from Grist, 2012 You are always swimming. Because when you were four years old your father tossed you in the waves, threw you up high and then you crashed down, your ears and mouth full of salt. You sank to the sandy bottom and he lifted you up again, and again, and you can’t stop laughing, even now you laugh with the memory of it bubbling up from your center. You are always six months old sitting in the little tub…

I’ve had increasing pain in my incision sites the last week, and last night I couldn’t sleep with my CPAP mask. I slept in my bedside recliner so my snoring wouldn’t keep Dale up. I was heavily medicated for the pain, so my sleep was in and out and I kept looking at my phone. This pain is sharp and I think it is normal. It’s a kind of stretchy feeling, like my skin is stretching and crawling into a new…

I saw my physician’s assistant to the dermatologist on Thursday. She is the one who diagnosed me with HS. I've been seeing her for years and we had discussed this HS diagnosis before, but she had been reluctant to make it. I think the main reason that she went ahead and slapped that diagnosis on me was because I have been on a pretty highish dose of doxycycline for inflammation and I still flared up, and so that she could get…

I have woes oh woe is me I try so hard to never give into the woe is me my skin (diagnosed with HS yesterday look it up oh the shame of it! Silly silly don’t be ashamed. Started a Biologic yesterday) and woe the head and its fissures of electric green terrible aching never know when it will hit how can I ever keep to a schedule if I can’t ambulatory myself on any given day and also notwithstanding the…

So let's talk about skin care. I'm not good at it, but now that I'm 60 it seems to be more important...well, maybe because I just had the considered-medically-necessary brow lift and I'm thinking, well, time to make a greater effort. The biggest problem has always been rinsing, the hassle of it, getting water everywhere. And the yuck of heaviness of just-moisturized skin. And the sweatiness from it. And the hassle of just wanting to go to bed already, or just…

it's a little like being two people. no. multiple people. i am a colony of girls i am a company of birds my brain looks and divides observes and pronounces sifts through and lifts up. my brain is a ticker tape never ceasing, not even in sleep how can i ever be expected to pay attention to what? to how? to be slow is to be in-between to be peering through the space between behind within the eyes the green place…

Perhaps the way to make a lasting change is to be the change, be the path you want to be walking on, let the road rise to meet you at ten am because you’ve already been on that road since five am yesterday.  If I want to eat, less, better, differently, then I really must needs WANT to change the way I eat right now. Already. Today. Just a moment ago when I made the decision. Changing a habit, and there…

My mouth now sometimes thoughtfully considers the tastes it discovers, the tastes it anticipates, the breakfast the lunch the mostly boring suppers; the mouth likes boring things, likes the sameness of the days, the sameness of the hours counting down each day; the mouth is more aware, more greedy, more forgiving, more obnoxious, more me and myself and all things bread & butter, brown sugar, steaming oats, lentils & rice, watery things with tiny bubbles all working toward the good–this is…

Writing poems is a fire, blue and hotter than anything else. Writing poems is a kind of violence, a taking over, a spinning and dropping and flying thing that possesses. And consumes. And refines. Words are the flame under the kettle. I am the kettle. I am the little tea pot. I steam up and the water comes pouring out, scalding, poem after poem after poem, hot off the presses. I will be famous, I will be remembered, I am genius…

The hardest thing about learning to be mindful is slowing down, is learning to pause. I do meditation using the CALM app every day. Even though it is very difficult for me to make new habits I have made this one. Am I good at it? Do I do it “properly?” Do I sometimes fall asleep? I've learned to ignore these questions and to simply concentrate on showing up and breathing. The bonus is the daily lesson that is almost like…