the complete unexpectedness
of chatting with an acquaintance i’ve been acquainted with for a good while now
(via potluck and mutual friends)
in the sun patches we slip through
on a northbound shuttle bus
only to find out that we both grew up in new berlin
(that place in wisconsin that is pronounced new BERlin, not new berLIN
which i usually just refer to as ‘just outside of milwaukee’ because no one else has ever heard of it in there life)
yes, the wonder, the remarkability of hearing someone else say that suburb’s name correctly
and the brilliance of pathcrossing with someone else who carries the landscape/streetmap of that place
under their skin
i mean, it’s one thing to say ‘i’m from outside milwaukee’ and hope that the person you’re talking to has at least passed through that city in order to understand a bit of the context, but even if they did, they probably didn’t encounter the milwaukee during the years that you knew best (1975-1994)
it’s another thing to hear someone call the suburb by name. in doing so, it’s like we all of a sudden know so much more about each other without having to say anything more.
_______
another conversation in sun patches about origin
this time we move through the sun instead of it through us
this time in the used-to=be-lively-1970s-student-center-turned-construction-zone (they cut down some huge trees here. eucalyptus, but still) while hands make brims against the light coming in
this time you say one of my frequently repeated thinkings, that thing about how we hold landscapes in our bones
and sometime before or after that, a glance overhead at the murder of crows silent streak across sky
_______
challenge: 30 minutes of laps
reward: 10 minutes in the whirlpool
_______
kindof hard to believe
i write in an email to be zapped off to milwaukee
that i was eating lunch in a sleeveless tshirt in the sunand swimming in a pool outdoors
after you all got the big snow dump last week
_______
and while each of us were doing all the things we were doing
these women
were holding on
for their own home landscape
(surgically removed from their bodies by the government)
knotted together while being forced to unravel
the choice to return to the landscape that knows them
not theirs
Indian policewomen try to break a human chain formed by exiled Tibetan women during a protest to mark the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against the Chinese. -bbc, day in photographs
Sat in the sun yesterday soaked it into my skin skin
as my mother always did
the sun will be my mom
on the beach on Lake Michigan
she drank it in like water
or the bloody mary’s she would sometimes make and take to the beach
in a thermos
she was the only mom who swam with us in the cold water
Can you see Milwaukie
it’s over the water not quite directly across slightly to the south
from where I grew up
in the sixties
we were often the only ones
on the beach
with our mom
we have lake michigan in common!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! thank you for this!