(Stream of consciousness. I know these are sentence fragments. Go watch Schoolhouse Rock instead of playing grammar police on me, dig?)

I am in this Philadelphia, which is not my Philadelphia the way Arizona had been mine. The sky churns bile-y, shaky boat stomach-y clouds, and a queer light covers the cobblestones and sidewalk cracks. I'm two-days sick, trembling fingertips, and a physical weakness that scares me. The fall leaves are starting to turn, and my mind is flinging prayers to places I've been.

Arizona. Sunsets and the sky arching like a blue cat above my head, everything so close and beautiful and fucking alive. Day of the Dead in Tucson, the Border panting a hot, dusty breath on my back. Flapping my arms like raven's wings and whirling in an antique shawl, skeleton faces dancing through the streets. The drums pounding a heart in my wrists and throat. All the people who fold me into their arms and call me family, sister, daughter, lover, playmate. Never have I known people who accepted and loved so easily. Arizona is soul-deep stares and safe brown skin, lizard gods, and hummingbird love-warriors. The East Coast wears its brass knuckles and serves its fight-or-flight on a ghetto half-shell. Arizona is patchwork quilt-land--desert, mountains, grasslands, and valleys--ancient ocean-land with sea creatures pressed into the sediment beneath the cacti. Arizona is corn tamales still wrapped in the warm husks, sold in the grocery store parking lot; cowboy boots and turquoise; backwoods bars that are only accessible by pick-up trucks or the ATVs that blow your hair into your smile; roads where you have to honk to turn a corner or you could face a collision; and ghosts that dance when the monsoon rains thunder and the scent of mesquite and palo verde lilt through the air. Arizona is twenty ways to escape on an open road.

New Orleans. Mardi Gras beads glittering like infant stars on lampposts and power wires, the sweet and beery taste of Red Stripe as I wander through the Quarter. Streets named for Greek goddesses and muses, the most melancholy one being the one I like the best (Melpomene). Cemeteries locked after dark because people and beasts sneak in to steal tombstones and the cherub statues that preside over the graves of young children or lovers. Drinks served in mason jars, wedding processions where everyone is waving a white hankie and a jazz band bubbles "When the Saints Go Marching In." Buying buckets of steamed crab on the banks of the Mississippi and wandering around, cracking the hard shell with my teeth, not caring who witnesses my bad manners. Fats Domino and zydeco, the way gumbo clears your sinuses and makes you think clearer, and how a trolley ride gets you closer to people than you'd ever like to be. New Orleans is a painted vaudeville lady. She powders her skin pale as icicles, but really she's darker than that. Beneath the white greasepaint, New Orleans is African skin and Creole accent, voodoo chants and liquid midnight.

Oranjestad, Aruba. Palm trees and clear white beaches, the ocean a salty, soft kiss when I'm snorkeling and swimming. Caribbean and Dutch accents, Brasilian disco music on tourist boats, tourists everywhere, flounder on the menu that isn't flounder. Pineapple drinks that make me think of orchids and crushed ice, how appreciative I am of good bread, and the little Dutch pancake house I visit every morning, duty-free perfume and cosmetics, and Belgian chocolate sold from a refrigerated shoppe. Aruba is designed for people who like to eat, drink, sleep, and swim--sometimes simultaneously. Aruba is wild pigs and feral cats, stray dogs, and a Louis Vuitton store with a leaky ceiling during a fall storm. The powerful, horse-like haunches of the island women and how no one looks you in the eye, but everyone says in broken English, "Thank you, thank you, please come back."

Alaska. Dogsled races in mall parking lots and the Aurora Borealis dancing neon at night. Fishing with Athabaskians and Inuits, the dipper I lose while ice fishing, and how I want to dive beneath the ice to retrieve it for my father. Mukluks and the "Eskimo Olympics" with blanket tosses and polar bear-skin coats. The whale blubber lollipop I eat with my childhood friend, an Inuit girl with eyes like sleeping seals. The little inns with the pickled eggs on the corner of the bars, weird food like moose venison and fish eyes. The outhouses that looks like little log cabins with flowers planted in dirt at the top. Hunting Caribou and ptarmigan with my father. Walking home in the dark during the winter and watching the sun blaze all night during our summer. Moon-faces and smiles like setting suns.

Baja. Snorkeling with scarlet starfish and purple urchins so close beneath my fins. Kayaking with dolphins. Watching blue whales in one bay and driving two hours to see grey ones in another area. Finding petroglyphs and a natural pharmacy in the desert. All you had to do was pick the candelaria, use the sage, make incense of the copal, and the spirits would make your body well. The palapa that is stiflingly hot in the day and cold in the evenings. I sneak into a church for candles, and later buy punched tin milagros, knowing that I need blessings and angels to watch over me. Frida Kahlo en la casa with brightly painted cottages of pink and blue. Orange clay pottery, Taxco silver, mole sauce on everything, and cerviche at six o'clock each night, served by a small Mexican mother. Cathedrals with windows like weepy eyes and how I weep in the shadow of the ocean after seeing a baby grey whale swim just beneath our tiny boat.

These are only a few of the places I've been or lived. The reason I turn up my nose at people who claim the moniker gypsy is that most have a foolish notion of what that means (not you, Cori, you are a gypsy), some notion of wanderlust that hasn't been physically fulfilled. I've lived all over the world and traveled many places. Although I secretly crave familiar faces and wish I'd grown up in the same little town with the same little faces, my experiences would name me gypsy. We often wish for those things that we aren't. My whole life I wished to be anything but a wandering soul, but now, I am learning to accept it.

I weep now, but it's because I miss so many places and want to travel to so many more. One lifetime is not enough for all I wish.

talullah jewel

• Introduction to the Love Letters

Parts of this came from a poem I performed at Slab City slam.


Alan, you fluffy-butt dandelion-head, you were my first baby-love in kindergarten; my family had just moved to the States from Iran. I didn't know what playing with other American kids was like. You picked these weeds you called flowers and left them on my desk, dirt clods, exposed roots, and all. On Valentine’s Day, you made your mom give my mom a piece of candy you’d held in your hand all day; a lot of our romantic interactions transpired through our mothers. My mother dropped the grimy chocolate on the table, giving me a puzzled look. I was charmed. Ah, love and its little fingers.

You told me a lot of stuff that I naively believed. I was four and golden; you were five and brown. Me, hair of white corn silk, soft, pink cheeks, and Dr. Seuss-coloured clothes; you, wooly hair, Converse sneakers with cartoon characters drawn on the soles, red bandanas knotted around your head, and your skin like coffee swirled with cream. You told me that licking a square battery tasted good (it burned my tongue), stealing lip-gloss from the grocery store was easy (it was not and I got in a heap of trouble), and putting my tongue on our porch railing during an Alaskan winter tasted good (I got stuck). If I hadn’t gotten stuck to the porch railing, my mother would never have written the poem with the immortal lines, “Heah’s thumthin’ from tha bottom of mah thoul. Nevah evah sthick yo’ tongue to a methal pole.”

We played puppy games, like your favourite one, Kiss-‘Em-and-Catch-‘Em. The first time you tried to kiss me, I kicked you in the shins with my hard-soled Mary Janes. I didn’t understand kissing or what all the fuss about it was. The second time you tried to kiss me, I made you give me a dollar and a daisy. The third time, I asked you to hold my hand. The fourth time, I was into it, but we got caught by a nun and slapped with a ruler. Luckily, I don’t make my partners give me money or kick anyone in the shins anymore. I love kissing like I love breathing. Nuns no longer hit me with school supplies when I kiss boys or girls.

Speaking of school supplies, you showed me that you could use Art Time not only for creating things, but eating. You used to crouch behind your desk, downing purple and black crayons. Soon, you’d make the Jaws theme song. You claimed the purple and black crayons turned you into a shark. I believed it. Because of you, the teacher took everyone’s purple and black crayons, and only handed them out at Art Time. She never gave you the purple or black ones again, but I felt your pain and lent you mine when she wasn’t looking.

My foray into school supply eating started with paste; you encouraged me to try it. I agreed. I mean, after all, it smelled minty and had a cute stick in it just like the little buckets of ice cream with the wooden paddles. Tasting it, I decided it was good and slid it over the table to you. You ate it with me. We ate everything together, even our lunches. At recess, we played tetherball or kickball. I never played with the girls in my class because they always wanted to play dolls or house and I wanted to build things and outrun the boys. You liked this about me and rewarded me with aluminum foil crowns and the last gummy bear from your pocket, wrapped in a Kleenex with a clover tucked inside. Once, I beat up a classmate for calling you a nigger. Even at four-and-a-half, I knew that wasn't a word to be used for you. We got separated during Nap Time because we were always giggling and singing nonsense songs; that is, when we weren't fighting and playing our endless pinch-games.

[Picture description: Little Jewel photograph by my old neighbour in Alaska. I was out in the yard playing, and he asked me to wait a minute. He snapped the picture, after directing me in the pose. I didn’t just sit around on my lawn with small yellow buckets, you know? For my birthday, he presented me with the photo in a faux gold frame. The gold has since tarnished, and the glass has a crack in it, but I keep it with me no matter where I go. Dig the Sesame Street overalls? This was just the beginning of my questionable taste in fashion.]

Occasionally, our games got raw. I am still not sorry for giving you a black eye when you flipped up my pink organza church dress to show everyone the ruffed seat of my panties. My mother made me apologise. I said I was sorry, but you know I never meant it. To this day, when I think of Crackerjack tattoos, I remember you and the day I put the little bull’s eye tattoo on the back of my hand and told you to press my panic button. You’d been yanking my braids all day, and I was ready for payback. You pressed the red-and-blue circle and I promptly slapped you, right in front of the teacher. I had to stand and stare at a brick wall for an entire recess. You gave me blades of grass to tie into my hair like green war-feathers and kept me company, even though I made your face hurt.

Sometimes, you bruised me too, but I still smile when I think of the nights we spent in sleeping bags in your backyard and mine, shining our flashlights at trees and making hootie-hoo noises for the owls to find us. We were raptor-children and tree monkeys. With your baby dreadlocks, tawny eyes, and necklaces of cowry and puka shells, you reminded me of a lion. With my slightly pointed ears and innocent blue eyes, I was a gazelle. Later in life, my smile would turn sharp and I’d be the lynx, never a prey again, but with you, I was as open as I’ve ever been. A confession is that I am still the animals we pretended to be in the branches. My animal-self is evolving all the time.

We swore we were going to join the circus together; you were going to be the fire juggler and lion-man, and I was going to be the human mermaid, glistening and silver-blue with ocean-tears, and suspended in a tank of water. I’d also ride a wild pony bareback. When you’re an adult, these are delusions. When you’re a kid, these are career goals. We had important goals.

Now and then, you told me lies and played mean games on me, like the time you kidnapped my pet turtle and almost killed him. What was that about? I liked you anyway. You taught me that a girl needs to have her own mind and not listen to everything that someone she likes tells her. When we moved to Kansas from Alaska, I declared that I would marry you and miss you forever. I even meant it. From time to time, I still miss you and hope you haven’t married a girl who hides acorns in a shoebox under her bed (like I did until they got wormy) or insist that she’s tougher than all the boys in the world (like I always said I was). I didn’t love another boy until I was fourteen, although the crushes were always plenty and pink. Your seasons of sticky summer popsicles and winter snowmobile picnics were reasons why.

Jewel the Gazelle