Sleep is taking longer to come this evening. Usually, it's Shaun who prowls the house with lights low. Tonight, it's me, and I've a business to run tomorrow and an early-morning run to take with my love. In years past, I tossed and turned, gnashed my teeth and greeted the dawn with a naked face, scrubbed free of sleep. Since Shaun, since this huge love that looms over me larger than anything else before it, I sleep soundly. Quietly. My fingers form sentences of calm on the sheets; toes curl comma-like into other phrases. My mind's been occupied, not in a bad way, with possibility. Last week, I was in a strangely sunny Seattle, and Shaun called to say that he'd gotten more grades back from law school. Multiple As and he's only got another year left. Then, we gather up ourselves and our possessions and head westward, where I will write and finalise the plans that have been hatching since I arrived here. Being patient is difficult; I've never been known for being particularly patient. Less than a year at this point, beautiful beginnings and a culmination. Earlier, I read through these journals and the handwritten ones and saw the growth, the truth. I wonder if I could write the things now that I did then. I was so brave. I think that I could still unfold those petals now. The desire remains.

It was good to see those journals. The awkwardness, the pain bared willingly and openly, my wild gypsy life both before and post-Arco. All of it exposed. My freedom to express myself and display vulnerability. The many lives I've lived in this one, long body. The many more hiding at my heels. So tonight, I make a cradle of my hands and invite the stars to take a seat. I comb the mermaid-tangles from my hair and rinse the sea from my mouth. Every little dream is becoming a reality, and I am a softer shade of sweet than I've ever been before. Don't mistake this for being content. I am simply ready for what comes next. I am ready and unconcerned as to how it will impact anyone else.

awake awake awake

It isn't that I've never known cruelty. Goodness knows that I used to think my body was some wicked playground for other people's perversions. I've been passed from one set of abusing hands to the next and failed by the System besides. I've had more than a few fists slam me, quite literally, in the face and through to the guts. Some might even say that Jewel Blackfeather has been down in the dirt a time or two before. I learned, through patience and a will to survive, how to keep myself safe, how not to injure others, and to be grateful for every moment. Yet, I keep myself open. I make this choice every day, when the world would have me vicious and hard as a crab apple.

It isn't that I am naive. My ability to read people, both thoroughly and easily has been known to intimidate and spook others. Strangers tell me their secrets, knowing instinctually that I am a safe haven for those dark deeds or deep wounds from the past. They marvel that I already seem to know their pain before they've even told me it. I've been known to finish other people's sentences or tell them parts of conversation they've had earlier in the day, without understanding what I'm doing. Learning others isn't hard if one does it with eyes pure and a compassionate intent.

Figuring people out when they masquerade as nice people is more difficult. I want to believe the best of others, I do. I'd rather make the mistake of thinking the best and giving someone an extra chance than to judge someone who might have deserved a second chance. One of the biggest obstacles here is that there are an awful lot of predators who pretend to be decent people. The rest are just plain rude, nasal, whiny-voiced, thinking the world owes them something.

I just don't get that at all, which is probably the reason I feel like I will never fit into Philadelphia life. For one, I have a basic respect for people who are jerks and are upfront about it. I might not want to have tea with that person, but I respect the emotional honesty of defining boundaries. I once lived near a grizzled old sea captain turned bronze-pourer. "I hate everyone," he announced to me one day, and I found that to be mostly true. Still, we'd have pretty interesting conversations, so I learned not to mind his crassness and came to appreciate his integrity. If he got particularly negative, I'd avoid him for a while, realising that the baggage was his and not mine. When he left Arco, he anonymously gifted me with a Monkey King statue from Thailand. No "I'm going to miss you," just one day I walked into the ceramics studio and the Monkey King trickster-god snarl-smiled in the shadows at me. The Monkey traveled with me to Philadelphia and occupies a dignified windowsill space with ancient silt-cast bells and a Buddha head that a Buddhist monk made me, a petrified rose hidden inside it.

What I do not respect is when people smile and use you, pretending to like you and presenting the image of themselves that they want you to see, while whispering and plotting behind your back. I discovered that the reason I am exhausted all the time, other than my working long hours and battling a number of personal demons, is that I am tired of looking over my shoulder to see who is going to knife me this week. I'm a firm believer that you get what you put out into the Universe, for the most part, so this doesn't feel right to me. I offer love and complete respect to those around me, so I should be getting dividends from this emotional bank account, right?

Wrong if you live in Philly where people pretend to be so nice, so impressed with you, and will do the meanest things without batting an eye. They might even try to make it your fault, if you don't know better than to stand up for yourself. I defend myself, bruised and battered as my fists have become. I will not stop because I already learned the lesson of staying true to one's self and maintaining one's beliefs.

Those Philadelphia citizens who aren't wolves in sheep's clothing are just entitled and spoilt. Life doesn't owe any of us anything, not even a pair of shoes or a place to sleep. If we come by these things, we are blessed. I know that I am blessed when I look at where I am now and where I was at a year ago. I have organic food in my kitchen, car insurance, reliable transportation, health insurance, and a regular job. Many people don't have these things. I am grateful, but being grateful doesn't mean that I don't always strive for more. Next year this time, I want my lot in life to be even more improved. I want to have finished my prison sentence in this city that has done much to wound and little to heal me. If not for my angelic and beloved Shaun, I'd have left this city long before.

So, come to me in your own skin, not furs fashioned from any other beasts, and I will respect you, call you comrade, and stand beside you. Come to me disguised, and I will sharpen the knife on the hanks of my hair and sing the killing song. My gentleness is certainly no sign of weakness. I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty. I've swam through bloody rivers and climbed mountains of bones before. I just didn't think I'd have to any longer. I hate that I am feeling that fight-or-flight survival instinct, and that I have so little respect for wolves who choose to masquerade as sheep rather than howling at the moon.

Talullah Jewel

Yesterday, I took the train to Centre City, far too early to be stirring. Yet, there were other stirrers on the train. We sat in the quiet car. In the quiet car, you get in trouble if you talk or make noise, although I still don't understand what they could possibly do to you. Blow a whistle at you and embarass you or throw you off the train? Shaun brought a newspaper, and I leaned on his shoulder, half-asleep, but alert enough to do crossword puzzles with him. He walked me to my destination, he with his hair going curly from the humidity and rain, a huge grey sweatshirt swallowing him, and a law student's backpack on his shoulders. I looked like I didn't belong to him with my long tailored coat and adult shoes. We held hands, and no one cared much because no one in this city looks long at love.

Several hours later, the train took me close to home. I was in the quiet car again, by some divine mistake because I can't even get a pen out of my bag without making noise. The ride was short. I ran underneath the tracks, through the graffiti tunnel, and shivered at the cold April air and the steel wheel dragon-breath of the train as it started to go again. Five cemeteries are within a mile radius of my house. I passed each of them, and paused next to the chain link fence of the closest one. This cemetery had baby-graves, short and awkward. The baby-graves have little marble beds and "Asleep" or "Resting" carved at the feet. I started crying for no reason because I've felt asleep here, but I'm not in the ground, feeding the roots of peach trees and greedy daffodil bulbs. Sometimes, I wish that I were food for the flowers because so much of me is asleep. "Love is only sleeping," he says, he tells me, as he tucks me in at night.

I don't know how to sleep, only that I know I need too much of it lately.

Loving something beautiful is easy. The desert is sheer physical beauty and a spiritual gorgeousness that winds through the arroyos and canyons. Maybe my big lesson in coming to Philadelphia is learning to love what is imperfect, and then, turning that unconditional love upon myself. Perhaps it's no mere gypsy's chance that has landed me in a place with the word Delphi as part of it. The Oracle at Delphi was a seer who saw tragedy and whispered the fortunes of future generations.

Philadelphia is like my baptism by concrete and dust, angry attitudes and outright decay. So my lesson is learning to love the piss in the alleyways, the smoky cigar bars, the gangster men with their swagger and talk, the clotted highways, and twisted little trees on city avenues. My mother held me by the ankles and dipped me into Philadelphia* to make me strong, to give me a ferocity that was more than words or a willingness to fight. My tendon shows where her hand has been; it'll be the softest, desert part of me that remains. Until I am free. Until I am home again.

I will learn every lesson and face every ugliness and endeavour, simply, to love. I will love when it is not easy. I will love. I will love.

jewel

* This is a reference to Achilles; he was dipped in a tar-like mixture to make him invincible. He was, except for the tendon so named for him. Eventually, an arrow pierced that place, and he died. I don't plan to die here.

Prayers are wishes sent to the universe. People have different tongues for their prayers and different ways of doing it--kneeling at the foot of the bed with hands steepled or on a rug faced to the sun--but they do it. It doesn't have to do with religion or belief in a higher being. I know atheists who pray--not to a great creator, but to whatever it is that grants wishes and makes everything all right in the world. Prayers are hopes given a human language. We pray every time we tell a hidden truth or when we reveal our secret wicked heart's wishes.

Writing or creating is the closest that I get to prayer--most of the time. Yet, I pray every day for the world, for myself, for everything I see that hurts me somewhere deep. Now, I pray for trees.

I live on a narrow street, where the houses lean like crooked teeth and there's just enough space for cars to pass. Nothing larger can safely navigate my street. Because my neighbourhood is close to a major freeway, trucks sometimes barrel through the Main Street area. Main Street can take it. My little street cannot. A few weeks ago, a semi took out half of the two trees in front of my house.

These trees are my friends. In the living room, I often read my books in a window box overlooking the street. From there, I watch squirrels leaping from branch to gutter and back again like little aerialists. The birds feather their nests in the spring to make room for the open mouths and pleading cries of bald, pink infant birds, so ugly they're adorable. The branches grow heavy and lazy with blossoms and honeybees in May. I like these trees. In Philadelphia, nothing seems natural or sprung from the earth. This has been one of the biggest adjustments for me in moving here. In Arizona, the natural world was my world, singing a song from my blood to my bones.

So, a semi-driver took out half of the trees by making a shortcut on our narrow street. I returned home to find branches clutching the air like hands on the sidewalk. The truck driver laughed about it. Anger clenched my fists. The landlord filled out a police report. Shaun and I worried that the trees--our trees--would not survive because so much had been taken from them and so much now lay wasted. Then, a second driver hit our trees. This driver did not stop, but we ran after his truck to get his information and file a complaint. We were certain that if the trees didn't die the first time, they would this time. Our landlord chain-smoked on the steps of our building, upset about the trees dying. I was glad that I had a landlord who'd be upset about trees.

For weeks, I've been watching both trees. At night, when I return from work, I go out to them, put my hands on the rough bark, and say, "Grow. Grow. Grow. Live. Live. Live." Shaun isn't as weepy over them, but he will pat their trunks and say, "Keep hanging in there, guys." I've turned the hand-carved tree spirit figurine my father made towards the trees. Yesterday, I noticed the trees were trying to grow bark over the bare places, making safe what was injured. The branches are starting to bud. I think that the trees will live. Every night, I pray to whatever protects them that they'll continue to survive.

We're all like trees in this world, terrified that someone will tear us apart, but reaching towards the sky still the same. Reaching, spreading our fingers out to hold doves and prayers and sunlight. We face spiritual and physical evisceration, and yet, we are stronger than we know. We have skin thicker than history and lies. So we pray and we grow.

talullah jewel

Days are a blur of trying to stay away from the greedy hands of debt and working long hours. While the majority of my staff are great people, they take me for granted in glaring ways. After a fashion, I've tried to be the type of boss to my employees that I always wanted. I work with people's schedules, tests, and other frivolities. No one's birthday goes unnoticed (there's usually a treat of some sort, a card, and a little handmade gift). People who practice certain religions get their religious holidays off without ever having to ask. I create educational guides and manuals to help, have endless pep-talks and coaching sessions, and touchbases. Yet, sometimes I feel like I am trying to draw blood from a stone. How is it that intelligent and reasonably rational people can forget the simplest of details? I'm being driven mad by employees who keep testing boundaries and limits, all the while proclaiming how much they respect me. This completely boggles my mind. Respect is shown, not said. I could give a damn about the words of people, especially if the words don't match the deeds. In all of it, being present makes a difference.

There are days when I don't even want to get out of bed to face my commute, but I remain present at all times. My mind calculates how to fill the gaps and accomplish the day's goals. Workhorse that I am, I am not satisfied unless I have done my job outstandingly. I do not accept mediocrity in myself or in the people I know. I'll allow anyone a little silliness or accept any manner of personal quirk, but please don't come to me without ambition or content with being the lowest common denominator. Square or cube me, and I'll surprise you even more. Tear me down to mathematics and geometry, and feed me to the dogs of intellect and reason. I'll grow a new liver and rise from these ashes. I'll make wings of dirty shingles and weave city weeds into my hair. The landscape has shifted, but my ability to accept less has never changed.

I must thrive in absorbing my surroundings because I've started wearing Victorian cuffs and fabric flowers on everything, while the turquoise and silver remains sacred in the bedroom jewelry armoir. The ghosts that haunt this city are not ancient; they are young ones, like lost children, searching for parents. The ghosts of the desert are the spirits of the land that rise at dusk and turn the cacti into dancers and the barren rivers into gushing silver streams. I'm uncertain of how to survive with so much resting on my shoulders and my creature comforts so far away, but I must. I must.

Choice was never a part of this equation, and hope attempts to leave every night, but I tie her to the bed. I need her here with me now. We'll live here a little while longer yet. Shaun has a little over a year to finish his law school task. We tumble into bed at night, exhausted, clutching hands like children, while I whisper secrets and songs and stories into his ears. He takes everything I give him, unconditionally. He gives me everything and also, a great, puppy joy.

city city city jewel

Sometimes, I am very grateful that anyone has ever wanted to live with me at all. I once wreaked complete havoc on an International Dolls of the World set that an aunt had given me. Me, a bee-bee gun, and one of my brothers throwing the dolls out the window while I waited on the ground with my gun held aloft, yelling, "Pull!" just like it was clay pigeons. Doll parts littered our yard ever-after. I was known to rule my brothers with an iron fist, although I never dressed anyone up in female clothes. I was known as an enforcer of sorts. I was never an instigator, and instead was always the one that pounded you five times harder because you'd dared to pound me once.

My first roommate was a gay man (who insisted he be called Harry the Gay, King of all Gays because "That asshole Richard stole the title 'the Lionhearted'). HtG invited drag queens into our living room. Frequently, I'd come home to real-life enactments of Mommie Dearest. Often, the queens used me as a dress-up doll of sorts. It was here that I learned the art of glamour and gained a love for feathers that remains to this very day.

That was fun until said gay ruler of the free world became a coke addict and started listening to all this tweaker music and inviting slum-dogs into our cozy little pad at all hours of the day and night. I've lived with a number of folks--from a good friend who regularly enjoyed five or six beers while taking a shower to the performance artist who liked to stage gory scenes with catsup and Big Wheels (picture a faux accident scene on the side of the road with a child's thrift store shoe and you get the idea). Somehow, I've managed to out-weird and out-silly everyone. How, I don't know because living at Arcosanti, I lived with some odd motherfuckers. I've always sort of worried that maybe I am too difficult to live with because I am eccentric and have the largest and heaviest collection of books and artifacts outside of a museum or library.

Yet, I am in love with the sweetest, most compassionate man, and he seems to rather like living with me. I've known this man long enough to have actually seen his transition from college student to young man. He tolerates the songs of questionable merit I sing and the fact that I thought Gertrude Hawk was the name of the little old lady at the candy story and had no idea it was a chain chocolatier. "Do you think that the waiter at Bob Evans is named Bob Evans, too?" my love howled. I hammer all manner of shit to our walls, and he smiles and continues reading his law books, telling me how much he adores me. The newest addition is a miniature plaster deer head. The deer has a wreath of (also plaster) flowers around its neck. It'll go next to my linocut of a skeleton bride.

Now that I'm sending roots and tendrils into the soil here, I've discovered Ikea. The other night, I proudly hammered and cursed together a night-stand. The next night, after celebrating my success a little too heartily with lemon-drop martinis, I pinned the instructions for the Malm drawers to the 'fridge. I wrote "A+++! Good job! WOW!" in red Sharpie all over the instructions. Shaun noted this development with an arch of brow and a good-natured smile. "You are fun to live with," he said and tucked me into bed.

My Ikea report card remains on our 'fridge. Just wait until I put together the bureau of drawers tomorrow night. I've got gold stars and Swedish meatballs. I went to Ikea tonight so I could buy meatballs and have dinner. I don't know how anyone can live with me.

jalullah tewel

Since my accident, I've been doctoring myself with a combination of acupuncture, a chiropractor, unsulphured pineapple rings from Trader Joe's, making out in the middle of the day, gallons of water, a kinder view of myself, buying vintage underwear with satin tummy panels and leopard-print insets, and the antidepressants I'd been stashing in the bottom of My Worst Handbag in the back of the closet. I'm also following a strictly prescribed (by Dr. Me) diet of Mucha and Art Deco coffee table books, indie music on the telly instead of the insipid shows I'd taken to watching (I know, I know, me, television, the world is ending), Nin and more Nin, and A Coney Island of the Mind by Ferlighetti.

There's also the half-dead plants I've been bringing home in my reusable shopping bags. The plants are the equivalent of the ugly dogs in the pet store, the ones that no one wants because they lack pedigree or are too far from their puppy-years. They sit in rows at the front of the grocery store, almost begging me to notice them. Although my place is modest in size, I cannot resist a wilting plant and a challenge. I rescue the plants, put them on a windowsill, and proceed to nurture them into blooming, unfurling, and growing greener and thicker. Growing something is very therapeutic. The symbolism is obvious.

So far all of the experiments have been successful, except for the one mistake I made. After all of these plants without blooms, I wanted something pretty. The little pots in the front of Trader Joe's showed a picture of a lush purple flower. Sold! I snatched it up, and deposited it on a windowsill with the others. When I read the attached guide, I understood why the thing had been $1.99. Apparently, to get the purple flower, one has to put the bulb in the freezer for THREE MONTHS. Well, I'm an immediate gratification type of creature sometimes, so I put it on the coldest windowsill--the one where the window sometimes leaks winter air. I knew I'd forget about it in the freezer. And what do you know? Something green is starting to poke out of the soil. Take that, awful instructions with a twelve-week plan of freezer-burn!

Today, I am going to the gardening center, a place frequented by a good many grandpas, and purchasing the ingredients for my own little cactus terrarium. I've been missing my little desert Valhalla so fiercely that I thought why not bring it here? I'll need cactus soil, plants, a small bag of rocks, horticultural charcoal, and a glass container with a large opening. Since I've been so handy with these other plants, I am eager to see what happens with my own terrarium.

Other therapeutic things have been planning a trip to Seattle to visit my baby brother in May (he lives there now), Shaun inviting me to New Orleans for Spring Break, a return to my dedication and focus with eating and the gym (gingerly because I just do not want to mess my back up even more), focusing on the things that matter, taking care of my new betta fish, and joining Meetup.com. If Philadelphia is not going to bring friends to me, I am going to find my own damn friends. It's been harder than Chicago or Arizona, where pals fell into my lap as easy as anything. Philadelphia keeps to itself, as if people are afraid to trust each other or look anyone in the eye for too long. It reminds me of how dogs don't like direct eye contact and take it as a sign of threat.

Another new discovery is that my thirties have spelled more fun and whimsy with fashion than I ever knew before. I gather pieces of wearable art the way art collectors find paintings for their collections. I am having a blast defining my own sense of style, which is eclectic. For the first time, I'm all right with that, and think in another life, I'd have made a bad-ass stylist. My recent obsession has been this whole neo-Bohemian, Victorian revival. During the holidays, I found or was gifted with huge, ghostly corsages of diponi silk; handmade bath-bombs; stained glass switchplate covers; capelets of French lace and boiled wool; cuffs fashioned from Civil War era dresses and worn by actual rockstars; Mexicali embroidered dresses in hot pink and black; distressed harness boots; and hand-painted pictures of little girls with antlers for hair and sharp teeth. I haven't lost my vintage rocker tees and monstrous collection of Zuni/Hopi/Navajo jewelry, nor my skinny jeans with battered harness boots and the weird items I thrown in like fringed jackets or couture handbags and scarves. I'm just refining things. Perhaps it's because my work attire is so restrained that I am rebelling; I've a tendency to resist the things that seem to fetter me. I'm a whirlwind when it comes to resisting convention and the growth that happens when I do.

My sights are on health, happiness, and healing for the coming weeks. Knowing the work I've ahead of me makes facing it easier. I won't lie and say that I'm in a better place, but I am trying to trick myself into being more positive because this rock-bottom stuff is the pits. From the accident, my back's pretty messed up and my heart is fairly bruised. However, I'm not in Philadelphia forever--just another year or so until Shaun finishes law school, passes the bar, and we face a new chapter in our life together. We are West-ward bound after, back in the arms of our friends and loved ones. I need to make this the best experience that I can, until I am free. Once I am free, there won't be any stopping me.

Jewel

I almost died at seven o'clock in the morning yesterday on an icy road. Seven o'clock, and my car was doing full spins and a cement wall seemed to leap forward at the car and me, and I'm thinking, "It's not supposed to be like this." I've been in perilous situations before, but I've never felt my mortality rise up and arch towards the sky like this. It was like my life was hovering over my head for a moment and then, an angel snatched it back into my body and said, "Breathe, baby-girl, breathe," and I did just as I hit the wall. Seven o'clock, I was hysterical on an icy road, sitting on the shoulder, and a motorist saw me and tried to comfort me. "See, your gas lid popped open, but it's okay. You banged your car up a bit, but it looked like it could have been a lot worse. I don't know how it happened. You're lucky to be alive."

"Are you okay?" he wondered, and I, not wanting to be perceived as a weak woman, bit back tears and said, "I'm okay." "I am shaken up," I kept telling him, before I closed my car door and rested my head on the steering wheel and just screamed and sobbed and let the animal in my throat loose. I have never felt so alone or so afraid, which seems silly saying now because I am alive and have faced worse. It's just that I felt so disconnected from my life and who I was meant to be.

I had to pull it together so I could open the store in time for shoppers that abused me all day long. One of my co-workers came early to help; however, I had no one with a key to help me until almost nine hours later. So I spent the day, when I should have been nursing wounds, taking care of obstinate, angry people--massaging their hands, scalps, shoulders, and spines. If I hadn't gone into the store, I couldn't have processed payroll early and no one would have gotten their holiday checks. There's too much of me being Atlas and not enough of me being truly taken care of by the world around me. I wanted to hide and curl up in a dark place, the same impulse, I imagine, that dogs and cats have when they want to die away from their human companions.

I almost died and truly, a part of me would have welcomed it because it's been a rough year for me here in Philadelphia. It isn't that I am unloved; it's just that I am working too much and not having anything left over for myself. I told myself that coming here would involve some sacrifices in the short-term so that my long-term, wholly realised spiritual and physical self could be discovered. All I know is that I wasn't made for snow, ice, or the rude motorists that honked and screamed at me as I tried to turn my car around and get back on the icy road that had almost taken my life from me.

I wasn't made to be this alone beneath such a wide, unforgiving sky. Most of the friends I have are so far away, and sometimes, I feel that they don't care because I stretch out my hands to reach them and find silence. The saddest part of this is that it feels like my very best friends, my true comrades and family, are happier without me in their lives. I feel so wounded and bruised and scared and like I never want to get in my car again.

My heart and body hurt, and even in this, I'm currently resisting the urge to erase these words, make them private, because it won't do any good to make some nice person's day a little cloudy or reveal this much of my inner turmoil. What I am saying is I was alone and I almost died and the sickening cry of my heart was that it might not matter this year as much as it might have mattered a year or two ago.

I am more alone now than ever, and that's just how it is. I won't even try to find the lesson in it. The hurt's still too fresh.

talullah jewel

I am rediscovering myself lately. Since coming to Philadelphia, I fell away from myself. In the beginning, it was finding-a-job crisis-mode. Then, once I found a job, it was dealing-with-job crisis-mode. Once my former manager left, I was immersed in rebuilding a store that had endured unethical employees, people's personal dramas, and inconsistency. Many weeks, I wouldn't even have a day off. I worked over twelve hours a day at least two shifts a week. I trained a batch of new, bewildered employees. I struggled to rid the store of an overabundance of old products. I organised the stockroom and storage spaces. I recounted the inventory and attempted to right the $4,000 error the previous manager left. I turned the numbers of a stagnant store around, and earned accolades for my hard work. Mostly, I lost myself, and in losing myself, I wondered what I'd lost. Stress made me forget all the hard work I'd done on myself. I started really hating myself again, playing the pain-game in my head.

It wasn't that I messed things up completely. I just got a little off-track.

I forgot to celebrate myself. We teach other people how to love us by how we love ourselves. If we trap ourselves in our bodies, becoming prisoners to the flesh that gives us life, we guide others in trapping and deceiving us, in making us like caged beasts. If we focus on stress and make all of our interactions surface, others will never try to go deeper than what we present on top. If we give too much to others, they will learn to take from us, and not reciprocate. If we don't view ourselves with fierce, loving, and forgiving eyes, no one else will forgive us our mistakes.

So now, I am focusing on nurturing myself as much as I nurture my co-workers, guests, and lover. I'm buying healthy groceries again--whole grains, asparagus, silky soy milk, cloves of garlic, bunches of broccoli, blueberries, glossy red peppers, long stalks of celery, pistachios and trail mix, imported Spanish olives, and low-fat almond butter. Rather than grabbing a quick bite in the middle of working, I am packing nutritious lunches and giving myself whole breaks.

Cooking at home has become a joy again, with me turning on my favourite music, chopping ingredients, and settling down to eat with the books I'd been ignoring. The other day, I had a lunch of stuffed grape leaves, fresh heirloom tomatoes rubbed with sea salt, and a simple, but flavourful dish. You take 1/2 cup of water, 2 teaspoons of soy sauce, 2 minced cloves of garlic, and throw them into a saucepan to boil. While waiting for the temperature to rise, you cut up a head of broccoli. Once the mixture is simmering, throw the broccoli in, and cover it. Wait about five minutes for the yummiest dish ever. The water evaporates, infusing the broccoli with the soy and garlic flavour.

I've also been returning to the gym, sometimes even rising super-early to do my cardio and weights. Going to the gym is like a natural anti-depressant. My moods are a lot more stable, and I'm better able to deal with stress as a result of getting my adrenaline going and punching it out in the studio. The next item on my agenda is finding a boxing studio in the city. In Arizona, I boxed four or five days a week. Although I was very self-critical, I realise that I was on a great track. I'd like to continue with that.

Another item on my agenda is to answer a letter I got from The Sun magazine in July. Their manuscript editor found my "Becoming You" piece at Fresh Yarn, and sought me out. She sent a packet of magazines and an extremely flattering letter to my Arcosanti address (which was then forwarded to my Philly place). Not only did she have glowing praise for my work, she also invited me to personally mail her manuscripts or other work for publication in the magazine. She seemed to be selling the magazine to me, as a place that I should send my work. A shy secret is that about ten years ago, I sent The Sun a piece for publication, and their editor, Sy, kindly but soundly rejected it. I told myself that I'd keep honing my work, and ready myself for a quality publication like The Sun. It seems that we've been brought together again, so I'd like to create something just for them. We'll see where this goes, but I know that I've desperately missed my writing and publication work. It's the basis of why I do everything that I do--writing and love.

Speaking of love, I still have a tremendous partner in Shaun. He is supportive, loving, open-hearted, and a joy to know. He understands me, and is so kind and gentle that he teaches me more about love than I've ever known before. Even though we are both very busy people--he with going to law school on full scholarship and working part-time in a law office--and me with managing a high-volume business and doing all the charity work that my company demands--we make time for each other. We plan dates and always go to bed happy, rather than angry. There are times when we're both too exhausted to say much, but we snuggle up and express our love.

Tonight, we're going to Center City for tapas and hand-holding over a candlelit table. We'll meet friends and laugh, shake off the weight of a long week and be grateful to be alive. For now, I've dishes to do and a bedroom to clean up, a gym to see, and errands to run. Yesterday, I sat down to make jewelry for the first time in ages. What I made was gorgeous and a real pleasure. Just me, sitting on the floor and listening to the abacus-like click of semiprecious stones in my hands. I went for hours, not even realising how much time had passed. When I finished, I had completed a four-strand bracelet with topaz, Peruvian opals, Bali silver, and champagne pearls; a multistrand necklace with amber, seed beads, green opals, and brown pearls; a nine-strand bracelet with red coral, abalone, and more Bali silver; and a pendant studded with topaz, citrine, peridot, garnet, amethyst, and other stones. I've plans in my head for something that contrasts the lime-green shine of the peridot with the jacaranda tree blue-purple of the iolite. I'd forgotten how much I needed to be creative, and how peaceful being creative makes me. It stills the violet storm that I can be.

I forgot to love myself, and I think I'm falling back in love with my life, just a little. It isn't perfect, but it's on its way to better.

miss jewel of the spirits

(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

The other day, I was alone for eight hours at work, which brought me to a destination known as Nobreakville. I've been to Nobreakville before. Trying to staff and train a store from the ground-level means Nobreakville is a frequent destination. On days like that, I pack a nutritious lunch (baby carrots, fresh spinach, udon noodles, and a side of nuts is a favourite) and sneak it in when things aren't too busy. Although I had a long list to accomplish, I still got my lunch on. Many days I don't.

Luckily for me, my guests were wonderful. I don't mind if someone purchases one item and leaves, so long as they don't treat me badly. It's when the person is demanding and rude and only purchases a single item that I find my patience tested. I want to say, "Just leave" when they behave like that. I try not to take it too personally, but sometimes it does get to me. Most of the time, I know someone new is going to walk through the door, someone who maybe has never been to my store and knows nothing about my company. Or it could be one of my favourite pets, in which case, I'll get to enjoy myself a little. On Wednesday, one of my best guests came in.

He's a sixteen-year-old boy with an unnatural fascination for beauty products. He's also one of the most self-aware people I've ever known. He comes in, chats about life, designers, and world issues, and usually brings his grandma in. She's the cutest thing ever, and has quite passionate views about politics. She's so willing to share the experiences and wisdom that have brought her to where she is. When they come into the store, they usually stay for a half-hour or more, and they always listen to my suggestions. Mostly, we just talk and talking's good.

Most of what I'm doing at the store is good. I'm training a great staff, our numbers are better than they've ever been, our guests adore us, and the stockroom is on its way to being completely integrated and organised. However, I'm worn out. I need more than I am getting. The other day, my Rotten No Good Day, I got hit in the back of the head by a falling ladder (didn't see it coming, so it really nailed me). Then, in another incident, I got what Shaun thinks is a concussion. I hit the top of my head so hard it made me throw up. I barely remember driving home. Shaun reports that I was a little silly when I got home. I cannot recall much of what happened after hitting my head. I assumed it was exhaustion from reaching the end of a twelve-hour day.

Shaun examined my scalp in the shower and saw redness and abrasions. Later, we noticed lines of blood and bruise across the top of my skull. I still feel a little woozy. It'll get better, though. That's the nature of life. The sky crashes onto our heads to remind us to reach for the stars. I'm reaching, but I'm questioning what I am reaching for. There is a reckoning in store.

miss lumpy head

Today work was rotten. I'm not sure why it was so awful, just that I had too much to do, and no one to assist me. This feeling of being alone with my sword held aloft is wearing me out. Because I am prone to taking on the majority of tasks and known as being the person with the answers, I don't know how to step back and let it all go. I'm secretly afraid it'll fall apart. It has before.

My soul needs care. I keep thinking about how giraffes are all heart. They dwell amongst the jackals, who have no wish but to devour still-beating hearts. The choice is clear. The other day, I read about how adult giraffes cannot stand up during their adult lives. If they do, they will die. Their long necks don't allow them to rise again. Their long necks demand a heart strong enough to lift blood against the will of gravity. My body demands a heart wild and wide enough to love when I've been injured, to love with naked eyes and giraffe will, to love and possess no regrets, to love and release all the things that hide beneath my sun-browned skin and Cleopatra-lined eyes. Tonight, I am the song that sorrow wrote.

A bad day can break your heart a little when you're more giraffe than jackal.

jewelaffe

My limbs and biorhythms are not adjusted to this Philadelphia fall. I'm still running on island time, just a little. Although I've visited islands in the past, I've never gotten as lazy as I was in Aruba, a good kind of lazy for my workaholic, overachiever, firestorm-maker self. For the first time in almost a year, I shut my cellphone (a birthday Blackberry, natch) off, and did the same to my mind, and just let the sun and saltwater take me. I had been a trapped thing before the trip, working sixty hours a week, most days with no break, always called in or needed for some crisis. I had forgotten the power of no.

One of my most beloved inspirations, the playwright Tennessee Williams once wrote, "A prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages" for Stairs to the Roof. Also, he penned the words, "Kill all my demons and my angels might die, too." O, yes. Being such a slippery, love-cat thing has been the biggest reward of my life and also, my greatest weakness. What is a person's strength is often a weakness, the sister side of that coin.

Before I went to Aruba, I was really feeling an affinity for the caged ones. Being in Philadelphia is the first time in a very, very long time that I haven't had a way to get in touch with the natural world. I can be devoured by the city-noises and growling buses, just as much as I become enraptured by the shiny treasures in store windows or riding public transportation whenever I need it. I was missing wide open skies and infinite, starry nights, hiking into the mountains whenever I wished (that is to say, often), and winding deep into hollowed-out riverbeds to find animal bones for jewelry or sleeping among the tangles of exposed cottonwood roots.

So Aruba was a getaway, a real time to lick wounds and heal. It was also drinking fruity adult beverages on the beach at nine in the morning, snorkeling in famous shipwrecks, playing tag with the iguanas that were everywhere there, driving ATVs all over the beach, floating in the ocean and getting brown, buying duty-free treats for the sheer pleasure of having something new, and listening to calypso and Brasilian dance music because it's just everywhere in the Caribbean and it suits the drowsy, wet climate. I'd like to say that I didn't need a tourist kind of vacation, but I did. I needed the sun and sand and sea, the brilliant fish that darted around me in the water, and the pelicans that swam inches from me after diving in a phalanx for their meals. My parents were peaches, giving me the trip as a birthday present/holiday celebration, and I had a great time with them. My father even brought his own wetsuit and joined us in snorkeling near the Antilles shipwreck.

Aruba is a Dutch colony (I use the term colony only when referring to previously uninhabited areas, not those already inhabited), so the island is a mixture of Dutch, Caribbean, and Latin-American culture. It's very close to Venezuela. My parents and I almost made a jaunt there, but the Venezuelan political climate is rather harsh lately, so we decided not to go. I spent almost every morning at a quaint little Dutch pancake house, drinking dark rum and eating my crepe of the day. The afternoons, I filled with snorkeling, beach-combing, SNUBA diving, or lying on the beach with a good book. The evenings were for racing around, eating the Belgian chocolate that appeared in little stands here and there, dancing, hot-tubbing, and eating sumptuous feasts. Most of the locals spoke Dutch to me automatically, assuming I was also Dutch. That was kind of fun. Usually, in the States, I get asked where I am from; most Americans assume that I am not quite American (the guesses are hilarious) and foreigners think I'm Swedish or sometimes a New Zealander, every once in a while, a Brit. It's because my accent is from the many places I've lived. It's a little off. Being mistaken for a local was a delight to me. I wished that I'd known Dutch, too!

The trip laid many beautiful gifts into my lap, but one of the best was that I really didn't think of work or anything troubling the entire time I was there. I was able to refuel myself, and thoroughly examine my habits. What happened when I returned is that I rededicated myself to my healthy eating plan and going to the gym. I've been running, too! I am not in a place where I love running during it, but I feel so good afterwards that I love it then. I've been reaching out to friends, cutting down my hours at work, and reading up a storm. My writing muscles feel a little atrophied, but I know I just have to love them back into existence. I'm feeling clear-headed and focused. I know what I want. Although I don't quite know how to get there, I am in motion. Motion is my promise not to compromise the qualities I best love in myself.

And now, the sky is a mess of tears, but I am smiling. This Philadelphia isn't what I thought it would be, but nothing ever is: life's brilliant mystery. I walk past twisted metal gardens and concrete jungles; I am a desert flower with kissing-bruised lips and the hair of a Valkyrie. I am Bohemian and gangster, hipster and dirty angel with a flashlight halo over her head. I am, I am, I am. I am thrift store bargains and couture, museum quality heirlooms and ethnic treasures clicking on my wrists, my ears, my fingertips. I walk like a painting come to life, and stumble a little, too.

I keep walking, head high, fighting with my tongue of silk and honey, and sleeping with my arms of bliss and forever. Life is on its way to good. I am loved and I am loving. I am in love with life because I am life. Everyone needs a vacation from time to time, and I needed this one most of all. I am glad to be back and stoking these embers that will soon turn into a blaze. Everything good starts with fire, and I've always been the wicked pyromaniac, every bit as much as I've been sinner and saint, blessed and cursed.

Lady in the Sky

A year ago, I was carpe diem in dirty jeans, clay-flecked hair, and hardened hands that knew the weight of instruments, lovers, and steel. Now, I am shoes that click and call out army formations, a secret sleeping addiction, and eyes like clouds moving on. I’m always looking to the sky for guidance, hoping that the winds will be kind and show me the places where I belong. The sky here isn’t the vast desert sky that snatches you in raptor claws and sends you to sleep with its pretty violence. This is a sky in submission, a sky whose muscles have atrophied from disuse; it’s still hard for the Philadelphia sky to give up the ghost. Philadelphia people for the most part don’t dare to try; they are comfortable with complacency and mediocrity. O, how I worship you Philadelphians who risk it all. You’re rare and wonderful creatures. You don't step on other people to get what you need.

I am an earthquake of tears and too-sharp teeth, too close and too far. I am gravity and laughing at all the wrong moments, being too loud, and too much, too much, too much. Having my birthday this week was a combination of extremes. You see what you mean to people when you have a birthday. For me, a birthday was always a means to celebrate my mom and dad for bringing me into this beautiful, strange world. I send them a gift every year, as a way of saying that I appreciate this path we’ve traveled. It’s been a long and sometimes difficult one. If you’d told my fifteen-year-old self that I’d miss my parents so much that I’d sometimes cry, I’d have stroked my Mohawk, spit some sass, and told you my parents were dead. We’ve come a long way, and it’s good to know we’ve birthdays to celebrate and ways to celebrate each other.

Isn’t that what a birthday is about? My friends and coworkers have prolonged my birthday, and I LOVE IT, being that I never used to tell anyone when my birthday was because I was scared of being forgotten. Monday night, Shaun took me to a little Southern eatery that made me nostalgic for the swamp moss, street corner voodoo, car-window zydeco, and jaded wonder of New Orleans. We had biscuits with Cajun butter, salty margaritas, grilled scallops with orzo, and met another of the great dogs that always seems to be in my neighbourhood. Slowing down for a breath was what I needed, and that’s what I got. I received a lovely back massage and was sent to bed with a kiss on the nape of the neck.

Tuesday night, Ria and James took me to the most decadent seafood house. I put on the shortest, sleeveless Anna Sui frock in my closet, painted my eyes with pearly powder, and tried to look an Audrey Hepburn type of lady with a patent leather purse and long black gloves. When I entered the restaurant, Ria and James were posing like statues in the doorway. I love them. The restaurant made me a birthday card that the staff signed and even printed a special birthday menu. These little things made a girl feel very appreciated, and I almost wept a little. I’m not the hard-skull, fight-fister that I used to be, and it’s nice to be so soft and strong and bare.

We sat cuddled up in a booth together, drinking strong drinks in long-stemmed glasses, and talking and laughing until deep into the night. Our waiter was the most laid-back but efficient guy. There’s something charming about a man with a Brooklyn accent perfectly pronouncing different reductions and exotic dishes. He leaned into us, gave me three desserts, and broke down the menu so we’d know what the best things to eat would be. No one sang anything embarrassing to me. The conversation was my favourite part of the meal. Well, that and Ria and James’ awesome humour and how lovely they are. Being friends with those two are some of the best things that have come from my time with Aveda.

Then, I came into my office yesterday, and my work girls, lead by Kim had totally cleaned and revolutionised my office. They Feng Shui’ed the hell out of the joint. Now, I have a little betta fighting fish in a bowl, bamboo plant, Buddha picture (I am a Buddhist, and not vocal about it, so this surprised and touched me the most), and very clean desk. I couldn’t have been more surprised or pleased. Although I was alone when I walked into the office, I kept exclaiming, “O my gosh! O my gosh!” Then, I had to call all my pals and tell them how great my little team was.

Later, my logan sent me a poem fragment and apparently sang happy birthday to someone else in Spanish. He said that I was with him on desert highways, watching Phoenix creep into the wild places, with him in empty arroyos that wait for a monsoon to make them real. He said, “Jewel, amiga, I hug you close and long this night of your birthday, smiling with you,” and I cried again, a little bit. I miss my soul-mate friend.

My parents sent me a Jasper bracelet from Alaska, money, a Buddha statue made by a Tibetan monk for me, and a hand-painted container that my mom made in her China painting guild. They called from so very far away to let me know that yes, wild girl, we love you. Yes, our wild girl, the distance does not separate. “You’re stubborn as a horse, but you hold true to what you are,” my cute little dad told me. “No one who knows you will forget you. We never will.” A woman in my store made my life by telling me I had amazing skin and that I glowed; she said that she could tell I was special by the light and fire in my eyes. What a birthday treat.

Then, my Boys took me to Quizzo. Quizzo, as some of you true believers may recall, is a weekly date we have to exercise our brains while killing brain cells. At this point, all of the other teams almost hate us, because we always win first or second place. We got booed last night for having a five point lead on all the other teams in the first round, but we didn’t care. We ate Frito pie, crispy salads, and drank like we were pirates (which we so are). We bar-hopped, and made a lot of noise, complained, and laughed. All in all, it was a great night.

My Boys always make me feel good about myself because they’re complimentary and affectionate with me; they tell me that when I walk into a bar, heads turn, and although I don’t believe them, it makes me feel good anyway. I give them advice on girls and law school, life and living hard. They sometimes wistfully ask if I have sisters. I really am their nefarious queen.

Tomorrow, I am being purchased a Blackberry or something else of that nature so that I can communicate more effectively. Hello, texting! I’ve never really done it. I’ve never had a Blackberry, so I am a bit skeptical, but very excited. The evening will spell dancing with James and Ria, a little happy mayhem, and perhaps meeting up with the Quizzo Boys for more flirting and mischief. My birthday might even stretch into Saturday if we make it happen. Damnit, after years of not celebrating my birthday, I want to make it happen. What I said earlier about being able to tell what you mean to people by how they treat your birthday holds true. I was amazed at how many unexpected people remembered it, and then, the people who forgot it or didn’t acknowledge it.

I think of a Buddhist chant in how I view birthdays: Om padme hum or, “The divine in me worships the divine in you.” That is how I always want to live. So happy birthday to me, but happy birthday to you all, too. I am lucky to be alive because of each and every person I know. You were the light bulb giving me light when my world was dark for years. You are the sunlight breaking through this Philadelphia now. Know that I love everyone and I am holding you in strong, fierce arms, loving you over the distance and miles that do not divide but just remind us of how much people need each other.

talullah jewel

I really, really miss my friend, soul-mate compadre, poet bulllshit-talker, Latino in gringo skin, logan phillips. Of my Arizona friends, he is one of the most missed. Well, he and growling-voiced Dan Seaman, are like the dream-team that circle my head nights when the moon hangs low and dips her fingertips into the dirty rivers of Philadelphia. In Arizona, I drove like a hellion, all limits tied up and gagged in the backseat. Somehow in coming to this Philadelphia, I became a tamer, paler version of myself. I started learning which colours matched, combing my hair, and punching a time clock. I stopped howling at the moon and risking it all. I became a resident of a nation that didn’t know me. I forgot about my Molotov cocktail kiss-breath attacks.

No longer.

I want it all and more. My heart is a leaping fish that wants to be caught and released, and I feel so fucking thankful for every moment, even the painful ones that propel me towards the Future. I keep thinking of how logan would call me “director, co-conspirator, dare-maker, shit-caller, fire-thunder-tongue,” and it makes me think of my friend and how we always dared each other to go further, harder, faster with our art and lives, how we had one of the most flirtatious friendships that never crossed any improper boundaries, and of all the letters and times he said, “I miss you. Steal me.”

There was one letter, long ago, that bred stories. I answered one of his “I miss you. Steal me” messages by saying,

“I steal many people from their messy beds and lives. If I stay too long, I risk being forgotten, so I become like the wind or an Acapulco cliff diver, constantly going higher or deeper because precious extremes are my birthright. I shatter plates and flash the Piegan dialect in moments of fight-or-flight. I know how to break a beer bottle and use it as a weapon, how to make grown men and women leave their spouses, how to pray without lowering my head in a Mexican cathedral, yet, yet, yet . . . I do not use these poisons and powers. I cannot. I will not. I do not.

“You speak of stealing. Well, I want to be stolen, too. My heart is twenty-seven words for rain and tears, and I’m changing all the time. Bribe me with words, then. Sweeten the pot. Play a little word-poker with me. We've both been holding too many cards and laying too few on the table. I should warn you that I cheat at all games, but that you'll like playing with me anyway. If you admit to cheating at cards, I'll respect you more, even though I'll out-cheat you.

“Send messages in cobalt glass bottles. I might not make it through this week alive. Everything's gone wild, and I might not like it right now, but I'll learn to love the back-arching machete wilderness that waits later.”

What I got back was a story about myself, hitchhiking to logan’s then-city, Flagstaff. It’s still one of the clearest and coolest representations of me. I’m always writing other people through the window of my world, but seldom get written. Today, I am missing my friend, remembering, and finding the jewelynx from his story is the one living in my skin.

STEAL ME, WORLD. I am ripe.

girl with monsoon hair
for jewel blackfeather (jewelynx) by logan phillips (loganwolf)

One hour, seven minutes.
The lynx tries all morning to hitchhike up I-17 to Flagstaff but no one moving movement seems to understand. The lynx smiles while trying to hold lips over incisors, turning in such a way so tattoos don't show too much. It would be easier if the lynx were bunny, but less interesting.

22 minutes.
A shotgun semi stops, quite confident in his faith of trigger. His hands dance in shakes. He has driven from El Paso today, takes a chance on lynx. Both meet, unsure of the other's intentions. Both meat, both highway predators. Lynx: one jump from roadside to jumpseat. Gears shift; black smoke lifts in grunt. His dirty hands are stick-shift lovers. Small talk. Where from? Where going? Not asking why. Uphill. Truck heading to Verde Valley Casino. Uphill before down. Trucks keep right. She should have asked why.

20 minutes.
His jitters are more than sleeplessness. Crystal ammonia haze, truck stop donut glaze, dirty quarters, video juke box, condom dispensers in restrooms, knockoff cologne behind ears with hitchhiker hopes, Texas dirt under index nail, New Mexico BO, Phoenix phix, crystal broken light bulb haze, gas station lighters romancing chemicals, the burning drip running down back of throat. His eyes swim in cave of skull and stop for lynx.

15 minutes.
The lynx moves for more than restlessness. Voodoo green Mexican machete cut through haze of day-to-day, she lives on absinthe of daydreams. She's innocence and incisors, guilt and smile, foxfire eyes on Flagstaff, picked up by semi-truck.

7 minutes.
August noon. Thunderheads tunneling into blue. The hours are about to break open.

2 minutes.
His tongue misspelled green. He speaks mostly in vowels over engine brake. The long downhill into the Verde Valley. Everyone driving too fast, overestimating themselves and everything else. Steep sides. Dark skies. Lynx is worried about his swerves, mad at his loose innuendo, pickup line. Poison pickup mainlining macho. Dumb. Lynx, machete word master, doesn't take it, cuts him down to a scared, stoned little boy. His calloused soul reacts with calloused right hand, grabbing lynx’s knee. Her incisors open, a quick reaction to his throat, curses shouting, engine brake blaring breaking open clouds, cab chaos: a dance of only one ending.

13 seconds.
Grill of truck explodes through cement side of freeway. Wheel one through eighteen looses grip on ground, one after other. Who knew it would be like this? Lynx and trucker, now allies about to fight ground.

Zero.
Back of the truck hits ground first, ripping open like tinfoil. The entire two ton cargo of playing cards flies up into air, not bound by boxes, caught by monsoon wind, the sky thick with spades, gigantic gotas. Rain begins to fall as diamonds fly, clubs in dark twirl. Lynx: ejected through windshield, lifted by a half-ton of hearts, away from crumpled toy truck higher, her eyes gently shut, hair flying, lips barely open higher, raindrops finding her throat higher, cards all around her in flight.

Depues.
Her eyes open to sky, her spine on endless bed of playing cards, all lined up in royal flushes and straights. Her lips rise with the momentum of a slow deep breath, and there is not one place she would rather be.

Ante up.

My mother was never particularly curvaceous (read: no chest), which I inherited from her. As a foolish youngster, lungs full of heartbreak and eyes framed by need, I even considered getting breast implants. I associated big breasts with some sort of ephemeral happiness. Perhaps if people admired me so completely and worshipped my body, I would never have reason to hate myself again. Luckily for me, I never had the money to follow through on that desire.

My mid-twenties brought the arrival of hips and tits, of the first time in my life that I'd been considered younger rather than older than I was. At first, having breasts was cool--not magical and amazing like riding a unicorn and saving the world, but cool. Cinching my waist with corset-style belts suddenly gave me a wasp-waist instead of the usual flat torso. I could shop for bras larger than an A Cup. Then, I noticed the staring. Men no longer looked me in the eyes in conversation. Some were even rude enough to make blatant comments about my breasts, like they were my children or pets. "Great, long as we're talking about body parts," I thought, "let me talk about the weird hair sprouting from your ears or the ghastly wart on your hand." It didn't matter what type of clothing I wore. Men gaped at my chest--not all men, but the types of men that live on the Planet Douchebag.

I started retreating into myself, hunching over and wearing clothing that wouldn't call attention to my breasts. That didn't last long because I've never been the type of person to hide herself away for long. My breasts are my breasts: life-givers, pleasure-takers, bothersome at the gym, sore at certain times of the month, magnificent after a shower, a part of me for over half my life, the nourishment of future kings and queens. Carrying these breasts causes my back and shoulders to ache. If I purchase the wrong bra, I risk having straps that cut into my flesh or an underwire that pushes me the wrong way and traps sweat. Certain shirts have to be tailored because while my breasts are larger, my waist not the waist of someone with my type of breasts (hellooooo, TMI).

When I see pictures of breasts, sometimes the old worry comes 'round to visit and I wonder if mine are normal or if they are ugly. Are my nipples too big, too small, my breasts too large, not large enough? What I am sharing isn't so strange. Almost every one of my female friends worries about her body--more specifically her breasts. Part of it is how much focus is paid to this one body part. I cannot think of a comparable body part on a male (as far as the attention, images, and focus goes). While I love being a girl, I don't understand what all the fuss is about.

Today, I was happily trip-trapping around in my chunky-heeled not-so-painful shoes, thinking that if I were one of the Billy Goats Gruff, I'd be kicking trolls off bridges and making the neighbourhood safe from sidewalk-poopers. There was something about scuffing my shoes around and making noise--a simple, yet sweet pleasure--that reminded me of being a kid and breaking in new Sunday school shoes. I wouldn't have even noticed the man if he hadn't blocked my path. "You could put someone's eyes out with those suckers," he said, peering at my modest square-neck shirt as if he were wishing for X-ray specs.

"Gee, Mister, I sure wish I could right now," I sweetly replied, looking into his eyes, "put someone's eyes out with these . . . suckers."

I walked away, resisting the urge to yank him by the ear to the nearest granny so she could give him a tongue-lashing. I swear, it's not the first time my breasts have been referred to as if they are unseemly, inanimate objects. Suckers indeed, motherfucker. Sometimes, I wish that women (myself included) made a bigger deal of it when nasty guys did these things, that way no one would want to have a public example made of him. Please understand that I don't think all men do these things; being nasty is not gender-specific. This is just one particular problem I'm having with men lately is all.

It's only castles burning, Neil Young would say.

bad kung fu action zulu

This post could also be called "You haven't spoken to me for years, if ever, so you know nothing of me and never gave a damn about anything but judging me, which is why I stopped communicating with you before."

Here's a capital idea for the little naysayers and stalkers that like to update themselves on my life and never even bother to speak to me: GO FUCK YOURSELF. Where were you advice-givers when I went through complete and utter physical and emotional hell last year? I could have used your avenging fists of judgment or at the very least my own Greek chorus. How about lending me some of your spare time?

Really, you're not needed or wanted here and haven't ever been. Making this post is giving you a little more attention than you're worth, but a girl can only receive hate-mail, snide comments, and anonymous posts (or made-up account names with the purpose to antagonise) for so long before she finds it all ridiculous and immature and beneath her. So in the spirit of playfully gnashing teeth and laughing off idiots, here's a list of other things that can fuck off (in no particular order):

- My work shoes, whichever ones I'm wearing. I was made to be barefooted and in grass.
- My bikini line for not growing in perfect formation, thus making me waste money and time on grooming it. What is up with this, Body? My bikini line is not singing you electric.
- The person who took a dump on the sidewalk the other day, leaving it for all to see.
- Construction on the highway. The roads here are far too small to be this bad.
- Traffic jams and other waiting chaos-games.
- Time, my eternal nemesis. My mother and I both share the belief that one life is not long enough for all we want to do. When Shaun finishes law school, I am considering returning to academia. Anthropologist/sexy photographer/writer/herder of wayward Bohemians seems to be the vocation of choice.
- My ovaries trying to kick me all Karate Kid Cobra style, except no one is leading me to triumph by singing, "You're the best around! Nothing's ever gonna keep you down!"
- Not knowing how to properly apply make-up to myself still. I'm getting good at doing it to others, but not yet me. I mean, I'm great with lipgloss, but how hard is it to be good at lipgloss when you have big lips? The MAC store is a nightmare of catty queens and the lipgloss and eyeliner equivalent of jazz hands.
- My insatiable craving for chocolate lately. Damn it to hell! I feel like I'm losing my original focus and determination with eating mindfully.

The things that should not fuck off are:

- Shaun bringing me Coke slushies on hot days.
- A new gym.
- Used books from a little local bookstore.
- Farmers markets.
- My true family and friends. Just 'cause you're related to some people doesn't mean they are really yours or that they ever really gave a damn about you. I have tons of family that isn't related to me by blood.
- Dancing, dancing, dancing, weightless and free as sea-flowers.
- Freckles on the nose.
- Puppies and hell, ponies, too.
- Days when I don't have to wear my work-shoes.
- Looking around my house at the pieces of art that my friends or I have made.
- Great conversations with folks who have opposing viewpoints and how much I learn.
- Nonfat organic vanilla yogurt, fresh blueberries, homemade granola for breakfast.
- Hearing city-sounds from an open window.
- All the lessons I am learning.

That'll do, pig, that'll do. Now, I'm going to get ready to go out on the town, bad hair, New Wave eyeliner optional. Tonight might be the debut of these Coach 'forties style platforms that've been lurking in the back of my closet for a while.

Jewel

P.S. Shaun and I had a very earnest conversation the other night about what we'd wish for if we had a magic lamp--material items, not the ephemeral or non-material ones like world peace and endless wishes. The conversation started because of the ridiculously gay and silly Planet Unicorn. The little gay boy in that story wished for a flying car, a fur coat, and a planet full of unicorns. I would wish for my own pack of puppies, a beautiful Tuscan villa for all my artists friends and I to create in, and the job title of Best Damn Anthropologist in the Free World. What would you wish for?

Faced with a rare day off, I almost don't know what to do with myself. Is this my father's famous work ethic straightening my spine? Am I his daughter more than I realise? To think of it, I've never really worked with anything less than strong ethic. When I have nothing to do, I concoct projects to do. Sitting still is not something that I well abide by. I've worked all manner of jobs--from serving as a liaison to State Representatives in Chicago to dressing up as a hot dog and walking down Michigan Avenue (the worst job I ever had; when I quit, I got drunk on Navy Pier, returned to work sauced, and quit, while still wearing the hog dog suit)--and I've always toiled with as much heart as my soul contained. Knowing that I'd endeavoured through the day's tasks with integrity gave me a sense of accomplishment when I returned home. Sometimes, that's all I had.

Currently, I am not doing what I consider my life's work, however, I am working hard and being strong. Even on the worst days, I don't feel sorry for myself; the tears or frustration might flow, but I allow it to take its course, understanding that the future is a place I am gingerly stepping towards. I know that by the end of the year, I'll have my student loans and verily, most of my bills paid off; that I can afford to send packages to my loved ones; if I have a medical mishap, I have great insurance; my cupboards are filled with nutritious food; and I have someone wonderful that supports me on every step of this journey. Those are huge changes from where I was last year at this time. Often, I'm so thoroughly ensnared in the fight-or-flight aspect of life that I forget that I've made huge leaps and bounds of progress.

I know that I make a difference in the lives of people daily, whether it's defending a co-worker from harassment or taking a time to talk and listen to the little old ladies that no one else seems to have time for these days. Each time I encounter someone, I make it a point to look him or her directly in the eye and smile or express thanks when it's appropriate. Conducting myself this way feels right; I know it to be right. And sure, there are moments when I am frustrated and wishing that I was in a little Tuscan villa with my artist friends creating glorious messes or back in Arizona, spitting poems and whiskey at the moon with the best living writers I've ever known, but like with the rest, I let it flow through me and allow myself to feel it and wait for the next day to come anew and offer new lessons. Throughout the course of my life, I've always examined life for its lessons. I'm being taught tremendous ones now, and I am grateful that I have matured enough to accept and understand these lessons.

A lesson with some of the most longevity has been: simple pleasures. Some of mine lately are: fresh cherries, almonds with thyme and rosemary, my earnest windowsill garden, returning home to kisses and murmurs of deep love, conversations with my parents, my Moroccan moccasins, knotted scarves made of antique sari fabric, vintage cinema, polishing my jewelry on my day off, sending salves and poultices to those who need them, reading bell hooks and Michael Ondaatje during lunch at work, the songbirds nestling in the tree outside, going to Trader Joe's almost to excess, and meeting Shaun or Melinda for drinks and noshing after work every once in a while.

Another one is not so much a simple pleasure, but something that made me feel good the other day. My mother attended my cousin's wedding. While there, she encountered my aunt's mother-in-law, a rather tart-tongued and judgmental woman. The woman asked what I was doing and my age. When my mother told her, she said, "She'll never get married" with an air of resignation. My mother shot back, "My daughter has done things most people dream of doing. She is a strong, amazing woman, and she is my inspiration. She'll do just fine, whether she gets married or not." Saturday, my mother related the story to me on the phone, and added that she was glad I'd turned out the way that I had. It's common for kids to think of their parents as inspirations. It never occurred to me that I could be an inspiration to my parents until my mother told me that I was one of hers. Besides, who cares if I am married or not? Better to know myself and be financially stable and educated than to marry to0 young because I subscribe to the belief that one must be married to be useful in this society.

Off with me now. I am going to finish polishing my turquoise and silver collection (which is almost as extensive as a museum's, no kidding; some of y'all have witnessed it) and cute-ify myself for an opening at the Museum of African-American art. The exhibit has to do with Black influence in Mexican culture, and puppies, you know I am all over that. I live for Mexican art and culture.

Jewelynx

P.S. I am thinking of quitting one of my jobs. It's very hard for me to get there (it's in the opposite direction as my main job); the pay is not as much as I should be paid; and I get put through the wringer when I am there. I've never quit a job like this, so I am uncertain of how to proceed. Obviously, I'd get another job that's close to my main job because it's been nice having a job to supplement my income and keep me in the right direction. Comments?

P.P.S. A lot of people have made callous (and downright cruel) comments about Vietnam/other war lately and it's made me wonder why folks are so flippant about something that ruined generations of lives and sent many young men, like my father, into a situation that was never anything less than treacherous. My dad became highly decorated in Vietnam, and he's only ever talked about it twice. He spent most of his life (and mine for that matter) trying to get over Vietnam. He went there because his government told him to. He'd been raised in a generation that did what the government said. He joined the Army to get an education and be patriotic. He was thrown to the wolves and continues to be disrespected by those who think Vietnam is funny shit. He is a good man and has struggled for years to get over everything he saw in Vietnam. I will ALWAYS back the military, even if I don't always believe that military action is the right course of plan. Those of you who throw your Freedom of Speech around and insult military folks and their families have some of your freedoms because of said military folks. Anyone who thinks Vietnam or any other war for that matter is funny can kiss my tan ass. The point of this P.P.S. was to initiate some conversation. What do you people think of Vietnam, really? What about war? What do you think that military presence accomplishes?

I am now the owner of possibly the worst haircut I've ever had in my lifetime, including when I shaved my head and even further into the annals of my history, when I cut my own hair with safety scissors at the tender age of five. The hairdresser royally screwed me up and charged me way too much to make me look this bad. Some would think my new pixieish locks are hipster, the kind of hair that you'd wake up and run a hand through and be able to seize the day or leap closed convenience stores in a single bound. This hair takes far more work than my old rumpled strands ever did. I'm discovering how difficult it is not to have my hair to hide behind, and more, how little I like my hair. Even when I thought I hated it before, I could still work with it. This hair is too short to work. Perhaps this is a belated mourning for the desert spring I missed. Maybe the locks are symbolically sheared because of that. Maybe. Every time I hear of someone visiting the Southwest, I feel a territorial dog's jealousy, a jealousy that says that I've finally discovered my home. And now, I am away from my home, in a place where I have truly awful hair.

I cried over it when it happened and cringe when I see it now. This hair is not me. It's just hair and it grows back, but this hair is not a manifestation of my inner being.

* * *

I can't believe I've even seen it. It's scary how we wrap ourselves in familiarity and ignore our surroundings when we're sure of ourselves. For instance, today, I went into a Barnes and Noble bathroom, intent on relieving my demanding bladder. If I'd been walking near a trash-strewn alleyway or on the wrong side of the tracks, I would have expected it; but this was Barnes and Noble. I was jarred by the sight of the drugged-out woman with her homemade ink-pen tattoos and gnarls of over-dyed and damaged hair, her shaking hands barely upping water as she leaned over the sink. She'd drawn blue eyeshadow and black liner wings around her eyes so that it took me a moment to see that her haunted owl's stare was really her make-up. She stared at me with her eyes shut.

Then, she passed out, water still running, still standing up. Her pants gaped the freckled, half-moon stare of her ass. I knew she was alone when I saw her. When she passed out, I really knew it. It was hard to know what to do. The mother with the baby in a stroller, Coach purse and a latte in one hand gave an angry letter-to-the-editor housewife's scowl. I wanted to take care of the lady, but she scared me. Seeing her so broken down was like staring at the lions and tigers in circus cages or the brown bears in giant leather collars who box, teeth and claws removed. There is sill danger in trying to help those beasts. They're broken enough to still be feral.

I exited and two girls said, "Did you see that chick in the bathroom? Unbelievable."

"Yeah," I replied, "why do you think I look so freaked out?" I made a few other jokes about the woman. I immediately felt bad for joking about the Bathroom Woman, for trying to make new friends in this Philly at the expense of someone else. Mostly, I felt bad about not knowing how to handle the Bathroom Woman. (Discussing it with Shaun later, he was insightful. "It's not like you to make fun of people, baby," he said. "You don't even do it in jest. You were probably trying to relieve your tension and stress." He was right. I do that when I am overwhelmed.)

I went and found a manager. "There's a woman in the bathroom," I began. "I think something really bad is going to happen to her. She needs help." Everyone seemed to find the Bathroom Woman hilarious. Employees mimed the screw-turning "crazy" as the managers escorted the Bathroom Woman out. "You don't belong here, and don't come back," the store manager muttered. I trailed behind, needing to do something more than stand there and stare.

Once the Bathroom Woman was out front on the sidewalk, squinting at the rude sun, the conjecture began. She was a crackhead, a whore, a drunk, a rocker from the '70s who'd forgotten her era. All I could think was that she had once been someone's daughter, birthed from a woman's vagina or gently removed from the oven of the uterus--same as every person in the world. She was a sister to me in the way that every woman was, and I'd made a joke about her because I didn't know what to do. I wanted to say sorry to her or help, but I couldn't. I watched her wobble away and wondered where she'd been and where she was going.

Making friends is hard in Philadelphia. Finding people who aren't broken is even harder. It won't always be so.

* * *

I still felt sorry for myself about my hair later. I am a wicked, wild creature.

talullah jewel