Summer, 1997

One

I've walked to Greenlake, bringing this journal with me.
I'm sitting on a bench underneath a huge old cedar tree,
watching and listening and smelling everything around me,
my senses electrified and alive
this sparkling early-summer afternoon.
I look into the water from this close distance
and let myself merge with it.
I look up into the trees and merge with them, too.
This desire to lose my self-importance in the elements,
in non-human life.

My solitude lifts, yet it hovers around me
like an aura that never leaves.
I feel so close and yet so far from everyone.
With my eyes I follow the walkers and runners
around the lake.
Couples in love hold hands.
Women with children look troubled and unfree,
while the dogs (big and small)
have no other wish than to be right here.
The ducks stand in pairs on the grass,
looking intelligent as they watch the runners pass;
then, when there's a clearing,
they walk across the pathway to the water's edge.
The canoes float on the lake
looking nostalgic, dreamlike, like a painting.
The few clouds in the sky are alive,
animated by the tender breeze,
not threatening rain.

I take in everything again and again,
these words falling onto the white pages
like little drops of consciousness,
leaving their mark.

Writing is dreaming.
Writing is slowing down time.

Two

Today I was sitting in the park with a view of Portage Bay,
watching the boathouses and the shimmerings in the water.
Those shimmerings haunted me,
brought many memories to the surface.
Why do reflections in water bring back memories?
Today it was as if the water
became the fluidity of my thoughts,
and past & present met and became a boat—
my own memories a boathouse that I could live in.
I thought about windows, too—
how much old windows are like water to me.
I don't know what I like better:
peeking into windows
or looking out of them dreamily.
Life is a dream, so I dream awake.

The magic of windows and water.
As a child everything was magical to me.
I can still sink into the feeling of being in school
during the 1950s. It's 6th grade,
and I'm looking out those huge old classroom windows
that seem to be eyes into the heart of magic
on both sides of the glass.

So when I remember grammar school,
I remember those schoolroom windows.
The old glass moved in waves
when I moved my head,
and I saw the world outside
as if looking through water.
The sky became an ocean,
and the present became timeless.

My mind and heart meet and harmonize
when I look through windows,
when I look into water.
My mind and heart are in love,
and they celebrate a perpetual wedding.
My mind and heart say that my essence
is the child I was, the child I still am.
My mind and heart say that my journal
is the music playing at their never-ending wedding.