It was summer.
I rode on a plane wearing a green scarf.

A giant dark skinned fellow was seated to my left
who would eventually tell me that he worked on Wall Street.
He snored on my shoulder for at least an hour,
and gave me his business card with the tiny embossed petroleum logo.

His friend writes a political blog. Do I? No? Oh well, no matter. I will love the city. He never tires of its beauty.

———

I had worried for days over missing my flight. Over forgetting something important. And here was my soul wrapping around this big bearded man seeing stories in his dark eyes. He mentions his mother in Pakistan.
His voice is soft. I tell him of my mother, and our meadow we once lived on.
How nothing ever does stay the same.
“Yes. Yes. It changes doesn’t it! Like a wildfire, and things are gone
and so far beyond you can’t touch them.”
His hands are bigger than my head,
sweeping through the air to indicate the vastness.
His smile is one center-point of glow.

I wrote poems while I looked at clouds.

****
Blogher was like visiting another land.
A land that swirled with people and unspoken thoughts and love and lore.
I heard so much–I took so much and stored it away for later;
I promise I’ll get those boxes out before they gather dust.

I met one lovely whippet of a girl with hair so blonde it might have been white. Whose heritage, not a box of dye, gives her such platinum color. We sat one night on two leather ottoman benches–one ivory, one black–and talked about the entire world until we’d come full circle back to loving everyone.
I sat in a room while the rest of the hotel danced about the Proverbial Sparkly Unicorn (is there such a thing as a Proverbial Sparkly Unicorn? There aught to be.). I sat in my black tulle skirt and watched my friend attempt to wrangle a rogue Bump-It into the loveliest curls I’ve ever seen. We gave up on celebrating and then recommitted alternately until we grew weary of ourselves. I tucked my feet into folds of tulle and spent most of the night smiling at how I was here amidst the wise–hearing phantom stanza’s from “Hey Jude” playing in my left ear.
…..no particular reason other than I just like “Hey Jude”.
And The Beatles in general.
****

The city exhales onto you.
And you feel every sigh of every soul that walks there.
Every footstep that reverberates along with your own,
pounding holes into the pavement.
You see fashion, money, the abundant lack of both,
and end up with humanity coloring the iris of your eye.
I found myself praying for every heart that passed me,
and smiling when I maybe shouldn’t have.
“I’m just a broken record, y’all.
This is the only song I know.”
Thoughts shot out like cannon fodder among the masses.

In the end it was just immense.

Thank you so much to Coconut Robot
who sponsored me for Blogher.
You are loved.