yep it's solstice and here in the northern hemisphere, well we're just poised for a wee bit in between the moments in between the movements the pause that refreshes at the tip of the edge before the big slow lean into summer and fall. a cause for celebration.

sometimes i imagine us all in a big house, walking in and out of rooms, sections of the party, different music playing, different food here and there. you are the people that i feel i often speak to when i write to myself. share with. yeah. that’s the public part and the intimate part. in here, out there. all together. one. we let each other in.

and some people at the party are cruising for a mate. some are into really good conversations. some are dancing to the music. some indulging in various sensory delights, some up on soapboxes, some handing out pamphlets, some are bringing in the baked goodies on trays.

but whatever it is, we’re doing it all together somehow. we’re mixing it up.

and i just want to whisper in your ear a little about something here. not sure why, really. just do.

because,

just like to say,

i feel i know you as fellow students in an interesting class. like we’re all talking Blogging 101 together.

seems we have this need every once in a while to discuss blogging itself, why we do it or don’t do it or remember to do it or feel compelled to do it or feel guilty for letting it dust over cough cough.

and each time it gets redefined a little. gets squished into certain sets of molds and self-consciously modified accordingly.

my big secret which isn’t, is that blogging to me seemed like a good way to practice an attempt at self-acceptance and detachment. a mirror. an inner study with outer manifestation and reaction. a look at self-censorship and what i want to be or think i should be and what i am which is ultimately nothing but try telling that to my ego. that writing thinking i that thinks it exists, you know.

everyone has different reasons and interests for living in a typed and written world shared with others. but they’re probably all good.

it’s all words. conversation. books. papers. poetry. music. plays. words. all good.

because, ultimately, communication is about a connection with others. writers and readers and readers of writers and writers of readers and reading writers and writing readers. it’s about that reach across the universe into the imagination of the Other kind of contact with your fellow life forms, done in words.

and we wordy sorts we’re a funky bunch, we are. we booky wormy wordy types. yeah. and maybe in the ocean of faces out there, we bloggy types blend in ok on the surface but somewhere inside we’re fond of practised at addicted to the connections created in the written word. the kind of connection that requires the imagination to reach out and expand across the abyss to touch fingertips through a metaphor.

think maybe that connection exists whenever you read something closeup experientially intense and you feel a vibration, you can hear the voice. and they read it to you. write it to you. sing it to you. even if they’re old dead greek guys in a book. you can just hear ‘em. something just leaks out into your consciousness beyond space and time and touches you. 

it’s magic. and it's about touch. and it's gentle and subtle and has layers and layers.

and here in blogville, we’re doing the instant gratification sort. semi-immediate or at least slightly delayed contact in words. like passing notes back and forth in school.

and the connection moments happen when least expected, even when reading something that really irritates, gets under the skin, rattles the old cage a bit and all of a sudden there's realization and maybe something a little bit different going on, maybe . . gasp . . even learning something . . or shared understanding and . . . ooh yeah ah compassion. mmmmm.

and in the blog community, classroom, pub, party, whatever, sometimes a psychic connection passes through in a wave when everyone’s contributing to a sense of something happening in a ripple. just shared experiences and personal resonance, acknowledgments and kindnesses, friendly pokes and jabs, giggles and whispers, smiles and waves. creates an opportunity to see so many good things in a written community of words amongst friends.

and once in a while there are these great self centered self conscious self freakout sort of moments when it’s all too much looking back at everything just regurgitated in type and it’s not squirreled away in a notebook under the chair but out there in hot live electricity with strange people from other parts of the world reading this inner spew stew and just have to wonder just have to ponder just have to stop and question what is happening and why oh why and who do i think i am and who is doing this?

and strange things can occur. oh like panic, for one. or blog abandonment. or sudden blog deletion (yeah yeah did that) or well the thing is that anything can happen. there’s no certainty. no commitment. always free to come and go. free to rant and rave or kick and scream or sing or dance or laugh or preach or share or run away or sink quietly into oblivion. all a purely "at will" sort of relationship situation. 

it’s journalism in the sense of a journal and an as yet semi-unidentified completely other kind of ism that needs to be periodically redefined.

and free to define and redefine it indefinitely. and do.

and sometimes just have to have a place where it’s safe to express stuff. all kinds of stuff. emotional stuff. lonely stuff. loud stuff. silly stuff. navel gazing stuff. love stuff. philo-stuff. psycho-stuff.  newsy stuff. nostalgic stuff.

and sometimes there's this realization that it's all out there, on stage, all alone, and then you might think you're getting a whiff of the acrid smell of rotten tomatoes and you've got to start looking for the nearest exit sign . . . .

and sometimes you just have to laugh.

and sometimes you feel so grateful to have friends that know this one part, this one tiny written bit.

and sometimes you just have to hear the sound of your own voice.

and sometimes you realize maybe it isn’t your voice.

and sometimes everything connects and otherwise isolated minds come together.

and sometimes feel so close, so strongly connected with people across the world never met, never smelled, never had a good look-see at.

and sometimes we're all just happily sitting on our own little individual pumpkins.

well anyway.

why write?

because we can, buckos. because we can.

and the point is,

well i don’t know that there is a point to all this, really.

but it’s like this:

have to say

sometimes

maybe most times

maybe all the time

yeah

maybe all the time

i just

love you

all.

got some of the most magnificent gorgeous juicy rich tomatoes. succulent. redder than red. dripping with tomato reality. not those hard mealy supermarket things, but genuine plump savory sweet perfectly explosive tomatoes.

and some organic mushrooms, a mixture of shitake and wood ears and a few elephant ears. sauteed those up in a wee bit of butter and kosher salt and chives for dinner tonight. ooh baby. the mushroom guy is a new addition, so he got stuck in the space next to the kid’s puppet theatre, which is cute but loud and full of shrieking teradactyls.

also got some giant spicy radishes. huge red white ones with enough zip to keep my co-workers out of my rather explosive office this afternoon.

and a lovely olive foccacia from the place that makes the sweet pinion nut cookies and a small tub of the magnificent goat lady’s soft green chili cheese.

and best of all, the most spectacular fried dumplings and special dippy sauce. these two sisters, think they may be vietnamese because they are so beautiful and have a very frenchy foody sort of thing going on, they do two flavors: chicken basil and veggie. the veggies are packed full of garlic and three kinds of lentils, peppers, sprouts, onions, cabbage in a perfect little dumpling package. ah superb. and the dippy sauce is not your basic soy stuff, but full of cilantro and lime and crushed herbs and something fruity. no doubt it’s secret, but oh. heaven. and even though i haven’t been working in downtown for some time, and so hadn’t been to the market in over a year, they still remembered me and put seven dumplings in my to-go box instead of five. how nice.

at the farmer’s market, there is the organic local produce section, which is interspersed with flowers and the goat cheese lady and a local winery and some bread and baked things, and then they have a sort of food area with the sisters’ dumplings and a greek food place where lovely dark women with black painted eyebrows serve incredible scrambled eggs with chilis on rolls, and a bakery sandwich sort of deal, and a fruit smoothy stand, and sometimes there’s an old polish guy with all sorts of these pasty type baked into a bread filled with goodies things. they have a name but it escapes me.

soon there will be good corn and fruit and sweet little cucumbers.

there were two different good bluesy guitar players at opposite ends. and the brilliant tamale people were back. and lots of flowers, especially peonies and iris. the little purple potato lady wasn’t there, unfortunately, but perhaps it’s too early in the season for her. and i was asked if i was registerd to vote three times.

they used to do the farmers' market on Wednesday over the noon hour, but switched it to evenings instead. which is OK because now it will be easier to take goodies straight home for fresh dinner instead of risking extra banging and bashing of things in the trip back to the office and then home.

ah it’s good to be gainfully employed once again. so many blessings.

and big fat luscious tomatoes. oh yeah.

we ate in a tiny old wild west town where they served our drinks in glasses shaped like cowboy boots. they brought me a side of mashed potatoes in a glob that was bigger than my head. we had some magnificent wild berry pie. and we received complimentary patriotic red white and blue memorial day mints.

they had some wild west curios and trinkets for sale of course and above our table was a shadow box sort of deal with an old torn flag, a faded photograph of a warrior chief and a couple eagle feathers. walking around there were others, some with rusty old guns in them, or tomahawks or arrow quivers. don’t know if they used some genuine historical artifact stuff, but hope not anyway. didn’t seem right to display this fairly recent past in little indivual serving glass cases to buy for a few hundred bucks for tourists to take home and stick up over the fireplace in the den.

riding along the highway in wyoming feels like we should be galloping. running and charging over rolling space hair flying bouncing and free. wyoming makes me want to tip my hat, or at least wear one, and shout yee-hah.

fireworks stands are everywhere just inside the border. fireworks are outlawed in colorado, so they set up right inside wyoming so their customers don’t have to go all the way to cheyenne or laramie or rawlins or rock springs to get their bottle rockets.

inside the colorado border, the state troopers sit waiting with their radar guns. but once inside wyoming, it’s sort of like a wild ride zone. speed limits are posted here and there but not a copper to be seen. it’s like a wide open see for miles let it all out screaming echo chamber flying across the rolling range kind of ride.

wyoming feels like it’s still a little wild around the edges. the west hangs by a thread there.

and it also feels somehow more than half empty. vacant and hollow. most of the indians are gone.

but even though it has a sad emptiness of a not so distant ethnic cleansing feel, there is nevertheless a very strong native american presence there as well. very strong. as if because it is so empty and open there is still some room for the spirits to run and ride their ghost horses across the rolling rocks and sand and grass and sagebrush. maybe it feels so strong because it has changed less. much of the open space remains. even the clouds above often look like herds of buffalo, mirroring the shades of the beasts running and grazing below.

driving and driving for miles between towns there is little sign of civilization except for endless barbed wire fences, occasional power lines, scattered ranches and cattle and a few abandoned cabins and old barns beat with wind and snow, disintegrating into the ground.

managed to take a few pictures but the wind was extreme. could barely stand up and hold my ground in it, much less balance a camera. felt like the whole wild west state of wyoming was blowing right through me in a powerful slam of arrows and horses and stampeding buffalo.

back in the car we listened to memorial day stuff on the radio as we drove. we heard a reading of a poetic photographer's journal in europe during world war II. and we cried for taps.

and so we drove and drove and it felt like we flew through space and time and light and shadow and peace and war and night and day.

and everything was green. and there were bluebells.

and we saw some antelope. and some semi-wild horses running. a coyote. a raccoon. hawks swooping and hunting.

and a deer.