field notes:

11.05.2004

From an internet cafe in cozumel--the world was beginning to look different from here but then I read the news. Now I will find a coffee and quietly gather together my courage. We must remember where we came from. We must remember what is important--the world of dreams, the world of ideas, the underground rivers that run quietly gathering strength for years in opposition to the ruling day and then one red-sunned dusk find an opening and rush madly up onto the seared earth, altering forever that which finds itself in the way. An evolution of water. A course of ruin. The unseen work of small rivers is the important movement. Encourage them in their streaming. Find your own pathway down there, and don't stop. Walk in the mud of your own soul. That is the work of people. That is the work that is called for by these times.

posted by Lisa on 2:28 PM link |

11.01.2004

I’m going to Cozumel after the election. I want to see the night sky from another angle. I want to shake myself loose from this particular gravity. I need a jetplane to do that. Its unearthly lift will pick me up and set me down far away. I will walk down the gangway into a world grounded by warm heavy air, where thoughts are less likely to circle me coolly, or swirl away up the chimney. They might linger for hours or days. I will walk more slowly to court them, and sit still for hours at a time letting them light on the fine hairs of my forearm.

I will strap gadgetry on my back and slip into the water with weights around my waist. I will float far beneath the surface, listening to the crackling of coral and the eerie sounds of breath through a regulator. I will use hand signals and will try to forget that I can’t breathe on my own, try to lose myself in that underwater world. When I emerge I will be changed. I will eat tacos from a roadside stand, drink a cold beer in celebration of life, and toast an abundance of oxygen.

When I return I will know things. From that other angle, if the light is just right, I will be able to see things that are hidden to me now.

posted by Lisa on 6:40 AM link |