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.