to summon courage upsi wears her gold scarf wizard-peace-warrior-flames and moves toward granny.
granny is asleep when upsi enters her room. her home. the space is calm. upsi absorbs it quickly. colors and movements. photos of faces of family lines sharp and faded. slowly knitted wool folded unevenly atop a metal mechanical single bed. trees in the middle ground a shivering green form inside a equal-everything rectangle inside a equal-everything box, attached to many boxes. granny breaths shallow breaths. a baby bird in slow motion.
my head throbs a techno beat to my left, lone chipping bird to my right, this screen before me, m and my bed behind me, behind another screen, flat image a body twice drawn falling raising a turning cog clockwise the fall becomes the leverage, hangs at the head of a mattress on the floor. i remember. my heart beats faster. sirens. two birds. the beat. m reminded me averages bind us together. my heart beats faster. across species, the total number of heartbeats taken in a life span averages out. turtle make long slow beat, mouse make short fast beat. and the last breath leaves the body. the last movement always an exhale.
with my voice, no touch, a whisper. granny its stephie. heart beats faster. with my voice she wakes. my stephie, all the way from germany, is here, with me. granny cant believe it. a dream. i am here. we sit. i ask her and she speaks, of dancing, of her friends circle and their tradition. dancing joyful with them and with her second partner first died with three little children alone no more welfare check you earned too much alone in the system not alone with three little children and sisters and brothers and neighbors and workers not alone through life dancing together strong peacefully. i ask her and she speaks of her pop and mom. we eat. food is all mush can't swallow 100 year old throat will choke. we sit. side by side. hold hands. she asks me and i roll her to yoga class. we sit. side by side.
teacher asks, can we lift our hands. teacher asks us to tap ourselves. fingers tap skin stretched across bone-muscle-fat. fingers tap vessel hear-feel different sound-tone on bone through fat-muscle absorbs touch-tap-slap-jiggle-vibrate-feel again. body. teacher asks, can we imagine moving foot. look at it. eyes close. see it. lift. wiggle toes. move bone inside socket. imagine-feel-know it. remember when body felt good. smile-feel-heal it.
granny told me about skipping. in her wheel chair sitting, granny with high-voice-giggles tells of the fun she had skipping. alongside trees. granny tells me how much she loves looking at the trees. even in the winter. their complexity. in each state. appreciate.
berlin mothers emerged from rubble. after the killing the burning the raping. mothers holding child hands. pick up bricks. pile pieces. to build again. a line of hands-bodies-vessels moving matter making nests babies play-learn-sing close by, inside, emerge from the rubble.
everything everywhere everyone, just vessels. broken beaten. matter don’t care. ain’t haunted. heal it. like mother. nature always doing equilibrium dance. chose to. emerge. together. sing play make move build pile pick up bricks learn together strong peace dance. ab sofort! again.
käthe called me here. called me here to stop-watch-learn-feel of the trümmerfrauen their story she would have told but her vessel broke crumbled into pieces mom taught me to look for the story inside outside my body mom held me, held in me my kunt pumps figure eight swirls between pelvic bones hold each body, emerges from kunts perfect dirt sky swirl together strong peace dance inside and out.
upsi built an alter to her addiction to pull her through to the desire to choose to offer herself to want more the days sober than to take the poison. upsi built an alter with the trümmerfrauen found stone-wood-dirt outside homes door below their m∆upsi nest needed to heal what stephie was taught to do to fear-hate-kill tried to. fight. upsi asked to learn solidarity, to learn the trust-trust of choosing to know-feel-surrender she is not alone. granny told of the trees diversity infinite ways of being seeking balance.
choose to find it. each day. is hard. need help.
upsi needed a hand to help lead her, back into her vessel, to stop-watch-learn-love it again. to make this journey inward to turn around, return, outward, peacefully. upsi knows her blood. upsi chooses to feel-heal-transform it.
upsi and m build nests together. they sleep and eat together. they play often together. they dance and love and fuck and climb and roam together. two creatures who choose to grow together. lover-child-teacher-shaman-witch-human together, their forms, they are anything they choose to investigate-experiment-repeat. they can be anything they want-need to be, to-for themselves, to-for each other. m and upsi choose to return, out of the black hole, to live, to ripple to trust-trust being each of themselves is enough, is this here-now-vessel’s part of the together-strong-peace-dance puzzle.
solidarity.
m looks down, to the dirt swirl. picks up gray stone. knows its history by stop-watch-learning it. understands that hands held-worked gray stone. a tool made-left-forgotten-recognized by m. to gift upsi. three transformations. now a charm imbued with m’s intent. a craftperson’s charm to summon strength to access courage-confidence to make-build-grow.
creativity-curiosity-play is both necessary and sufficient.
this last act is indeed a leap, for the adult mind. out of logic, empty handed into magic-nothing. joy-trust-trust-jump into childhood.
stephie jumps into upsi and is.
a minuscule spider floats above her chair. she sits to write these words.
a call to arms
you’ve taken the soap box, center stage, the top rung.
you’ve set the bar so low.
below, Mother Natura stirs in the dust.
Deceived, a percieved myth.
So we turn our pleas to you Daddy.
Water, Daddy!
lips are cracked and tongue is dry.
we bellow a howl from bowels, water Daddy!
beware, our gutteral grunt!
don’t turn a deaf ear!
The dirt you’ve walked all over, it rises.
a new dis-orfer is forming.
a rare arrangement spawned from near destruction.
an extraordinary configuration where all who partake,
have chosen THEIR place.