Lack of (New Year's) Resolution

So I'm leaving Portland again. Before I took off I wanted to write about coming home after 2 months of travel; of going down to SF and hanging in the gold and fog and quiet of Ukiah; of snow here in Oregon, of the sweet house Mike and I have made and what it means to me; of talking about God and sex and soul with Nathan in a foggy churchyard; sending words to far off Paul; of watching the dual reflections of the sun on the landing strip as we arrived in PDX, one going dark the other staying strong; of finding that Pauls and Peyton might lose one of their twins then finding out it was a mistake; of the heat in Tom's car, driving through the downtown rain; of cracking my head on a dance floor and getting stitches and taking them out myself, and thinking how the head got cheated- all thin skinned and exposed on a wobbly neck, while the heart gets all the affection and sits safely folded in the bloody dark. I really wanted to write about the death of Vic Chestnutt, and how for years his voice has placed all my little heartbreaks and discontents into his crotchety, sublime vision of life, of how the body and spirit, courage and cowardice in his words carried me through cancer diagnosis and made broke ol' me think that should treatments and options fail, I could, maybe, take my mortality into my own hands; of how "New Town" was the anthem that carried me to Portland... But what I will write about is the big wind that's spinning round the the house, picking up chimes and traffic and creaking trees and the voice of Vic on the Stereo as he sings memories of his momma's sewing machine. Tonight
this wind that seems so wide and hollow I imagine it whistling over all the sparkling houses in dark Portland. Tomorrow it will carry us up and of to NYC.

Home for the ....

(photo by Desi)



(photo by Desi)
(photo by Desi)



















(photo by Desi)


(Alice Cooper painting by Denise)

(donna's tattoo)



The house is full of sounds – cooking hisses and clangs, cell phones, gossip, groans of impatience, TV chatter, power tools grinding in the basement , babies crying or cooing… My sister and Desi have moved back in. Daneal visits with her gentle baby Abel. Chris twitches from room to room, throwing foul-mouthed jokes at my mother who pretends to be shocked. From upstairs Isaiah can be heard singing gospel songs… The house hasn’t been this crowded for as long as I can remember. Money and privacy are scarce – daily clashes inevitable. The sad fact is that the tension between everyone comes from the same qualities that make each one of them so special to me – my mom’s constant tending of her children; my father’s silence, so heavy with knowledge; my sister’s bitch queen strength and bar fighting habits; Daneal’s unending search for herself, Chris’s crazy-body physical comedy and sad, hard eyes; and of course, Desi’s ferocious awareness, anger, and the brilliant, dissatisfied wit she launches at all and everything in her path. They all carry their own conflicting weather pattern within them. On a minute to minute basis they come together, storm violently, come together again, storm again… The year has been free of the dramas that took place in the film, so petty ones have set in. They make me crazy but I love all the electricity they put in the air. As always they manage a good laugh at their own expense, give a sigh that shows their weariness with it all, and keep rolling on.