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TALES OF AN ORANGEPEELER

an archive of pleasures, wounds, sublimations
& other curiosities :: profile


9.7.00

look at my feet, moving

The best after-birthday-dancing-tipsy remedy:
tapioca balls like startled guppies swimming
at the bottom of a glass of pearl tea.

I was quite cranky last night, but only for a little while.

I was suddenly older, for no reason other than the
earth's impenitent rotation around the sun.

And suddenly yesterday, my birth-day, became
a moment where I had to measure myself.
How did I change? What do I look like now?
Where are my loved ones in my life's map?
How is this birthday different from the other ones?

I run to the photobooth up the street; inspect
my features, squinting at every angle and curve.

Think about it: in 2 years, I'll be 1/4 century old!

My years contain war; the demise of the Berlin Wall
and the Soviet Union; the abolition of apartheid
in South Africa, the scourge of AIDS, the US re-institution
of the death penalty, corporate control of media, genocide (so relentlessly current); the death of Pol Pot, the . . .

And while History happens, my history is being shaped; larger currents contain smaller ones, momentum compels my feet and the feet of my loved ones to change their patterns.

Friends are scattered everywhere: I call to invite them to a dinner party (oh I do love to put them all in one room, contain their spirits, if only for a little while, so that I can fall in love with them all over again...), but they've got other plans, other cities to visit, movements that might not include me.

sigh

This is adulthood, I guess: other
plans, other cities, other lives to live.

We are growing up and up.
(But are we getting wiser?)

Once upon a time, everyone was just
around the corner or a room away.

Now I'm the last one to leave Berkeley, the one
who pauses to inscribe the moment in a poem
or a journal entry, before turning off the light
and shutting the door behind me, with a
click that will resound deeply, in the heart
of my memory-house.






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