I'm writing with knuckles scraped, arms bruised, and hair tangled. Don't worry. I'm more than okay; moving is some scary, beautiful chaos. To think that I've moved across the country, set up house, seen my parents for the holidays, and gotten rid of a bunch of dross I've been keeping is amazing. Stepping out of Arco with head high and integrity intact was a huge relief; I cannot express how clean and free I feel inside and as though I walked away instead of running. I'm sorry that the reality of the place was more flawed than my dreams had been when I set out for the desert and a way to live my beliefs rather than just practicing them in mind. Whatever the bad parts of the place had been, the good parts (the friendships, the ability to discover myself, and all of the incredible experiences) will stay with me much longer. Leaving was the right thing to do.

Goodbyes lingered like party guests after a lawn-fight, and I didn't get to say all of them because time was limited and I had to rearrange my life in the course of a few days' time. However, I don't do goodbyes (when I started saying goodbye to Bill Campana, I got a little choked up and tried not to let him know it. I think it was because I told him he was always one of my favourites and realised how much I meant it; it's not often a person can hear such spoken word greatness so frequently). I prefer to think of it as see-you-later or a bookmark added so that the page can be returned to at another time. What really blew me away was the cheerful assortment of poets and artists (Bob, Sharon, Harmony, Aura, MCMG, Mandy, Ivan, Klute, Julie, Arrian, and Rebecca) who helped, came to help me pack, or saw me off. Damn, Arizona, you really know how to make a girl feel good. My Arizona burns in my mind, and of all the places I've lived, it is my truest home. From now on, when people ask where I am from, instead of saying that I've lived all over the world, I can say Arizona and know that I've turned native there.

For now, it's Philly with the little corner grocery store that doesn't accept graffiti and the home-style place two doors down that tucks free pieces of the moistest cake ever into your order (FREE), whether you ask for it or not. I guess this'll give me a reason to continue with my determination and focus at the gym. My pad is cute as hell, in a great Bohemian section of town, right on public transporation routes, and less than a mile from everything I could possibly need--from the gym to the organic grocery store to the Aveda salon to a pedicure place to a luxurious little assortment of bars and restaurants and other places to brunch and make new acquaintances. I don't have a job here yet, but by the end of the week, I should be in the right direction. It's easier to get a job once an employer can see you as a face and a name, rather than a piece of paper that's discarded because you live in another state. I excell at the face-game with employers so I have high hopes.

For right now, it's great to finally be settled in my new home. My closet is full of Anna Sui frocks, Mexican pheasant shirts, cashmere sweaters, vintage silk dresses, the kind of teetering, expensive shoes I was afraid to wear at Arco. The cabinets brim with dishes and mugs that my potter friend Larry made, but the 'fridge is empty. The walls are hung with art that either my friends or I have made or just that's inspired me for most of my life. The bathroom boasts a rug softer and deeper than any I've ever had. My red painted trunk from India is the coffee table, African statues stand guard from sunny windowsills, and milagros and nichos promise hope and blessings on the wall nearest my desk. A sweet boy sleeps in my bed at nights, warm and smelling like fresh laundry. I hope people will come and visit me as I learn this city and love it as fiercely as I've loved every other place I've lived. Making new friends is something I intend to do very soon. People walk dogs by my place every day, and I look forward to gaining canine friends along with human ones.

Here's to life and its little adventures!

Opus J

Tonight, after the doctor’s appointment, the gym, getting new skinny clothes, and going to dinner with a new friend at El Gato Azul, I am going to finish the love letters. The project has been fulfilling and somewhat bittersweet. People’s responses to it have moved me and inspired dialogue—both person-to-person and within myself. Whatever thorns love has shown me, I feel so grateful for the love I’ve known and the love of the people around me. I’m worlds away from the person I once was, and I like that I can continue my path and still retain what’s always been truest in me: my sense of self and ability to survive.

I feel fucking surrounded, touched by ghosts in the flesh and in the shadows. The last month-and-a-half has gone by so swiftly. Tides have turned, and yet, I continue in my fierce little way. I focused myself and looked at the areas in my life that I didn’t like. One of those was my relationship with food. I ate healthily, but would stress-eat or make the wrong choices out of convenience. I stopped that cycle because I didn’t want to continue in a pattern where I’d eat something that made me feel guilty and then, hate myself for doing it. Since this, I’ve lost eighteen pounds. My belt is on a notch it hasn’t been since before I came to Arco. Yesterday, I tried on clothes and fit into sizes I fit into pre-Arco. How can a girl not squeal and twirl around over hard work accomplished?

I’m carrying myself differently. All my old clothes are becoming baggier and heavier on my limbs. I still have goals and a ways to go, but if I keep this up, by May, I will be the keeper of one bangin’ body. The best part of this is that I eat so healthy that you could lick dinner off of me; I am that clean. My energy levels are through the ceiling, and I’m in a positive, glowing space. My hair is growing, and I won’t chop it anymore. I’ll have tangled mermaid hair, long as it always used to be. My lips open to let the flowers grow from my tongue; my teeth are daisy petals that are smiling more and more.

At Walgreen’s the other day—yes, I love shiny things and am addicted to Walgreen’s, betcha didn’t know that—the cashier made me blush. It’s been ages since I’ve blushed. “Look at you!” she exclaimed. “You look like a movie star.” “No, I don’t,” I muttered, ducking my head, “not really.” “Yes, you do, with your fresh haircut and gorgeous tan. You’re one of those Coppertone babes.” She got other people in line to chime in on this. Now, I didn’t have a new haircut, just my same disastrous, uneven hair. I had just come from the gym, so I didn’t have a shred of make-up on. It was really nice to have a stranger compliment me. No, I don’t think I look like a movie star, but being told that me feel like I did when I strolled out of Walgreen’s with my trashy magazine and cherry bomb lip-gloss tucked beneath my arm. I’m working so hard. Hearing positive commentary on it from those around me helps me maintain my focus all the more. My friends, co-workers, and gym-partners have all noticed the changes, and are nurturing my positive direction.

The very best part of this is I am doing this for me and me alone. No one is driving this car but me. I am falling in love with myself and setting dreams and goals into motion. I want to talk about those things, but I cannot just yet. There are amazing things happening behind the curtains, and I’m fucking grateful. If these opportunities had come my way when I was twenty, I would have blown them because I wasn’t ready to accept goodness in my life. Well, damn that noise. I am ready now.

For Valentine’s Day, I went to Essenza in Mesa. The poets inspired me; the love was overwhelming. Mr. Bob Nelson gave me one of his amazing bear hugs, looked me in the eyes, and asked, “How are you doing?” And I knew he really wanted an answer, and it meant the world to me to have friends that really want to know how I am doing. I performed a new piece that I’d written the night before. The piece was a bit angry and was about my most recent experience with love. I also read a proposal I made to the same boy. It was my way of taking my passion back and replacing the pain with strength. No one should hold my poems that would not respect the life that's made them. These are my poems, my passions, my word-life.

Essenza was a sweet little crowd, just great vibes. It was a pleasure to be there. Shaun Kuter was too cool for school and even more evolved than when I saw him perform at the Slab City Slam last year. If I were into younger men, I’d have a mad crush on him. Then, this Chesko guy took my heart in his hand and tattooed ancient languages all over it. He was his own mariachi trumpet laughter-storm. Finally, Mary gave me a shout-out onstage, calling me a goddess; we’d never met before, but she said she’d been reading my writing for a while, and I couldn’t have smiled any bigger. I got asked to do an encore, but I was so touched and blown away, I couldn’t remember any of the poems I had memorized. I passed. Later, I got invited to feature at Essenza and at another Phoenix event. How bloody cool is that?

I feel like everything is happening as it should. Even the bad was meant to be bad to motivate me to find the good. Tonight, Ben and Sarah Beth are putting on a variety show in the yurt. Tomorrow, Lisa and I are making Asian fusion for a Chinese New Year party. I hope playing music is a part of the festivities. Last Saturday, a musician came to Arco and put on a concert in the café. During one of his last songs, I jumped behind the kitchen counter and started playing percussion with soup ladles and stainless steel spoons. I turned the stove into my snare drum and even banged on the refrigerator, all while keeping perfect time. It seemed like the right way to respond to a musician who was playing his heart out. He loved it and I did, too. Times are good, life is good, and the friends I have are better than anything else I've known.

Damn right.

Jewelynx Disasterpants

in sunlight and shadows



The 6th annual Slab City Slam happened at Arcosanti this weekend, and I’m still processing everything—from seeing my friends do a performance piece before pouring molten metal in the dark to hearing someone use my words by fire, not knowing that I was hearing my poems recycled with some sinister tongue. There were highs and lows, as I am hinting. More highs than the lows. Bill Campana makes me happy to be a poet and have shared a stage with him. Dan Seaman makes me happy to be the little bastard sister of this statewide poetry community. David Tabor makes me happy to have laughing muscles. Bob Nelson makes me happy because he’s all heart and amazing hugs and “How are you, sweetie?” Christpher Lane makes me happy for men who are tremendous fathers and human beings. Sammie from Essenza makes me happy for young poets with powerful, rich voices. Ira Murfin makes me happy period. He has that way about him. Most of all, meeting Christa Bell makes me happy. She’s this African goddess in a gypsy’s body, and having someone like that, look me in the face and say, “You’re beautiful” is almost too much for me to handle.

There’s a lot that I want to say. Planning an event is an arduous task, all activity and motion, and then, these lulls where I almost don’t know what to do with myself. Rushing and commotion and smeared make-up and underarm stains from the sweat and stress, and then, the wind in my hair, a grasshopper jumping onto my pant leg at a fortuitous moment, my roommate and friend whispering into the amphitheatre by foot to hear me perform, and sitting behind the folks from Tucson, who were amazing and talented and on the same page as Team Arco. Several times throughout the competition, the two groups commented on this and hugged each other and said, “You kick ass” and “No, you kick ass.” Having them come in, renegades of a sort like Team Arco was, made us feel better. Sometimes, Team Arco feels like Fat Albert’s junkyard band at these things. We’re blowing away on our radiator accordion things and playing a guitar made out of a shoebox. But shit, y'all, Parliament Funkadelic doesn't have anything on Fat Albert's Junykard Band.

Another triumph for Team Arco is that we didn’t come in last. Not only that, but by the end-of-second-round scores, we were only four points behind the Essenza poets. I realise that in a slam four points is a wide margin. For us, it wasn’t, considering the Essenza crew usually wins this damn thing. Team Arco is like the Bad News Bears of slam; we proved we could throw down, and I’ve very proud of my boys. It’s weird that once again, I’m amidst the boys, the queen of misfits. I live with three lovely boys, and slammed with three boys, too. I grew up in a house of brothers and I don’t know that I’d live anywhere that didn’t have a dog or a brother-type in it again. I love that masculine, wild-earth energy.

There will be more later. For now, words scrawled after waking up from being up half the night, listening to poems shouted at fires and hearing the way poems ignite in the chests of poets. Damn, it was a beautiful weekend.

* * *

People, O, my people, you are full moon, firm-flesh, soul baring animals. Real. Sometimes, I have to shut my eyes in the face of you because you radiate light and it’s like a solar eclipse retinal burn just to be near you, to gaze at the fluttering moths of your lashes and inkwell pupils. There are mountains moving in your muscles, sleeping lions coiled in your calves, and cut your hair into Mohawks, fashion wings of tattoos on your shoulder blades and summer scars of sunshine and skin. You are the pills and whiskey that my fingertips haunt, seeking form and solidity from air. You are the marks I leave when I press my fingertips too deep and swallow my palms in the belly of the whale. I comb my hair with a fishbone these days, string my hips with the skulls of sailors, drape seashells across my breasts, and breathe the whitecaps into the sea. The city’s become too scary and I’ve learned that nothing moves alone. You people will keep the lanterns lit with your tears and drape the night with necklaces of crystals and pearls. Wait for me to return. I might never see you again. Pull the hook from my lips and find out.