Navrat: Return in Czechlish

Publish Post

Oh, it's you again....well this is awkward....I haven't called you in quite some time. Lookin good though slick, not noshing on too many holiday treats now are you?

Update: Back in Austin after the usual tumultuous time home where I nestle by the fire, go out on the town and am shoved into the past with such a velocity that I think I start to like it. But I am not alone in this, the strangeness of home and history that breathes upon you and the bricks that your little hands touched so many years ago that sit in front of you now, red and white edges, and you can't remember the girl you met and were.

Strange to think one chooses their life. Austin did not choose me, at least not in full. It was me that strapped belongings to my car, drove across country and gazed into the Grand Canyon. It was also me that saw the architecture of Santa Fe and tasted street food on South Congress where the rotating cupcake decorates the sky like stunted skyscrapers. I suppose it is strange to think I came here because I could, and there is both unease and freedom in that.

As I get older I suspect more in more that I have something in me that won't stay quiet. Sometimes it is yelling at me to run, to choose, to try all the trivial and epic things that should potentially lay dormant. Sometimes I try and slap this something across the face, just to see how it feels, and to see if it will slap me back. I have to say, it has a real right hook.

Note: Austin is still a great place to live. It still is where my room is, yellow and vibrant, and my little blue house sits with dying plants, hanging from hooks in a formal balance next to the door. People still think that Austin is an adjective, which is disconcerning, but it is not exactly avent garde to lack an ability to find yourself, now is it?

Blah: Our house is impossible to heat. There are scratches in the wooden doors as though wild dogs smelled raw meat there. I can always see the outside, or hear it, even when I try and escape it.

I suppose what I need now is some space. Going home I was pulled in every direction, delighted to be the daughter, the silly sister, and the kind of friend that is absent, so in turn has to make every moment something noteworthy and worth all the days and incidents in each others' lives that are missed. How I didn't see her band play that night when they hit a perfection of notes, how she cried on her pillow, wept for the confusion and I was thousands of miles off, two hours later, reading or watching bad T.V.

So now I just crave a delicate alone. Like, when I once traveled through Ecuador, sweating but satisfied with the looming chunks of day that could be filled only by my movements by a river. And my time in Ireland, when I experienced the rare phenomenon of being one's own sanctuary and confidante, and when I smiled out a bus window, it was for me, only for me, and how lovely it was.

But it is not so easy to do when there are people around you who make the time more exciting. For exciting is always the recipe for companionship, and my room, though lit in the night with exquisite, luminous lights, can be a lonely place when you are out of practice. And I fear I am, out of practice, with knowing my self in desperation, for life is finally easier and it is harder to chase down turmoil. Perhaps I shouldn't. Perhaps I should let trouble dance and mock me and just look away, but a part of me knows that the juicy flesh of being alive comes from the dancing with the impossibly difficult.

But I do not tempt it either, for I know how that ends.

So, for now, I look at pictures and hope the memories solidify enough to let me grab onto them when I need to, for all signs are pointing me to this lovely time of stability. (And, of course, I use stability lightly, for Heather and I out on the town can quiver the very streets themselves.)

So go on, I'm done for today, and now my coffee's gone cold.

~Kristen

Postcard Part 2

The people hunched

blotched colors one tries

to force meaningful

but they only blended

until the stench stemmed

from each of us

His car smelled like 1923.

You can feel that

someone was here

but they won't let you

see him

A lens is just a roundness

that chooses who to take

capture

usurp into exhibit

I'm a part of that

The crowds are erupting with tongues of necessity

the licking is sanguine

with slippery speech

I can't translate it anymore

for I may be that delicate

kind of lazy

that yawns upon devastation

but cries at silence

It doesn't even need water.

Nothing I've made has sprung

quite like this before

I think there may be joy

in the soiled scaffolding

of such palpable hope

and these tiny fingers

trace the lines of earth

until they are parallel to the start

angled at end

Postcard Part 1

~This will be the beginning of a 3-part postcard series that were written beneath the copper tree during a bike tour of East Austin art galleries. It was a very magical, sweaty day and I tried to not think when I lifted pen. This seems to almost always create better pieces. Don't take my word for it though, I am a liar.

See what you think.~

Part One:

I'm on a roughened bench

sitting beneath a tree

dilapidated copper and dripping silver leaves

I sincerely believe

this tree sprouted in a dream

and now buds to reassure me

of this

The evening sort of aroused us all

The shade became exotic

part of waking that creaked

in my consciousness I wondered

if you sliced through my bones

what poetry you'd find

Arteries are clogged

stuffed wine-tinted hyperboles

that hold graceful little hands

It smells like a sack of seeds

with the freshness of frothy tide

I wished for more.

I feel the hour relay a beautiful

exhaustion and a timely numb.

As I sit, and write on a post

card that never gets mailed

each year the addresses lose houses

connecting them to me

and I sit beneath a tree

this deathly little tree

Target coffee shop and foggy vistas

It was an early morning. You know, a real-teacher haunting of around 7:30 and you've already been up since 6. It was foggy on the drive, something I am particularly adverse to given my past with pesky trees and T's in the road, but I had to meet one of my student's mothers. And it was well worth the trip, as she teared up with pride at the awards ceromony and proceeded to clutch his chubby little cheeks in her small hands.

I needed coffee.

I purposefully use the verb need, because at this point, it is the elixir that resurrects most of us. We are just ruins, vacant vestiges before we are aroused by the bean.

As I sat at the Target coffee shop, sipping a Cappuccino, I saw a Hispanic man walk by with a Hispanic downs-syndrome boy. Their interactions were minimal, and the age of the boy was one that couldn't be discerned.

They turned the corner, exiting the grandiose automatic glass doors, and the older man suddenly disappeared behind a column. I bit my lip, at first questioning his actions, moving my head vigorously to find the boy. The boy waited and then, with a smile so electric I nearly yelped in my chair, peeked round the corner and found his father.

It was a moment of the purest delight. Perhaps it was a game they played often, even more so did it touch my heart then, because he found that kind of inconsolable joy with every new start.

I watched as the fog hung low, gripping the cars in the parking lot, possessing the morning, but the man just grabbed his sons hand, and they walked, smiling into the mist.

And it was nothing more than a trip to Target, on a Wednesday morning, at 8:23.

Shalloween Freedom

OK, for once, I didn't feel the effects of Shalloween. There were no random make outs and slurs laced with drugs or Smirnoff. And, could this be a first? No bare asses hanging out of any costumes. Phew. If I saw one more slutty maid's butt...........

I was with an awesome group with inventive costumes. I mean, the fact that I could dress up like Sylvia Plath and actually have people recognize me is a big step up from gettin shwasted on 6th Street. Instead, there was creative concoctions to drink from and a strobe light that made the beams of light coming at you palpable. There is nothing better than seeing a well-organized Halloween party. I mean, a fire pit out back, a skeleton greeter at a creaky door, and even ghouls awaiting you in the bathroom. To say the least, I was dancing with more than one bloody creature last night.

Ladies.....Halloween has not always been our most adorable and classy day of the year (in fact, most of your costumes start with slutty as your adjective) but, this year, I saw many of you looking downright homely. But hey, I got quite a few laughs, and could it be that the evolution of men (or perhaps I am just entering a more pleasing and mature age bracket) is really occurring and they now really appreciate a good, well-thought out ensemble? I mean, smart people are sexy, and it's about time we all started acknowledging this!

I will give away one Halloween outfit that I saw, in case you need something for next year....some guy bought REALLY hairy arm/sleeve things and said he was the 2nd Amendment. Can you guess what he was? The right to bare arms! Brilliant, I mean really top notch.

So get your pens out and start documenting for next year, because let's face it, you're getting too old to be a sassy devil or the oxymoron that is a slutty angel.

Happy Halloween!!!

Austin City Budget Limits

So, as most of you know, ACL was this weekend. ACL is one of the biggest music festivals in Texas, and certainly the 2nd biggest in Austin (second only to South by Southwest). But, the problem is that it can be a little pricey, and you have to rely on potentially pretentious Hipsters to choose bands you actually like. This year I, unfortunately, was too poor to go on any of the days, and worse yet, I had to watch all the college students around me wave around their 3-day wrist bands like they were snooty religious zealots showing off purity rings to the damned. How is that I have a reasonable job and can't afford a one-day pass, when these fools don't work at all and are going to the entire music ensemble? Well, I guess that is just life, and I have to admit I have blown a VERY substantial amount of money travelling, so I can not be too harsh of a judge.

On the brighter, and creatively frugal side, I did make an effort to at least hear some music. Miss Heather and I biked our butts downtown and, once seeing the herds of people, decided to park our bikes prematurely. In case you don't live here, let me tell you that it is not SO close from downtown to Zilker. But, it's October, and people were walking with vigor and biking with sloppy grins so all was fine. I even saw a rather mystical man painting with the same intensity I have seen mother's exhibit while tracing the lines of their daughter's faces. At times it can be nice, too, to be swept up in the crowds of others (especially the intriguing outdoorsy crowds and those wearing flowy skirts and Indiana-Jones type hats.

After finding the correct, ACL outsider/hovering crowd that was the same likeness as us, we proceeded to wander the trails and outskirts of the temporary fencing in order to listen to any and all bands. What was not expected, was the wildlife that seemed particularly vivacious on that Saturday afternoon. Turtles were abundant, and jumping off logs like synchronized swimmers in snug one-pieces, and we saw a few feisty swans have a go at some grackles. Per usual, there was that one couple that insisted upon feeding these "delicate" creatures, only to find that the power they can cock their necks with is really quite frightening. So, while some people moshed on the insides of the festival, I climbed out onto a sturdy branch and watched as the most peaceful part of Austin refused to be rippled from its lazy afternoon rituals. And hey, we even got to grab a beer and watch some football afterwards, so all in all I would say it was a rousing success (and very reasonable workout) for one day!

I suppose the best part of Austin is that even though you FEEL like everyone else has money, in reality, there are many people that are in the same precarious, unsteady boat as you, and you know what? You're gonna have a lot more fun winding through the river than the others, and it feels kinda nice when you finally let yourself fall in :-)

Besides, isn't it better to have those unobtainable dreams dangling above you like lovely bobbing clouds than to pluck them down one by one like bruised apples?

Fall-ing

Some people just look at the sky and don't listen.

There is always silence, if you seek to find it. It is hard to be around these people, who are disappointed at the slightest thing, and can be surrounded by friends and all the while wishing for someone else.

I too, am guilty of this. Do I not crave my friends from home? Do I not project their faces, qualities, quirks upon the skinned slabs of others? Yes, indeed I do. But I do try and appreciate those around me, and instead of making irksome faces at those that do not come, I try to hug those that did.

You must cherish the marbles you do have, and put them in your velvet casing even if they are scratched and not as beautiful as the ones you once had. If you don't, they will roll out, one by one, and become lost in the edges of carved tables and sneaky floors. Better to have any game to play than none at all.

But I am guilty, now, of judgement. And that is a gruesome thing to be a part of. So I will just sip my coffee and appreciate this lovely Fall Sunday where all I do is Spring up into the person I want to be on the weekends (but rarely get around to being). One that fills their blustery days with tennis, coffee shops, bikes and baking.

Yes, I think today will be a lovely day, and I will sing to the leaves. I suppose they may be scared, so close to death as they are. But we will celebrate the life, the life, and watch as they spend their last days here in a fiery blaze that we will think about deep into the bleakness of winter. There is always a beauty at the end, for it is a continuous wheel that begins again.