Wednesday Morning

Snow falling. A slight billowing sheen twisting around me as I ventured out to the car this morning. I clutched my lunch, my purse, my snow boots to my chest. There was not enough snow to warrant the actual use of boots. It was nothing more than a scene of winter beauty. An impression of winter. Maybe as the day progresses it will become something more substantial. I would love that.

*********************

Soundtrack for today:

April - Sun Kil Moon

The Soup Mix - The Birthday of the Kirsten - Lady

My friend Kirsten is celebrating her 30th birthday today.


She's actually not a puppet, but a real girl. This is just Lil' Kirsten (or Lil' Keeks), her birthday fingerpuppet (which she will receive on Saturday. Hurrah!)

In honor of this momentous occasion, I give you the Soup mix, which is actually one of my favorite mixes that James ever made for me. It will be coupled with our new favorite soup, a spinach and quinoa bit of loveliness which is a variation of a soup featured in the January Vegetarian Times.


The Soup Mix

Oceanside - Akron/Family
Dragonfly - Low
Basin Street Blues - Miles Davis
Who Needs Forever? Astrud Gilberto
Stars and Sons - Broken Social Scene
The Song is You - Charlie Parker
But Not For Me - Chet Baker
Poughkeepsie - Over the Rhine
Dylan Part II - Akron/Family
Tears - Django Reinhardt
In A Sentimental Mood - Duke Ellington & John Coltrane
Corcovado (Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars) - Astrud Gilberto
When It Hits My Blood - John Vanderslice
What I Don't Believe - The Minus 5
Fruit Tree - Nick Drake
Another Song For a Blue Guitar - Red House Painters

Spinach and Quinoa Soup

1 Tbs olive oil or 1 Tbs butter
1 1/2 medium sweet onion diced
3 cups vegetable broth
1/2 tsp sea salt
3/4 cup quinoa, rinsed
1 tomato chopped
1 14.5-oz can diced tomatos with basil, garlic, and oregano
2 large handfuls of spinach
1 small handful of parsley (optional)

Heat olive oil or butter in large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and saute until translucent. Stir in broth, salt, and 4 cups water. Bring to a boil. Add quinoa, reduce heat to medium low. Cover and simmer 15 minutes.

Stir in tomatoes and spinach leaves (and parsley) simmer 5 minutes, uncovered, until spinach and quinoa are tender. Season with pepper if desired. Serve immediately.

Birthday Wishes to my High School (Dream) Boyfriend

Hope For Agoldensummer @ Workplay May 2008

The Heartless Bastards @ the Northside Tavern - Dec 2008

The Heartless Bastards @ the Northside Tavern



Halfway through the show, our friend Dietrik yells "Erica (the lead singer) I want to have your babies!!!!" Doesn't matter that we're standing right in front of her. He later does a handstand on an enormous bulls eye in the street in front of the Northside Tavarn. Beauty beauty beauty for our first real show in Cincinnati.

If you were a river of whiskey, and I was a diamond jar....

Tiny seizures. Tiny sparks. In the dark, as the fan hums in the distance, as James' quiet breath leads him into his restful oblivion, I cannot stop. I am tense. I am drained. I turn. There. Suddenly a jabbing sensation invades my left calf and charges up through these strange tunnels, myelin covered wonderlines, and draws up hands and feet and back and shoulders and...there it goes. Gone.

And then another, my ear - down the side of my head to my shoulders, hands and feet. My eyes smart momentarily, but I brave up and stay the jolting of my body causing Jim to turn and hold tight, as if to hold me down, like it would make a difference.

Nothing makes so much difference as a good nights sleep. That difference is something that I've been fighting for so long. Even now, as I sit in this chair writing you and listening to Claire Campbell play her saw, her sister Page in quiet harmony, the minutes pass, the morning comes so quickly. I am left weighted.

"I can feel my life beating slow, I can feel my life beating low, I can feel your mind, It's right in line with my mind..." - Hope For Agoldensummer, New Whiskey River, Adriadne Thread

I'm still braving it every day at my new job. I have a few wonderful co-workers who trade tasks with me when I need to stay off of my feet. The bottom of my feet are all pins and needles. My boss said that if I needed to wear houseshoes around the office, I can...as long as they're not bunny slippers.



When I come home, James is there. If I feel like I want cook, most times whether or not I have the strength, I do. If not, he takes care of everything. Slow motion. Slow motion these days. Waiting for all of the little symptoms to disappear. We don't know what this is really, a mini-attack...my body warning me to take it easy. Some days I convince myself that I am invincible, that I have all of the energy in the world. I overdo it. James is my sounding board, he's my common sense, he's my tucker-in when he finally convinces me to rest.

I'm in the midst of my second attempt at drawing a Holiday card for all of you. If they don't make it into the mail by Christmas, I'll email them. They'll be beautiful, I promise you.

Love you Kids. Send me suggestions for GREATEST HOLIDAY ALBUMS.
I'm working on a mixtape.

SL

Incandescent Clouds in a quiet sky

"Desperado" by the Eagles has been running through my head all morning, and from that haunting horror of a melody comes the memory of recording it in a YOU CAN SING booth at Six Flags Over Texas in 1992. I was on a Youth Trip with a rather awful group of kids from the First Baptist Church of Birmingham. I was a farm-fed Yankee thrown in with a bunch of Mountain Brook/Homewood...I don't even know how to explain them, I'd never seen a group of kids like them before. Polished, preened, and progressive. Designer clothes, perfect hair, lots of gadgets to travel with. I was in faded snowboarding t-shirt, a hand-me-down flannel, and ripped up jeans. I had a walkman and two mix tapes and a few books. They had game systems, high tech music players, and (I kid you not) one girl even had a pocket translator (English vs Spanish). "What's that for?" I asked pointing to it. The svelte southern belle held it two inches in front of my nose and looked at me like I was a complete idiot, "Like, when we stop, so, like, I can order food at the restaurant, or whatever."

I wanted to explain to her that New Mexico (our final destination) was not actually part of Mexico and that when we stopped at McDonalds for lunch the staff would most probably understand her just fine...but I kept my mouth shut. I kept to myself the majority of that trip, my head leaning against the bus window, staring out into the ever-changing landscape. It changed, just as my feelings changed about this journey I was on. This opportunity had been accepted with a song of adventure, a dream of cross-country discovery. Not quite the same as a chartered bus with television and vcr to while away the endless hours on the road. But it kept my companions busy and gave me time to reflect on the predicament that I was in.

When we finally got to the camp in New Mexico, I made friends with a bunch of kids from Reno, Nevada, most of them forced there by their parents. You could pick the lot of us out a mile away, mostly in black and really uncomfortable with all of the hand-holding, song-singing, jesus-ness going on around us. I guess for the most part, it was that feeling of overwhelming "agape" that threw us off because we all knew that once we left the auditorium filled with frenzied kids belting along to cheesy, emotive music while reading reptitive texts from a state of the art slide-projector it would be just like high school again. We were the outsiders in this setting, lonely, tired, bored, somewhat scared, although now as I look back on that creeping, endless week...at least we had each other.

I had an intense crush on William Cotran, a tall, graceful boy with dark eyes and chin-length black hair who would often, between Bible Study and supper, sit on a hill over-looking the Glorietta campus and scribble things into a small black book. I would walk past him, behind him, in front of him, dreaming, dying for some sign of notice. I had decided that he was a great artist, because up to that point it seemed to me that all somber and mysterious men were artists of some sort and at that point in was the visual arts that fascinated me the most. When I finally got up the nerve to go speak to him, he told me that in fact it was not a tree that he was sketching, but the forest beyond the horizon that he was describing. Poetry. At this moment, I decided that poetry was for me. I went to the camp gift shop and bought a journal and sat there for an hour or so, thinking of words, words, words to describe the grass, the trees, the sky, my shoe, my arm, my pencil....I would use words that I had heard, words that I didn't understand, but that sounded absolutely fantastic. Incandescent. Erroneously. Eradicate.

From that moment until the day we finally arrived home, I never despaired outwardly again. I become a pleasant, quite docile young woman. Quiet. Always scribbling away. I dreamed and despaired (in an incredibly dramatic style) on a white lined page and that was enough.

Recently while packing for the move to Cincinnati, I found this journal and all of the editions that followed. I was amazed at the sadness contained within it's pages. I was taken in by violent declarations of joy and love from such a young and silly girl. Who was than girl? Surely not me. I see within these pages, so peppered by moments that I have now forgotten, vital turning points, new discoveries of music, friendship, young love. Now I am transported. All by these silly, sad words.

Cincinnati Windstorm (or My Life in the Dark) part 1

The storm had come on Sunday, in huge whipping bursts of wind through our fair city. By the end of it over half a million homes and businesses were without power.

As we sat on our balcony in the silence of the evening, staring out at the pitch black horizon of our new city, James smiled at me, a little weary, a little drained by the excitement of the day. I squeezed his hand and returned an encouraging grin and then got up from my chair and walked inside. In the darkness, in this cavernous room I walked and turned and slowly sat down. I lit a candle and picked up my guitar and began to play, singing light and airy versions of dark and worry-laden songs. It's all I could do. The quiet was unbearable. The silence and darkness and stifled air of this day had to be overcome. I brought but little sheet music with me when we moved and was bored with what lingered in my memory (mostly Red House Painters songs) so I turned to a book of songs by REM, the piano book for Automatic For The People. "Find the River" became a waltz, "Try Not To Breathe" a quiet bossa nova, "Nightswimming" a climbing clumsy jumper, and "Everybody Hurts" (a song I'd never had much use for) turned into a loud and lovely twist of blues. James walked in, pulling his beard with a twinkle in his eye. "I think the whole city is feeling this song right now. Nice."

I love our apartment, with it's huge fireplaces and dark woodwork. I love having my things about me, all of my family heirlooms, the cream and gold of french provincial, the straight lines and dark stain of my grandfather's craftsmanship. Illuminated by candlelight that first evening, they became ever more so dear to me. Our apartment became a home, a refuge, and it was beautiful.

We were afraid to open the fridge. I called my brother for consult and text messaged Morgan "How long will it stay cool if we don't open it?" No one quite knew the answer. What we did know was that reports thus far had said that it may take a week to restore power. I sat in the kitchen and stared at the refrigerator, thinking of the incredible amount of produce just on the other side of that insulated door. I thought of the bright colors, the red of the radishes, the yellow of the spaghetti squash, the green of the serrano chili peppers. I thought of their brilliance slowly diminishing. Ice. I needed ice. Then I could save my poor produce from a terrible fate, if that could be the fate at all, for in truth we had no idea. The state of things inside of our fridge could only be guessed at, theorized with furrowed brows and the forceful wringing of hands. The next morning, James went on to school (UC had power) and I ventured across the east side of city in search of Ice.

"WE HAVE POWER. WE ARE OPEN." declared the handwritten sign on the glass door of the Meier's General store. I parked my car and walked inside to find but little light coming from an occasional security lamp and the Check-out Area. Otherwise, the store was completely dark. And it was comparatively busy for early morning. People were walking swiftly past me. I followed, scanning the aisles as I headed towards the back. Little glimmers of light lit the shelves. I stopped and stared. Every person around me held up a flashlight. They were all shopping with mag-lights in hand and it wasn't as if they were foraging for supplies. I turned to my right and up the aisle in Womens Clothing, a woman stood perusing a rack of shirts, holding her flashlight up with one hand, checking the size and price tag with the other. Maybe she had run out of clean clothes. But she sauntered down past a shelf of jeans and a display of dresses and touched them almost whimsically as she walked by, as if it was a normal day and she was just getting out of the house, as if the stoplights down the street and across the entire city worked just fine (and people weren't driving absentmindedly and dangerously straight through every one), as if every grocery store within a 20 mile radius hadn't yellow-taped their rapidly defrosting frozen foods section, as if every gas station on every corner had a huge refrigerated room full of ice. No one had ice. Not even dry ice. Nothing. I went home to play my guitar.

Revelation at the Comet on a Friday Evening

Sometime last Summer:

"I'm sorry 'bout the bad reviews, man."

He looked at me with this surprised and suddenly hurt expression. He hadn't expected it from my lips and neither had I as a matter of fact. But I had been looking for a topic to converse about and that seemed as natural as any. Everything I had heard lately, about any album, not just his, had been a little bit tear-apart...as if everyone in the industry was jaded, tired of the next big thing, sitting back, taking a drag off of their American Spirit and waving their hand in front of their face. "Too rock. Too hard. Too much bass. Meandering lyrics." What does it matter who it was about. It became all the same over and over and over. And when I said it to Josh as a topic of conversation, on a warm Summer night on the porch of the Bottletree...it hurt. And it made me sad that the world was so jaded...in just one moment.

To tell the truth, all of those things that I read and heard were nothing. The album was rocking and was hard and had amazing bass and the lyrics were searching and beautiful.

I don't know. When I sat at home the next day, listening to the record and condemning myself for the comments I had made, suddenly I understood everything about this business to which I had latched myself and I didn't love it so much anymore.

Tonight, ages later, as I sat in the Comet next to a new group of friends around a small table in a dark dismal corner, we got into an argument about a particular band and their inner workings. Who was better than whom. What made the best songwriting. The overall creativity level of a man's work. I thought to myself that it didn't matter so much one way or the other. The extraordinary beauty of the work was that it made an impression on one individual, one quiet socially awkward individual who would probably never take a chance to voice his opinion ever again. But it was there in the glaringly beautiful wide open...if for just a moment and definitely under the influence. This is what matters. Not the reviews. Not the published critique of a particular piece. It is what one little lovely person brings home and cherishes about a piece of music, how they connect with the arrangement, how they can read into the lyrics with just one listen. This is what matters.

limitation

Gold and cream floral bedspread, darkened to a light brown by low blinds. The stiff and fuzzy arm of Theodore Ethan Bear across my face and the scent of Dreft detergent. The smell of soapy warm water and the clank of pots and the clink of dishes and the shadowed leaves peeking in, then waving from the window across the apartment. My gaze rests for a moment upon the leaves' dark forms, a grayish green with strangely bright edges. I lay on the bed with intentions to rest, turning, wanting to read, wanting to get up, wanting to...

"I don't want to have any limitations." I look up, pouting.

Jim the James smiles down at me, a warm smile, a momentary mocking grin passing quickly across his handsome face, warm again. "You spoiled brat. Everyone has limitations."

I thought, I once thought, I believed that I was superhuman. This is the thought of youth, unending emotion, unending energy, never ending life. As we walked up the steps from the park today and I gripped the railing for support, for balance and strength underneath my heavy feet, my heart dropped remembering a day when I could have skipped up those stairs with a smile and without a care.

"You must have patience. It's been a really tough summer. When it gets a little cooler, you can exercise, build up your strength again. Be patient. You'll be okay."

We spend the evening on the porch, then on the futon, listening to Grant Lee Buffalo and Will Johnson, being patient, being quiet, sharing space and love and warmth.

Party on Jefferson

As the incredibly loud bass line vibrates through the ceiling, down the walls, and into my head, I lift my glass. I drink the wine slowly. I drink it quietly. I cross my legs and uncross them and cross them again as ashes, burning ashes float down from above. Jim takes my hand and smiles a half smile. His eyes are tired and sad. "I'm sorry, Baby."

No need to be sorry. We moved into our apartment on Wednesday, loading in in record time. Jim's dad Jim, his friend Dewayne (the Cleaner), and his brother Chris passed boxes through our bedroom window from the truck, managed to struggle up the landing with my over-abundance of French Provincial furniture and did not grumble when it came time to transport my beloved spinet piano into our high ceilinged quaint old apartment. Jim's dad Jim even took the time to lift the lid on the piano and play a haunting rendition of a Beatles ballad while standing sweaty and sore in our alley.

The apartment IS charming with it's large bedrooms, old oak fireplaces, butler pantry, and claw-footed tub. What is not charming is what is going on upstairs at this moment. We are in the middle of the college neighborhood, but our apartment is on the high-end spectrum so we expected that the majority of our neighbors would be grad students, serious students prone to quiet dinner parties and cocktail hours filled with conversations on Kant and variations on Miles Davis arrangements. I think that this assumption must have been formed after a few pints of celebratory ale. That's the only thing I can come up with. We are in the middle of post-quarter apocalypse. Last night there was a party next door with (I'm just guessing with the amount of screaming and cheering) more than one keg stand. Tonight, Studio 54 has been revived right above our bedroom. Do we call the landlords? Do we call the police? this is our first weekend here. Do we leave a note for the neighbor in the morning that says "Thanks for the jumpin' moonlight serenade. Hope you don't mind the 8am piano scales." I had actually really wanted to meet our neighbor to establish a proper time for practicing. Right now...as the cigarette ash drifts down from above and the constant blur and banter from the second floor abounds...I don't know that it matters anymore.

Maybe I'll launch into some David Lanz right now. Maybe I'll pull out the songbook for REM's Automatic for the People and flailingly ramble through "Find the River" to my hearts content. I don't think it would matter. I don't think anyone would hear me...except James. And I know that he doesn't mind.

St. V's

Somehow I knew today would be like this, rainy and dark and quiet. I sit here at my faux granite desk, organizing the sugar and cream packets for the coffee room into little straight rows in their baskets. I stare out the huge gridded glass window in front of my desk as the morning traffic zooms down Red Mountain Expressway. I fixate on the lonely bicycle that has been sitting outside this window for a month and a half, ever since a young man coasted down from Highland Avenue with a broken leg and locked it up on the handicap parking sign before crawling up to my desk. I wonder if he'll ever come back for it. His mother picked him up that day. I guess I'll never know.

Today is my last day in the Emergency Room. On this cloudy, drizzley day there have been far more falls than car accidents arrive for treatment and this is quite uncommon. The Olympic Coverage is playing on the TV across the waiting room. I thought I should give my morning crowd a break. I usually turn it to the Turner Classic Movie channel and hide the remote.

They threw me a party, my wonderful department, a surprise party. Everyone had to come to visit me in the department break room two at a time, as it was a busy day and none of the locations in our department could really do to have one rep leave at a time, let alone two. So I sat at the table, surrounded by chips and dips and vegetables (my co-workers have finally come to grips with the fact that I am a vegetarian) (don't worry, they made a pot of beef nacho cheese craziness for themselves that was simmering in the corner by the wide array of beverages) and waited for my wonderful friends to come, two by two.

I've been at the hospital for 4 years. I know that I have sent out a few character sketches to some of you over the years. I have tried my best to make my job, my work there something extraordinary and fun. I've made posters for various departmental events. I've had early morning Emergency Room dance parties (early on Saturdays and Sundays I would bring in my old soul collections and Wylie Jean and I would go through the steps, the Mashed Potato, the Jerk, etc...) (those were always perfect days, no matter the craziness in the ER). I had finger puppet parties. And made Vulcan (at least my bobble head Vulcan) the unofficial mascot of the St. Vincent's Birmingham Emergency Department.



And yes, sometimes B.H. Party Vulcan got a little drunk-ed off of the triage nurses ready store of alcohol swabs and attended said finger puppet parties. Hilarity ensued. I assure you.

B.H. and I will miss our home away from home terribly. So very much. There was never such a place as this. There were never more caring and amazing co-workers.
I am so thankful that I got spend these four amazing years, four years full of transition, of growing and creating and loving and helping. I will miss everything. I miss you all terribly. Goodbye my dear St. V, my dear Patient Access, my dearest Emergency Department. Take care.

Love,
The SL

Just Like Heaven

Today I will deliver my letter of resignation to my boss. Two weeks from today I will walk through those sliding glass doors in front of my desk for the last time. Three weeks from today, Jim and I will finish packing the last of the moving boxes into the U-Haul and drive 500 miles to our new home.

I can't believe all of this is happening. For the first time, on this very day, I'm excited. Like really excited. Ecstatic about all of this. I don't know what made the switch. I've been worried and apprehensive about the future, sad to leave my friends, scared... But not now.

from the letter:

"I find that I cannot adequately express to you how much my time at St. Vincent's has meant to me, how much it has changed my life. I've grown so much as a person in my four years of employment with this department, under your guidance and with the support of so many incredible co-workers. There is such a wonderful spirit about this group of people. I find that I am leaving behind some of the most caring and thoughtful individuals that I have ever known. As I make this transition to a new life, halfway across the country, I will not forget what warmth and love I have left behind. I will use these thoughts, these great memories, to keep my spirits high as Jim and I start our next great adventure, married life, school, and employment in a strange new city. Thank you for everything"

Thank you for everything...

I feel like I owe Birmingham a letter as well. I guess I'd better start working on that.

James' Birthday Battle: Beer VS Robots

A message from Tremendous Mike - Robot Command:

SIMPLE HUMAN --- On this Cosmic Holiday, the 35th Birth Anniversary of the James, the Robot Army will travel from the far reaches of the Galaxy to celebrate (and to take over your feeble green planet). IT IS YOUR SOBRIETY THAT MAKES YOU WEAK. PREPARE YOURSELF. PREPARE TO BE PURIFIED.

(James' arch nemesis, the Koala Commander, has sent Vulcan as a beacon of peace in these trying times.)



Vulcan's Message from the Koala Army (presented with a wrapped box of sacred chicken): "We shall join you in your fight against the Robot scourge. We will bring a funnel. And maybe a bottle of Jack Daniels. And maybe a few Chilton County Peaches. And a good mix tape. Happy Birthday to the Jim."

Marble Staircases, Mini-relapse, and Michael Griffith

just spent a billion hours with my mother writing Thank You cards for wedding stuff. It took 1 husband being out of town, 1 cute puppy, 1 smallish MS relapse, and one strong cup of coffee to coerce me into doing such a thing. Yep.

1. James is in Cincinnati for the weekend. He has found an apartment for us. He's found a two bedroom apartment with a marble entranceway, 15 foot high ceilings, hard-wood floors, a balcony, a butler's pantry, two fire places... and heat and water are included. Sounds like a dream.

2. Mini-relapse/Restification Summer Edition - came on about two weeks ago. Have had another atrociously boring week and a half off where I couldn't do much (numbness, fatigue, blahblahblah), but My Darlings, I did read two rather wonderful collections of short stories.

A. One is by V.S. Pritchett (1900-1997), a Brit who wrote wonderful dirt about the upper class and made the lower class human. His last works were published in 1989, another collection. I couldn't imagine writing anything interesting when I'm 89 years old. I barely do it at 29. Dear lord, I hope I will still be able to see then...and hear...and that I'll be able to eat my soup with dignity.

B. The other collection is actually a novella and a few shorter works by Michael Griffith.. He is actually teaching a workshop at the University of Cincinnati this Fall, a workshop that Jim will be taking. Mr.Griffith's works seem to be mostly based in and around Baton Rouge. His stories are about communication between people, the chain of communication that links them all, what makes them act out, what makes them dry up. all brought upon by the way affect each others lives, no matter how small this way might be. But it's not just that. There's a delightful cloth of something dirty and dark draw all the way around and through. "Bibliophilia" about an aging Librarian forced to do rounds of the stacks, hoping not to have to carry out the moves she learned in Bouncer School on young lusty teenagers. There's also a young Egyptian hydrologist or soon to be in any event. He would love to be anything else in America other than an Egyptian hydrologist. His list of all of the wonderful occupations he sees goes on and on. I started thinking, why wasn't I an ice sculptress, or a laundress, or a flipper of burgers at Harry's place? I might have to sneak into James' lectures this fall. Do you think I could just go as James, you know, give him a day off. I'd have to grow a beard and most probably wear a tie and dress pants. Nope. My dress pants are French Wide Cuff (therefore they'd never believe it) and I'm not a big fan of shampooing my face. So no. James will just have to sneek a tape recorder in.

So...my dear ones. The lease starts on September 1 and if I get a job before that, we could be moving up to the Ohio-ness of Ohio rather soon. Holy crap, Birmingham. I am moving away. How does that feel? full of Joy and sadness and relief and awesomeness and dreams and light. I'm so full of the future that I'm just about to burst.

I'll start back to work on Monday, just to see how it goes. I'm sure it will be fine. I miss the ER a great deal when I'm away from it. I know that it must seem strange, but I do. I'll be glad to get back. After Monday, dear lord, call me, bombard me with emails, anything to get me out and seeing you before I leave this fair city. I've still several movies to see at the Alabama this summer. A few shows to see. Lots of coffee to drink etc...etc...etc

All my love,

Sara Leah