Peach

I find nothing more perfect on this day
than a peach
which could be the most sensual food
on the planet.
It tantalizes all of me
and I am wholly consumed.
Eyes shut
I press my lips against the flesh
cool
soft
aromatically sweet
like the essence of biting into it
but not actually tasting...
not yet.
I run my tongue against its soft roundness
and sense the curves
and it takes me round
like learning the dance of a new lover.
I palm its weightiness,
deceptively heavy for its size.
I breathe into its navel,
its tree-stemmed origin,
and I imagine
succulent
sticky juices
flowing around red lips
anxious with anticipation of taste.
I sit quiet for a moment
just the peach and I
and we experience one another.
and I bite.
sink my teeth into its fleshy meat
breath its sweet floral-earthy aroma
allow the perfect juice to dance freely on my lips
down my chin
through my fingertips.
It tantalizes all of me
and is wholly consumed.

slow fade

This Sunday was a perfect Sunday.

When she looked outside, she could almost see the cool. The sky and the rain had changed, somehow, in the last day or two, and it looked more like sleet or snow, and she thought how deliciously foretelling that was. There was a small part of her that mourned just a bit... mourned for a walk down to the coffee shop that would not be taken today, mourned for a quiet cup of iced tea on the porch swing. But overall, this was still bliss. The chill of fall was not quite here, yet... but it was trying. As she drove home from brunch today, she noticed the tired leaves on the trees, and how some of them had relinquished their green. It was only a few, and only the fingertips of the trees, the ones reaching heavenward, but it still delighted her. There was nothing more magical then the smell of dying leaves, the way they danced around her ankles as she shuffled through them on a walk. And the way the crisp fall morning air infused her lungs with stiffness and reminded her how alive she was.

It was a good time in her life for a transition, even if it was just a season changing into a more tempered state. Life was in a calming pattern, getting more quiet and more even. And like the slow fade of summer into autumn, temperatures moderated and the days began to pace themselves. And tempers simmered and routine bubbled from the chaos and a new life breathed as an old life relinquished itself.

It was a sublime slow fade.

27443

We are trapped
And catapulted
By who we are not, and
Who we should still be.
By whom we left in the back seat of a car,
Who we lost in a cold corner of the university library,
Who we forgot when the dress code changed yet again.

Did you know that once
I was an artist?
A princess
A lounge singer
An amazing
Intelligent
Beautiful
Confident
Diva.

I danced on the stage
I smiled at fear
I didn’t let what age had to say
Get in the way of progress
Of the crusade for social justice
Of art for the sake of beauty and love and creation.

As an artist,
It didn’t really make sense for me to listen to the voice that said,
What about when you have to pay the bills?
How will you ever get an apartment?
Don’t you think that there will be a time when you want a family
And a husband
And a dog and cat and John Deere lawn tractor and 401(k) and a closet full of made in Indonesia conformity?

Why did I say yes?
Is that what I really wanted?
Is it what I want now that I have it?

I want to ask
I want to go back
Talk with the artist in the back seat of the Escort
Parked in an abandoned cemetery, writing poems about the angst of love
And ask her:
What do you think about staring emptily at an Excel spreadsheet, sending random emails, and abusing the internet for the better portion of your paycheck?

I want to discuss
The benefits of my investment accounts and retirement planning
With the punk purple haired girl in ripped Levi’s and an old man’s wool sweater
Who fought with the optometrist for her cat’s-eye and rhinestone glasses

I yearn to check in with the woman
Who organized a peaceful demonstration
For the progress of Capri pants in the workplace
Right after she was swept into Human Resources
And put on notice for insubordination.

What would she say about the chinos and sweater sets
The Franklin Covey planner
About being 27443, or 21964499 before that?

Most of all,
I want to catapult
More than retreat

Tap-dance naked on the moonlit beach at the cabin
Steal vintage signs from condemned buildings
Sing out loud in the car when stuck in rush hour
Flirt with danger and greatness and oblivion and passion

And remember to remember that I am
an artist.
A princess
A lounge singer
An amazing
Intelligent
Beautiful
Confident
Diva.

context

I have recently - and only within myself - felt challenged to write. Every day.
In my being, writing is fundamental, and I very often ignore it. I'm a poser. I shouldn't call myself a writer. And, maybe I'm not... but that's really for me to decide. Anyway, I wax philisophical when I consider reconnecting with the Essential Sarah... music, urban living, physical being, feminism, environmentalism, sprituality. That all gets tidily packaged within my writing, but I turn my back on it; I have more important things to do than be true to myself.

I have a long-term blog, which I generally enjoy maintaining, though it comes in fits and starts. I'm abstract-random. I lack discipline. I must train myself to express thoughts and observations in words, to honor my writer self, to get myself there (there being sustaining myself in writing).

The context for terminally wanderlust is that of my life and that of my writing... I search, I long, I am unsatisfied, I lack contentment and I do not want to settle. I wouldn't change that. But a terminally wanderlust mind and soul need an outlet, too... and I want that outlet to be writing. Every day, disciplined, committed writing.

I commit to a discipline of writing here... real writing... every day. I will edit the old; I will create new. This is a nursery of ideas, a laboratory for critique, a respite for the wanderlust.
Such is the context. It begins.