Rebecca Cook

Yesterday Dale ordered a slender, almost needly tree and it was delivered a little after 7. Which gave us time to decorate it. Roslin was over so it was our special family time, though James wasn't really interested in hanging anything for some reason. Well...we had played 3 games of magic earlier and we were all a little tired from that. The tree is so small it's weird, but I am tired of dealing with the large tree. We had taken…

my level of exhaustion is hard to measure. this virus is unknown, a.k.a no-way-of-knowing-if-we-are-still-contagious*, a.k.a the soul crusher. it is relentless. it will not let us go. it's a terrible trickster, making one think it is gone but then roaring back. a week ago i stood in the kitchen thinking of Job and how maybe God has allowed Satan to corrupt my body which already has enough problems without this life/death struggle to REWRITE MY FREAKING DNA. for that is what…

Tomorrow night, Friday Dec. 1st, Clearstory Arts will...what...premier? Open the show? What do artists say? I don't know. In any case, my two pieces with "angels" in them will be in the Holiday/gift-giving show. My pieces don't fit this theme at all. I even went to the meeting about the show and thought I was in the "spirit" of the thing and now I realize just really NOT. AT. ALL. But that's okay. I wanted to "get my work out there"…

I picked up the canvases from the gallery today. I love them so much. It is beyond gratifying to see my work, images that before today only existed on my computer screen, in living I-can-TOUCH-them color. They are vivid. Strange. Weird. Scary. Ugly. Lovely. Provocotive. I only wish they were on larger canvases. I want everyone in the world to see them and go WTF? Also, learned that my idea of not "caring" about criticism about my art is...BS? We will…

A few years ago I had to have a pain-blocking surgery on my knee. While I was at the small surgical center waiting to be called back for my procedure, I walked around marveling at these paintings on the wall by an artist I had never heard of. Hans Paus. These are either early works by him or someone’s efforts to copy him. In any case, these paintings (on simple canvases—very large, in this tiny waiting room) struck such a chord…

Life was going well. I felt better than I had in ages, ages, ages. A spring in the step, an I-Can-Do-Anything Reading Rainbow feeling. Chin up. Chin up. Thoroughly thoroughly. Perfectly charmed by the upward progress in my life. And then? Bam. And again BAM. And it just keeps on BAMMING. In February we found out that James was in severe heart failure. LIFE CHANGE. LOW-SODIUM diet for AUTISTC ADULT CHILD. WORRY. WORRY. WILL HE JUST DROP DEAD?? Doctor's appointments. My…

i like to see the things i love to eat and drink, to remind myself of possibilities. water is the most perfect and most precious thing ale whiskey wine sumo citrus. like eating the very sun. coconut layer cake, served cold bon-bons with cream centers strawberries strawberry short cake apples Napoleon white grapes watermelon blackberries yellow cake with chocolate frosting, served warm raspberries carrot cake with cream cheese frosting red grapes blueberry muffin with sugar topping blueberry buckle the humble banana…

I have Thrush. I wish this meant that when I open my mouth I warble and trill because my insides are full of birds, but it does not. I wish this meant that when I open my mouth thrushes wing their way upwards toward the heavens, but it does not. It means bad luck. It means shame on you amoxicillin and stress, stress, stress. It means that I only THOUGHT I knew what cottonmouth was. I feel like one of those…

It occurred to me that in order to ever make peace with eating and food I will need to change my eating environment. It's what America needs. It's what I need. (see Marion Nestle) Then it occurred to me to really, really consider what that would look like. What do I really want to eat? When do I want to eat? How? With whom? Do I want to cook? Do I want to fool with the always-somewhat-yuckifying-and vaguely horrifying touching and…

my migraines may be back. i mean really back. i just came off a 12 day bender. and the headache is still here, lurking. f*****g lurker. but, i am not going to let this down dog be kicked, this downward facing dog i am going to get moving. i have gotten moving. get fit with rick! on youtube. i love this guy's energy filming in front of the water in Dubai. lovely thing. i just ordered my FITBIT after LOADS of…

The weekend was awful. Well, Sunday was awful. I had, I suppose, a mini bipolar meltdown. A spin-down. My centrifuge dropped me down its middle into my foggy, overspent brain and just spat me out. This may have been drug-induced, but not completely. Over cards Saturday night, my husband inadvertently insulted me about something—my rudeness, utter lack of manners. And a close friend echoed and encouraged/agreed with him in this. I know they figured that this would never have bothered me…

I don't know exactly what happens when I lose contact with time, the flow of time. I feel out of focus, disconnected. What have I done? I don't know. No, that's not true. What I have done is taken a deep dive into reading/listening to books. I guess it's been, what, 3 weeks ago? I started checking books out of the library again. I reread Then She Was Gone (best narrator ever!) and The Girl on the Train. I also bought…

I read something today, a woman speaking of writing about her days, and if she didn't write about them, she'd begin to feel as though they weren't really happening. I think perhaps I am the opposite. I have been so busy, so satisfyingly busy, emersed. but really, is that true? It is more true to say that we have had an insane amount of shit going down, but that I am happy. content. I have a sense of wellbeing. even when…

friday i got into my swimsuit and got into the water. it was of course, glorious. i intend to get into the water again. this is my local public pool. it is free, indoors, and super clean, but the locker room is a little creepy. when you get out of the shower (there are only 2), anybody who just walks in can see you in all your glory. so i either need a small robe (bulky!), or will have to use…

one day while fishing for the cauliflower i found the baby i had forgotten it, tucked safe in the freezer my little mummy, little mommy's boy one blue eye frozen open... (contact me to hear the rest of poem--rebeccacookwriter@gmail.com)

the evil eye of the daisy 2 pregnancy test and the rise in my center the pressing outward of tiny, unseen hands this child will lift me we will float on the pool of clear water in god's chest we will hold our noses and dive under I will take the child and press its face down and down to the floor of my body and hold it there and stop what happened before before it begins before that desire of…

because my dream of the shower house don't ask me their hands are too small their eyes will not open they are sealed-up shut a purring sound is furring up the edges of the photograph where fifteen pairs of shoes are toed-to-the-line Margaret and Mary Ann whistling just like the boys oh! how starched our undercarriages, how immovable our curls, oh! our bastillion brassieres. someone hurls a pair of batons going brilliant going bang blistering the night air those of us…

shrinking up, aka i would give up my singing voice for a cig the absurd shoe in the absurd room the absurd effort of cheer my angry foot, my swollen calf, it’s a long way to fetch him from his moldering place, his such-a-small room in such-a walled in house. i am a scurrying mouse, arranging the cake, the candles, small plates of sandwiches, fishing through the ancient drawers in my father’s house while my brother sits silent in his chair.…

the miscarriage and what came after the baby fell out so I put it back in to grow it to size to correct the stitches I dropped I put in another sleeve I lined fifty-five buttons up the... (contact me to hear the rest of poem--rebeccacookwriter@gmail.com)

the abortion and the book of rules, aka why a fish was never a baby I thought I’d keep the abortion in a cup, a jar with holes poked in the lid so the moon shines through at night, so the thing will turn to a fish and... (contact me to hear the rest of poem--rebeccacookwriter@gmail.com)

because my little pony tempered the earth what's the face of this broken heart, its dreary, melting face. hey, ma, you look sad, hey, ma, you should try friendship love, and generosity. what's the face of a mother erased... (contact me to hear the rest of poem--rebeccacookwriter@gmail.com)

These Rivers Endlessly Endlessly Then I will swim the dreaming of my house, the well-mannered happenings of my house, the slip noose hanging from the frame of my house I will dream the bright waters of my house gathering in the broken heart of my house. For it will be the bear-claw quilt that... (contact me to hear the rest of poem--rebeccacookwriter@gmail.com)

because not even god I have put together the ankle to the hand pulled the body down into the arch of the foot secured the instep to the baby’s nose look, ma— it’s an inverted swing set it’s a solid acre of... (contact me to hear the rest of poem--rebeccacookwriter@gmail.com)

and for his head a sapphire crown They took him up in a net of jewels. Like a chandelier rising to the ceiling they incrusted him with light and lifted his body... (contact me to hear the rest of poem--rebeccacookwriter@gmail.com)