobsters were coming out of my ears. He also made me laugh while his finger was in my mouth and I accidentally bit him. I would so like to know what planet I'm from.

The not-novocain-anymore-but-I-don't-know-what-it's-called-these-days is wearing off, thank heavens, and the drool is now staying inside my mouth. I dropped off some bags at AmVets and trotted through the aisles--found a nice Jello mold in the shape of the United States lower 48--and when I got back to the car, noticed that white paste leftover from the crown cement had dribbled out sideways almost to my neck and dried. I thought people were smiling at me gently in the store. Now I know why.

So, I am laying low today for my new crown is tender and crabby; I am also practicing closing my mouth. The cats have helped clean out a closet, and some of the day was spent reading, this first day of July in the year of 2010. Tomorrow is lovely Friday, and even though I am off this week, it still rings well, Friday. It means we turn the page.

Sleep well this night, this cool night, and dream of life as a cycle that continues past the five day work week, past the seasons, the years, the passages of times. Love who you can, and the rest can go count their own teeth and toes till they learn what you already know. It visits us in stops and starts, but it is the surest thing which lasts beyond any door we contrive. Sleep in innocence, as we are, and in hope, in which we believe; draw shades, douse lights, tuck under covers and let go in surrender to the mysterious pull of slumber. I sleep. Darkened rooms.