Jersey 4, or Snapshot: Utah

Finally, I get to do the update I've been wanting to write for weeks. Can you see why I waited for Misha to give me the pictures?

Misha almost made me nervous the first time I met him. His boundless, puppy-like energy gave him some crazy ideas, but boy, was he fun to be around. Misha's the first person to say "let's do it!" to anything exploratory - new music, artists collaborations, exploring Dumpsters and beaches and cities and food. He drives everywhere in a beat-up hatchback with a psychedelically painted ceiling and a built-in bed that he designed for long road trips.

Misha is part of the heart and soul of the Salt Lake arts scene, which emphasizes collaboration and community over competition and profit. His dream is to own houses collectively with other artists, and use those houses as living and performance spaces. He knows of a community in California that has done this successfully already, and he thinks it's only a matter of years before Salt Lake becomes the Place To Be for up-and-coming artists. Listening to him talk, I have to agree. If Misha ran for office, I'd vote for him.

On my third day in Salt Lake, he calls me up and asks if I want to go for a hike. Longtime friends will know that I hate hiking, but I don't want to be a total putz, so I ask him what kind of hike.

"Oh," he says, "It's really more of a rock climb up a waterfall I love in the mountains."

That changes the picture - I love rock climbing and waterfalls. We visit the Saturday farmer's market before heading out of town and pick up fresh foccacia, pesto, peaches and coffee-cured cheddar cheese that makes my eyes roll back in my head. This picture is me about 3/4 of the way up the falls. Once up there, we have a picnic and enjoy the view. I think: this is the kind of thing I had hoped would happen on this trip, something unpredictable and unexpected and spontaneous that I will remember for a long, long time.

Jersey 3, or A flier!

New Jersey 2, or Plan 2.0

Plan 2.0: move to Seattle at the end of December.

Why: Because if I move to Seattle by Nov.1 (in accordance with Plan 1.0), then I'll have to fly back east for Thanksgiving, individual world poetry slam, and Christmas, all of which take place within less than a month of each other.

Further parts of Plan 2.0 include possibly doing a southeast/midwest tour (Arkansas, New Orleans, Florida, Atlanta, and Ashville, looking at you!) between Thanksgiving and iwps.

Bugs currently detected in Plan 2.0 include missing the chance to meet amazing Ghandians in Seattle (who will be flying in from India mid-November and staying for a short while), not getting an early start in the Seattle slam season, and being in Jersey for the better part of three months.

Bonus features included with Plan 2.0 are a lack of rent-paying for said months, getting to play with the Bar 13 crowd, possibly finding interesting short-term work among my mom's massage therapy clients, and saving at least two airfares.

Also, easier to find jobs for Jan 1st than Nov 1st, in my experience.

Thoughts?

New Jersey 1, or Home again?

Just sayin I got in okay. Part of me wants to leave in three days, like a new sleeping schedule my body's adjusted to. It's an odd form of jet lag to know I'll be here for a couple months.

Atlanta 2, or Albanian Television

I got to watch Albanian tv via satellite last night. Jonida's in-laws don't speak English, so it's for them, but also for Ema, their two-year old, who is one of the prettiest children I've ever seen. They're raising her bilingual, too. I love hearing her toddler-talk with her grandmother in a language I've heard maybe twice in my life.

Also, Albanian television is radically different from American television in that the late-night programming was a roundtable discussion of the life and work of Jonida's favorite Albanian poet. Seriously? Wow.

Hopping on a plane for Jersey today, while hatching plans for November. I may or may not be postponing my move to Seattle until December. More on that later.

Anyway, those who've been following on through the whole trip - thank you for reading, and for all the notes I looked forward to getting. I'll keep blogging for awhile - so many stories still untold.

Atlanta 1, or Arrival Post

I'm here. I was swooped up by the lovely Gypsee Yo, and we're nestled comfortably in her office - a costume shop at Emory College. I love being in people's workspaces.

Florida 6, or Reasons the Ft. Lauderdale Airport Rocks

1) Free wireless.
2) Free wireless.
3) Free wireless.
4) Cleanliness.
5) Big windows.
6).................what more do you want? It's a bloody airport!

See you in Atlanta!

Boca 5, or Why I Call The Poets Mishpacha

Because in the last three months, I've seen appeals for a poet in a coma, a poet who's gone missing, and a poet who needs funding for a legal defense (arrested for peacefully protesting at the RNC). More information on both of those are available to anyone who asks, but here's the main thing: each time something gets reported, poets mobilize for each other. They blog, they donate, they throw fundraisers and offer resources without hesitation. Hell, there are poets out right now pounding the streets of Dallas's gayborhood looking for a poet that's been missing since Tuesday. Sometimes they hardly know the people in question.

And it's not always about people in bad or life-threatening situations. Take, for example the dozen poets who have literally helped me get across the country, fed me, and given me some of the most comfortable places to sleep any traveler could hope for. Many of them didn't know more about me than my first name.

When the poets took over Madison, WI, and roamed the streets all night, I felt safer walking back to the hotel from late bouts. I would instinctively head towards open spaces when I saw people coming in my direction, looking for the big cardboard tag that marked them "Poet." I come from the New York area; we don't say hi to people on the street. But poets, I greet them, every one, even at 3am on unfamiliar roads. And, in Detroit, when the city was too big to feel like we filled it, I never once had to wait more than a minute for someone who'd be willing to walk me back. How could you refuse a lone poet an escort when you'd been hearing testimonies of violence hailed from a microphone for the last four hours?

I hope one day I can give back to this community what it has managed to give me in less than a year. Poets, you are my mishpacha, and I'm honored to be one of your own.

Boca 4, or Secrets

There are things I've been forbidden to speak of, to write of, and I am generally awful at keeping such promises. I'm an artist, after all; it's my job to expose the unspoken commonalities among us. But once in awhile, I keep silent out of respect for those who aren't ready to have their secrets released to the greater, anonymous world.

But here is a cultural secret I've learned this week: my grandmama's given me several gifts these past few days, some right out of her closet. This one means a lot to me:


It's a Jewish star necklace that unfolds into a string of butterflies. The design was invented during the Spanish Inquisition, when anyone with a hint of Jewishness in their family was forced to hide it, or flee. She shows me where the royalty hides in my blood, reminds me of those who light candles in their basements without praying, without knowing. Those who would never think that a swarm of butterflies could come together so coherently.


I come from a place where I don't have to hide, where I can use this necklace as a teaching tool, showing children a relic from a time before our memories. I have justified my own magen David (jewish star) to my mother's parents, who don't believe in wearing one's religion on one's sleeve. I wonder if they would like this, Ashkenazim that they are.


And still, her words are with me, not this grandma, but my mother's mother, the one who remembers hiding the way some adults remember their childhood monsters under the bed when they can't sleep. As I walked out the door on my way to Europe for six months, the last thing she said before goodbye was this: "Dandoo, if you think there will be trouble - put that under your shirt, okay?"




I'll wear this gift over the holidays this year as a reminder of things hidden, things survived, things discovered. Like Emmanuel Ringleblum's milk cans buried in Warsaw for scholars to find, these stories have been waiting. Waiting for me to find the place where the butterfly wings meet to form a star.

Boca 3.5, Note to Sparrow

In case you didn't get my text this morning: it's going to be a day in bed with tea and chicken soup. I'm so sorry, love. I just feel totally miserable.

Boca 3, or A Note of Complaint

I'm sick. Nose running, throat sore-ing, body-aching sick. Yech.

Sparrow, I'll call you tomorrow morning to let you know if I'm coming. If I don't feel better than this, I'm spending the day in bed with tea. You'll thank me, I promise.

Boca 2, or Snapshots - catching up

[click]

In the snack car en route to California, a scraggly middle-aged man starts talking to me. He's working on what smells like his fourth or fifth little bottle of train wine, and I know this because his mouth is about two inches from my nose. He's talking about his ex-wife, a "crazy bitch" who "ruined him forever." I back up into a booth and sit down. He say something like "Aw sweetheart, you don't want to sit with me?"

I look up. "You don't get to call me sweetheart unless we're related or dating, got it? Now back off."

He starts to yell about crazy bitches again. I shoot a pleading look at a woman standing near us. Come on honey, help a sister out? She looks away, possibly searching for a staff person, I tell myself. I look the man in the eye and try to talk slow, certain, controlled. "Sir, you are in my space. I need you to back away at least three steps, right now."

Another voice interjects: "Honey, is this man bothering you?"

I look up, and up. The voice is coming from a person about six feet tall, with shoulders like a former football player, a fuzzy pink sweater, dangly beaded earrings, and fitted flare jeans. The voice is deep. I see the hint of stubble on her chin.

"Yes," I say, while the man looks up behind him.

"What are you, some kinda freak?!" he shouts at her. I'm on my feet in a flash - "Don't you dare -"

"Sir," she says, cutting me off with an I'll-handle-this look. "I am probably the only person on this train with both a pair of stillettos and a pair of genuine cojones, so take it from me: you don't want to be on the recieving end of one of my shoes. Now leave her alone."

He sputters, and a train staff person shows up, takes him by the elbow to lead him to parts unknown.

I stick out my hand. "Thank you - I'm sorry, he - oy. Thank you ma'am. I'm Dane."

"Charlotte," she says, shaking my hand like my dad taught me. Her hands are perfectly smooth, with the vaguest hint of lotion. She smiles a little bit. I try again,

"All of us gotta keep an eye out for one another, y'know?"

"Yeah," she says, with an eyeroll towards the woman who ignored me. "Be careful, ok?"

I want to stay and talk to her for as long as the train ride, but she slips past me, buys a hamburger, and makes her way up the stairs without another word.

[click]

I'm two hours early for the open mic and slam in Denver, so I ask the sweet (white) server with dreadlocks for a safe place to stash my duffel bag and some dinner. She obliges cheerfully, bringing me a plate of pasta the size of my head, asks where I'm coming from. "Hwarlakeity" I say, mouth full. It's the first meal I've had since my last dinner in Salt Lake City.

"Oh, cool. And where are you staying here?"

"I don't know yet. I'm planning to see what poets show up and if I know any that would let me crash for the night.

She nods like this happens all the time.

Two and a half hours, and one announcement on the open mic later, I'm still almost without a roof for the night - one poet, a stranger, offered her couch as a last resort. I'm pacing around outside the cafe, strategizing for the slam when I run almost headlong into Paulie.

Paulie runs the Jewish reading at the National Poetry Slam, so we've been in the same room for about four hours in the last year. He catches me in a hug, old leather, cigarettes, two-day beard and fruity body wash. "Do you know where you're staying?" he asks my shoulder.

"Not yet," I say.

"Sure you do - with us." "Us" is him and Ian, the hetero-life-partners extroadinaire. Their couch turns out to be squashy and big, the kitchen clean and free of dirty dishes, and the hundreds of vinyl records arranged thematically, or alphabetically, or somehow. I spend my days in Denver mostly alone, wandering, writing, reading, watching movies. The boys get home at 8:30 and 10:30, and I make dinner every night and ask about their day. By the second night, I've stopped feeling guilty about imposing on them. They tell me to come back anytime.

[click]

Grandmama and I sit on the white couch with our laps full of photo albums. This is the fifth one, chronologically: her childhood, her high school yearbook, her first wedding album (from getting married at 18!), the book of her first son's first year, then my father's first year. She tells the stories that go with them as though she's been repeating them over and over in her head until I ask.

We pause from the page-turning to talk about Grandpa, the first one, the one I never met. She says my father is just like him, that sometimes, he'll say a certain word or turn his head a certain way and it makes her pulse pause. She asks me if he ever talks about him, and I say only when I ask.

We're alike, Grandmama and I. We let the past keep our shoulders warm, pull stories around ourselves like the coat of many colors that nobody wants. We keep the dead on our lips, in our children's names, next to shopping lists and in poems. My father does not do this, except in what he can't help. He goes to the cemetary once a year, and brings my sister with him. I haven't asked him to take me. They are alike, she and him, needing the separation, the distinction. A time for everything.

Maybe he knows I can't go with him, that's not how I make memory sacred. But he knows what is important, or guessed well enough. The deep blue tallis bag with the goldenrod embroidery spelling out his father's initials appeared from the closet a week before my Bat Mitzvah. A place to hold that which I wrap around my shoulders.

Grandmama's husband peeks around the corner. I wonder if he feels left out of these hours we spend on the couch. I remember to thank him for his patience later, at dinner, Grandmama's and my in-jokes settling like the ghosts of extra guests at the table.

Boca 1, or Arrival Post

I made it to Florida with no mishaps, delays or hurricanes. Hurrah!

There is still some part of me that shouts "GRANDMA'S HOUSE!" on the inside every time I come here. And indeed, it feels and smells the same each time.

My dear Miami friend, whereabouts are you? Can I come visit you on Tuesday?

Denver 5, or Out Of Time

9/11 Tell Me A Story (c) 2006 S. Bear Bergman

Hey, listen - thanks, but we don't need another moment of silence. We do that more than well enough already. We bottle it up, we try to gut it out, we whisper the C word and we speak in hushed tones about the dead. We get overwhelmed by the sheer numbers, the sheer horror, and we let it silence us. We erase every disagreement, magnify every peak or valley, and we hold it close, very close. Too close.

Listen, for my money? Skip the moment of silence. Give me a moment of storytelling instead, or five minutes, or a whole day. Turn to your neighbor, wherever you are, and tell them what you remember about whoever you lost. Tell about Jeremy's habit of refilling his coffee mug all day, all week, without washing it, and how he insisted that the heat of the coffee killed any possible bacteria. Tell about how Nicky used to stand up on her bike pedals and blow kisses to the trafic when it was gridlock or nearly and she was pedaling home from work. How Aunt Petunia smelled like camphor and couldn't cook worth a shit, how Javier wouldn't leave the house without blessing it if his daughter was inside, how you were almost ready to bury the hatchet with Gillian about what she said last spring and you wish you had been ready a little sooner.

Tell all the stories. Fill the air with them, instead of bells. Say all the names nine times. Carry them forward with you, on your sleeve instead of in your pocket. They no longer need to be protected; in fact, they'll protect you if you let them. If you tell their stories.

My story: "Today Is Not My Day"

"Good Morning. Today is Tuesday, September 11, 2001. All freshmen are reminded to double-check their schedules with their guidance counselors before the end of this week. All sophomores, juniors, and seniors are reminded that class changes cannot be made after Friday, September 14. Please rise for the pledge..."

I stand with the rest of my class automatically, hand already positioned over tye-dyed tshirt breast. I recite my abbreviated version of the Plejulleejunce, copyright April freshman year, phrasing it in a mockery of the sing-song mumble of my classmates.

"I plejuleejunce (breathe) to the flag (breathe) of the United States of America (breathe). And to the republic, (breathe) for which it stands, (breathe) one nation (breathe), under the Christian god (breathe), very divided (breathe), with liberty and justice (breathe)."

I make a mockery of much in my high school - fourteen year olds in pink sweatpants with cellphones among them. Only a sophomore and already known for a number of personae, all of them antagonistic and self-righteous. The girl who stared down Mr. Lewis for calling a kid faggy. The frosh who calls the popular senior "Bangladesh" for wearing expensive, child-labor-made shoes. I wear big sweatshirts and jeans that don't quite fit.

I do have one redeeming social value - I try to go out of my way to be nice to the new kids - mostly Korean immigrants whose parents were moved here for business reasons, and will in all likelihood return in a year or two. I introduce myself to one of the new kids, Soo-jin, and promise to skip gym class with her to show her the building, and help her find the bathroom.

The first week of gym class is bureaucracy at its finest - gym teachers in swishy nylon pants, running around with their whistles clanging against their warm-up jackets, trying to sort an entire grade's worth of students into 20-person gym classes. The students, for the most part, hang out on the bleachers and make noise. Hardly anyone hears the PA system come on.

“Attention students. Quiet down, everyone. I have some serious and important news. Just a few minutes ago, a plane crashed into the World…”

Shit, what an accident. But also the perfect moment to escape. I nudge Soo-jin, and we slip out of the gym. There are no students in the hallway, which is unusual – just a number of administrators, walking fast and looking agitated.

"Why everyone so upset?" Soo-jin asks, puzzled. "Oh," I say casually, "a plane hit an important building that’s about half an hour away from us." I speak only with the security that comes with not knowing anyone who works in the Financial District. We finish our tour and head back to the gym, which seems even noisier than we left it.

We soon find out why – someone’s gotten a hold of a boom box and is blasting any AM radio they can find. The second plane has already hit, and the rumors, curses and tears are starting to fly.

"Mom? Mom?! Mommy, can you hear me?!" I hear a voice close behind me and whirl around. Bangladesh is sobbing, clutching her pink Nokia like a lifeline. Her panic starts a tornado that whips through the room. Suddenly, everyone has someone they need to call, and cell phones appear from pockets and bags like grasshoppers. It doesn't take long before everyone realizes that the cell lines are nearly useless, a major cell tower having been located at the top of the Twin Towers. I can't listen to people screaming anymore – I slip out just before the teachers close the gym doors, abandoning Soo-jin in the mess.

I head towards the music department, where I know there will be some electric contraband – a radio, maybe even open-circuit TV. I pass a group of people in the hallway, clustered around the closed-circuit television that usually broadcasts the day’s announcements. Right now, it's on NBC, and I hear someone exclaim.

"Hamas! Hamas has claimed responsibility for this!" I freeze, and choke for the first time all day. All of my associations with Hamas are with Israel, images of my cousins in their military uniforms, with pictures from the Jewish Standard newspaper of men in headscarves, with guns. I break into a dead run for the school auditorium, right outside the music department office.

The auditorium is dark, cool, empty and mercifully silent. I drop to my knees in the middle of the stage, fast tears on my cheeks. I want to shake my fist at this god, who has failed to protect my family in Israel, and who is now failing to protect me here. Thoughts dart back and forth – will my family have to leave? Is it my turn to run from men with guns?

As soon as I can stop crying, I leave the sanctuary of the auditorium. In the music department office, there are only three people: the band director, the choir director, and an Israeli kid, who is hunched into the corner, shaking. His fingers are holding something, tight, knuckles white. It’s his Star of David necklace, and he is terrified.

"They’re coming," he says, his accent thicker than his tears. "Not enough they should want the only place that’s hours, they come to get us here." I watch the band teacher put a finger to her lips – the radio volume in here is low, so people won’t mob the office.

"No, hon, it was a mistake,” she says gently. Even in five minutes, the news has changed. "It’s not Hamas, it's another group." I exhale, for the first time in minutes. Not this time. Not us. Not my turn. I sling an arm around the Israeli kid.
"Kol B’seder - it’s all okay," I tell him. Today it is other people's turn for fear.

With this knowledge safely in my back pocket, I head into the hallways. People are strewn about like luggage, draped on one another, still trying to reach their parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, friends by cell phone. I offer hugs, squeeze hands like a Civil War battlefield nurse offering bandages. It is not my day for panic; the little I have to give becomes a lot.

The PA system has started again – this time, they keep calling the names of different students. Rumors are spreading about this, too – are they the names of students who have lost their parents?

No, comes the confirmation, a minute later. They’ve locked down the school. No one’s allowed to leave unless their parents come, but since no one’s in class, they have to broadcast names to try and find people.

I don’t remember how I get home – whether my mother comes to pick me up, or another mother packs me into her car and promises to drop me off at home. But when I get there, my sister is already home, as well as my best friend and her mother. My friend is crying, hugging her mother.

“I didn’t know where you were,” she sobs. “You don’t have a phone!” Her mother, a sensible Romanian Jewish immigrant, strokes her hair.

“Come now,” she says. “I was perfectly fine. I was just fine.”

It is only in the next few days that people begin to assess the real damage. Teachers are told to resume classes as normal, but most people can’t focus. All but my history teacher give up on teaching for a few weeks – but he has found out he is to be sent to Afghanistan to fight the new War on Terror. He uses the few weeks to do a unit on political cartoons. He and I argue in class a lot; he likes Bush, and I all but tried to sneak into the polls to vote for Nader.

When I’m not arguing, I spend my time writing poetry, trying to figure out all that’s going on around me without living in it too much. I still offer small comforts in the hallways, listen to people cry. I am so tired, I hardly notice the weight of other people’s mourning.

Only three weeks later, as I’m preparing to sing at my fifth memorial service, does someone notice. A fellow singer, he approaches me for a hug before we’re due to sing. I hold out my arms, with a tissue in my hand, just in case. He puts my arms down, and instead wraps his around me, holding me. After I stop struggling, I finally put my head on his shoulder.

“This pain,” I tell him, “is not mine to have. I lost so little, others so much. I have so little cause to fear this time.”

“Still,” he says, “You were there.” A short, but intense and deep friendship follows, ended only by the girl he starts dating that December.

one year later

9/11/02
MOMENT OF SILENCE

im sick of all these preppie bitches
wearing their vacuum sealed baby Ts
proudly displaying their freedom
across their tits
do they know
they're supporting the crazed
latest media fad
"consumerist patriotism"?
which is attempting to drag us back in time
into the fierce undertow of one year past
and we console ourselves
the american way
by buying the Tshirt
and pretending to carry on
when all we really want
is an excuse to stop
the whirlwind
to get off
the scary carnival ride
as Osama stands behind
the mask of the laughing clown

five years later

I finally wrote my story down. And I feel spent. Perhaps I was there, but it was not my day.

seven years later

What's your story?

Denver 4, or Tags

To tag a blog article is to give it a keyword that denotes something important about it. For example, many of my entries could bear a tag that said "travel," "poem," or "strangers," to be obvious. But sometimes, tagging an entry gives the author power to call the readers' attention to something she considers important that may or may not be obvious. Often, like a title, a tag will re-frame a reading in a completely different context than the reader might have approached it with.

Rather than tagging a particular blog entry, I'm assigning some tags to my experiences in Denver. For more on tagging, and more examples of tagging, see Chlirissa's entry about tags.

Tags for my time in Denver:

slam, mercury cafe, lost, found, kindness, couch, generous, sunshine, fall, long sleeves, aftermath, pretty boy's guide to public speaking, bookstore hours, crackheads, gentrification, safe, warm, cooking, house for wandering poets, worry, Andrea, Paulie, Ian

Denver 3, or Poem I wrote and performed at the open mic tonight

I'm on a train through North Dakota,
staring mesmerized out the window at the 26th
continuous mile of soybean fields,
watching them turn from black to green
under the sunrise.

Every time I see a house out here, I want to wave
at the locals, who do not look like me.
The train stops in places like Devil's Lake,
where the tallest thing in sight is a rusting water tower.

A leather-faced man in flannel and dungarees
hugs a kid with a guitar strapped to his back,
watches as we pull away like he's willing himself not to chase
us. I find the kid two cars down.

He says his name is Daniel and he mostly plays country
but he hears that won't fly in the city we're headed to.
Maybe he'll try writing his own, or something. He's never heard
of a traveling poetry circus either, but he says,
"I think you're brave, a girl like you alone out here."
We talk about how we've both left the girls we love without any promise
to return but we can't stay and they can't follow,
so we're gonna have to hold ourselves through this winter.

He says,
"Do you mind if I sleep on your shoulder? It took me two hours
to catch the 5am train and well, you seem sweet."
I say,
"Sure, honey,"
kiss the top of his crew cut like I've known him for years,
an introduction to the kindness of strangers.

Denver 2, or Cheater Entry: Salt Lake Retrospective

This is an email I received today, regarding my first performance in Salt Lake. It's from Ami, an improv jazz pianist who offered to accompany several of my pieces. I was happy to take her up on it.

"I wanted to tell you about my experience watching you perform at Mestizos. While you were performing the piece about your Grandmother I had a somewhat mystical response.

You can interpret this for what it may be worth to you, but these are the words that I can use to best convey what I saw. As the piece progressed I began to see your auric field expand and at a certain emotional height in the poem your light became bright enough and expanded enough that I was able to see other forms within your presence. I had the impression that you were being guided and protected by family members that have passed on and that they were there with you in that moment. I am largely a kinesetic person and react to how I feel about what I am perceiving.

What I felt from this impression was a large group of family that was standing with you. I also sensed that by honoring the emotional connection to your grandparents you were honoring the memory of a very long family line that had been held for many generations.

I have a similar connection to my family and my grandparents that have passed on which is why that piece touched me in such a powerful way. I also was affected very deeply by the Swastika piece. In fact, for reasons I am not totally aware, I was affected very personally by that piece as well.

I have Native American heritage that is not spoken about in my family. From what I do know of that history, I know that I do not know enough. I do know however of what it is like to "hide the books". That line inspires me passionate. Thank you for sharing your passion, your insights, your knowledge, and your voice. I have learned from you. I hope that your wonderful journey continues safely and with beauty.

Ami"

Denver 1, or Arrival Post

Hi guys. I'm here. I'm staying at the house of the wonderful Paulie and Ian, who don't seem to realize that they have internet in their living room. The ride here was ugly and uneventful - full of dust and rocks and uninteresting hills. I'm getting used to long bus rides - 10 hours didn't even faze me this time. It helps that I've learned to read on buses without getting dizzy.

There was a slam tonight, and I came in third. Yay for keeping my never-winning streak! I've decided that I should be proud of having never won a slam and still garnering the respect of other poets and listeners.

There will be much, much more about Utah very soon. For now, as Paulie said, "Let's get you home so you can get prone and crash."

Salt Lake City 2, or The Paintings On The Walls

I had a gig last night in a small art gallery that was part of a coffee shop. It was an excellent space for performance, because Ruby Chacon's art was all over the walls. Her paintings are bold, colorful, full of people who aren't much represented in recent art history - Mexicans, Chican@s, Latin@s, working folks. The paintings lent a warmth to the room that made it feel simultaneously cozy and powerful. The poets were incredibly kind, too - I like performing for open mic audiences better than slams, I think, because they're less judgmental.

Now it's off to find the print shop. I need to do another run of books!

Salt Lake City 1, or Arrival Post

And here I am, only a little bit disoriented. As I left the plane, I thought to myself, "I've only been traveling for four hours...I shouldn't be farther than Flagstaff, right? And yet here I am, in the cool mountains with the bigger trees and the welcome lack of cacti. Oh, and the independent bookstore with the free wi-fi. Shae was right: Salt Lake City is to Utah what Austin is to Texas: a little blue dot in a big red state.

Although I did notice that the biggest building for miles around belongs to the Mormons, which is not a surprise but a little bit unsettling nonetheless.

Also: Tucson has no big buildings. They're all so very close to the ground. This feels more like a city.

Tucson 3, or Where I'm Headed Next

I had a miniature crisis today. I don't want to leave Tucson, my little desert oasis. In fact, I spent a good twenty minutes figuring out how to stay here longer, possibly cutting out Salt Lake City, or some other such tomfoolery. This little crisis was solved when I called Shae in SLC to see if I would be missing anything if I came for a shorter time. His response was to show me this.

Salt Lake City, I will see you TOMORROW!

Tucson 2, or Oasis

They tell me there's not much to see in Tucson in August if I want to avoid heatstroke and other desert malaises, so we stay inside, write poems, watch Firefly and cook. This sweet house of souls that smell like garlic and kindness, they're generous with their hands and their space. I haven't been this cuddled since I left Massachusetts, and I revel in it like a puppy.

The poetry night was the best I've been to yet. Eighty people relaxing comfortably in a long, wide coffee shop and offering lots of smiles as I took the stage in my pajamas, in my crazy just-brushed hair. The set completely flew by, moving smoothly from G-d, to love to Jewishness. I performed "Swastika" and dedicated it to the poet who drove me down from Phoenix. We had spent a good chunk of the hour and a half ride talking about trauma and being grand/children of the war. The poet who won the slam that night, a goy, told me he'd never felt that punched by the Holocaust before, never felt it so harsh in his gut. I thanked him. I'm never sure what to say to the ones I've wounded. It's as though I've punched their teeth in, and they're thanking me as they spit out the blood.

I wish I was staying here longer, but heading north is tempting. The mountains here look like toads, dried and bumpy and brown-green. My skin is hungry for moss and evergreens. My hair, on the other hand, loves it here and promises me that it would never go frizzy again if we stay.