los angeles
It’s difficult to maintain sanity, when your schedule is dictated by street cleaning crews and there is never anywhere to park. When the job you were promised fell through, and you’ve eaten through most of your savings. When your daily breakfast is accompanied by the flying wood chips of the construction zone next door, and you’re sharing bunks in a tiny bedroom with 5 other people.
But, there are worse things, aren’t there?
When I come back, I’ll soak up every inch of sunshine my skin can absorb. I’ll lose myself in miles of strip malls and hot, baked pavement and fragrant lemon groves. I’ll inhale the salty ocean air until my lungs burst. I’ll drive down Sunset and up Mulholland and revel in the names of all the places I’ve always known, but never laid eyes on before.
editing
I read the work out loud. I delete sentences, tighten paragraphs, replace words. I can tell which parts aren’t working, but how to fix them?
There are parts I should cut, but I don’t want to. I show the piece to a friend. She points to those same parts and says, cut them. I sigh, knowingly.
I go back and butcher the lingering piece of me still clinging on. I store the severed limb in a trunk with all the others. Maybe, I’ll use them again someday, for something else, like limb stew.
I lay the piece to rest and wait several days, weeks even. I listen to the words anew. I can feel the rhythm now. I’m in tune with its harmonies, in touch with its incongruities.
One sentence still isn’t working. Maybe I’ll dump the words into a giant bucket and fling them into the North Sea.
But, it’s time to move on. I hit send.
from mitte to neukölln
At 3am, on a cool summer night, I return from Mauer Park. The tourists have gone and Mitte belongs only to me now. I pass the bridge behind Berliner Dom and wind through Museum Island, headed toward Brandenburger Tor. I see history wrapped in blankets of golden light, resting for another night.
As I ride on, the city unravels itself before my eyes in myriad ways.
On Frankfurter Allee, I slice through a promenade of yellow-and-cream, leaving a procession of tall buildings, tiered like royal wedding cakes in my wake. I snake through a row of camper vans on Lilienthalstrasse, past giant soccer fields where no one ever seems to play.
At a biker’s pace, the gaudy and the beautiful, the uninspired and the imaginative blend into one, living side by side in my mind. A conversation floats from a balcony. A techno beat escapes from a basement window. A rat scurries across the library lawn.
When I cross the river, a fragrant wall of lilacs hits my nose — almost home.
beginnings
I came out into the world like everybody else – squealing and bloody and terrified.
Why did they have to slit open my Mama’s tummy and take me out of that safe, warm place? I twisted and turned and nearly lost an eye. I have a scar on my right cheek to prove it.
They hooked me up to tubes and caged me in a plastic box for a month, until finally, my Mama got to take me home. She loved me and hugged me and fattened me up, and soon I was thick and chubby and glowing with glee.
In a baby book my Mama made, she wrote, when she was glad, she was very, very, very glad, but when she was bad, she was horrid!
riding
Sweat is a minor inconvenience. Like cobblestones, or bruises, or pedestrian glares. Like shouts from fellow cyclists, or being nearly run off the road by every car on Hermannstrasse who insist on driving side by side on a one-lane street.
But, I smile, I swerve, I cycle on.
Of course, there are mishaps. Like, when the chain falls off. Or, the light cable rips. Or, the basket goes askew. But, I’ve learned how to fix these.
When the clouds above begin to thunder, I’m transported to my childhood and days spent dancing in the rain.
I can feel my heart racing, when I do another lap around Tempelhofer Feld. I can feel the wind cooling my cheeks, as the slope carries me down to Bergmannkiez.
Maybe, it’s the fresh air. Maybe, it’s the adrenaline pumping through my veins. Maybe, it’s because I’m one step closer to death.
All I know is when I’m riding, I finally feel free.
the land of fire and ice
Low-lying clouds hover over the water, a sea of expanding and contracting waves. Cotton-candy clouds meet us at eye-level, and we descend through pink skies.
The island comes into view, a mix of greens and browns. A single road leads to a single lighthouse facing the ocean at the edge of the island. Beyond, there are rocky grasslands, and barren nothingness.
The buildings look like monopoly hotels. All of them the same shape and size, with different colored hats.
Cold wind whips our faces as we descend onto the tarmac, waking us out of sleepy plane daydreams. It’s 6 a.m. We’re tired and the bus is packed.
As we inch closer to Reykjavik, the greener our surroundings. Even a few trees dot the landscape. A large mountain sits behind downtown. The city hills look curated in comparison to the wild that lies beyond.
We switch to several smaller buses and get dropped off at our residence.
I slip my hand through the narrow window, type in the four-letter code, grab the key from a small box and unlock the door. We slide inside and set down our suitcases. Made it.
We’ve arrived in the land of fire and ice.
the sound
There’s nothing like sitting at Olympic Sculpture Park on a beautiful summer evening when the sun hangs mid-way in the sky. The Olympic Mountains appear as ghosts, faint shadows to the west. A hazy shade of islands stretches across the horizon, shaggy backs and forested curves known as the San Juans.
Float planes roar overhead. Sailboats head nowhere.
A slight breeze rustles the pages of my Moleskin. My legs are stretched out on a red mesh chair, and I’m sitting under a giant, four-footed arch. Blood-orange steel juts upward against the clear, blue sky.
Below, near the fountain, a bald, white head of Easter-Island-scale stares onward. A fluffy, glittering bride tiptoes down the gravel path in front of me. I close my eyes and disappear into the scenery.
Mount Bloom 