I was in Madrid, enjoying a fino sherry at the bar of the hotel Wellington, an establishment I have always liked. I was absorbed in searching out, at the edge of things, that golden light of a Madrid afternoon, which seems to leave everything suspended in midair, verifying once again that I was in the place that had been the frontier of Al-Andalus.

I want to be a word. I would be abstract with an inscrutable ending.

Saw a dead fox on the road this morning. Thought about the coming of winter. Heard a cover of ‘Hey Joe’ on the radio, then worried about money the rest of the drive.

Learning to live is a peculiar business. I wish I could say the answer was a piece of pizza, a book, an appetite suppressant, mood suppressant, memory suppressant. I wish I could say there was an answer. I don’t even think there was a question. How’s that for a suppressant? I feel obtuse to myself. Obfuscated. Obscured. I feel my hands and arms in front of my body and I wonder what it is they’re reaching to touch. The meanings slip out of hands, slick riches, condemned by Jesus and the Jukebox Company. The guide to learning to live is apocrypha; it’s the everyday, ramen noodle package instructions, too big to consider sacred or arcane, so we dig for roots and water, hoping to divine the divine. Did you know the word apocalypse is the Greek word for irony? Maybe it is.

i'm back baby. same number, same hood. it's all good.

desire

welcome to the club. i'm sorry there are a lot of them waiting and i'm not in the mood. ask again.

far away. it was supoused to be real some gangsta shit but we edned going to different houses selling lemonade and boys scout cookies.

Yesterday I was talking to myself and I told myself that I was going to write a book and publish it, so I put paper in my bag and put a pen in my bag and rode my bike to the river bank and then sat on the ground and thought 'I will never write a book' and watched ducks swim away from me.

Dear Keri,
Yes it is true. Check your inbox. Grand, I am still brushing moonlight off my cheeks after spending half the night on tiptoe, pasting fallen stars to the sky (it will lower itself, you know, even kiss the top of your head if you ask nicely).

Close your eyes. Breathe in the green of the grass you so long to lie your head against. Smooth the meadows and fill the streams with deep wells from your eyes. I don’t know if they are blue, but they would be a lovely azure. Halfway between blue and cyan. A textured, crumbling kind of blue. Call on the fauns and paint the stars of your sky. Make them twinkle in the wind like mobiles. Cut out your favourite feelings from the card backs you hold. The adventure you seek is just beyond your eyelids. Reach out and feel the soft skin of the sky touch you. Feel it shudder through your veins. Breathe the adventure slow and still.

The ache in my right ear does not intend to stay long. It is merely resting, having fled the heart of a girl three days ago. She is manageable again, but cautious. Refuses to love anything other than blackberry dumplings, photography, and Proust. Meanwhile, I make a pest of myself by asking birds to repeat themselves.

I look for beauty in kind strangers, in violent lightening storms, in people’s stories, in traveling. I look for beauty in awkward meetings, in the love letters I send all over the world, in knowing that despite distances you will still always have someone to come home to. I look for beauty in everything home-made, in corny jokes, in little gifts from friends, in good books. I look for beauty in road trips with strangers, in eating good food, in realizing that “this is one of the moments I hope I will always remember.” I look for beauty in aimless driving, conversation, noticing little things, new experiences, feeling passionate about something.

WTF? Ann? How do you know that? If you must know I have eliminated all salicylates (as my doctor suggested) and I am beginning to feel so much better. No more headaches, moodiness, or sinus pressure. Even better, I am sleeping through the night! Sucking on a lime (really)

I believe in homemade rosemary & peppermint soap, God, accurate diagnoses. I believe in lemonade, cartwheels on wet grass, rip currents that kidnap swimmers not out of malice but because they are lonely. I believe in poppies, cooking fudge at midnight while listening to Nina Simone. I believe in magic, long naps, the graceful way shadows tiptoe across wood floors. I believe in moonbeams tied around wrists, a book’s ability to choose its readers

Currently I am loved by someone whose arms never close. Even when I come home late, staggering like a doe that got drunk off fermented fruit, those arms open for me and squeeze until the desire to destroy myself seeps out.
Perhaps I am not suppose to disappear. Not now, anyway.

Writing. I keep tiny bottles of ink in the refrigerator for the words to drink while they wait their turn on the page. Forgive me, I am dreaming yet again.

Sleep. Or maybe silence. Air.

A lake clings to the walls, frightened of touching the floor. There is something on the floor, see, that licks the blue off lakes. A dirty window. Sheer white curtains that turn yellow in the right light. A writing desk made of oak. A matching chair. A record player that has threatened to stop working if I play anything by Leonard Cohen before July. A hardwood floor.

is the question