Tag Archives: air

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Red sun

This is a sunrise, not a sunset, two days ago on Marrowstone Island. The air quality was deteriorating and I am mostly staying indoors today. We are at high particulate matter and high fine particulate matter, coming from the fires to the east. The recommendation is to mask outside, keep windows closed, use an air filter and mask outside. Also to not exercise heavily outside.

It looks sunny out now, but the air looks wrong. Dirty. My lungs don’t like it at all, not surprisingly. I hope people are taking care of themselves. Stay in, take it easy, mask. Our air is supposed to improve tomorrow.

Blessings and peace you.

Real time air quality map here.

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Sing from the sea

This is another poem where I did not know where it was going when I started it. I was thinking about the sea and sirens and singing. My poems go where my heart thinks I should go, but I don’t know where that is until the poem is done. And it’s clearly a song and next I need a tune. And chords. And more practice.

I sing from the sea, from the sea, from the beautiful sea
tied to the mast, you won’t come to me

unplug your ears, unblock your heart
before it breaks and truly stops
listen to my lonely heart
we’ll make music and never part

I sing from the sea, from the sea, from the beautiful sea
hear my voice, listen to me

our hearts melt together like stone
in the depths of my volcano home
you shut your heart down, run away
lava strings like glass, all the way

I sing from the deep, from the deep, from the beautiful deep
small child calling, she still weeps

volcano boiling from ocean floor
new island built as lava roars
small child with faith as adult caves to fear
small child holds your heart dear

I sing from the land, from the land, from the new born land
don’t be afraid, take my hand

hope has feathers, a poet said
in the darkest time, hope is not dead
I morph to dragon, to kite, to bird
your resistance is so absurd

I sing from the air, from the air, from the smoke filled air
vision dark, can’t see where

circle in flight, hope you too
listen to the small child hidden deep in you
a promise is a promise, you know it’s true
I do not give up on you

I sing in the wood, in the wood, in the beautiful wood
five elements sing as all things should

In the wood in the trees
on an island in the sea
in the heart of the volcano
my heart is free

I sing from the sea, from the sea, from the beautiful see
no matter what happens, my heart is free

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I took the photograph at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, a painting by Shinique Smith.

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you know you are hypoxic when

…singing. Singing on oxygen is a challenge. Why? Well, because I am TRAINED. I am trained to breathe through my mouth, slowly filling my lungs, for the next phrase. I don’t breathe through my nose because that is noisier, might make a sound during a rest.

No, really. Singers and conductors think that way. PERFECTION is not achieved but we sure have fun trying.

So if I breathe through my mouth as trained and ingrained, and the oxygen is coming by nasal cannula….

….I am goofy and hypoxic by the end of the song. WHY do I feel like I might fall over, I think? WHAT the hell is the matter with me? OH. I HAS NOT BIN BREATHING THE GOOD OXYGEN STUFF. Facepalm. Nosebreathe.

But it’s pretty ingrained. I keep forgetting.

The good news is I feel WAAAAY better. My lungs don’t feel like someone stuck a burning torch in them any more. It hurt for six weeks, every time I sat up or stood up, the muscles of heart and lung HURT. I knew it was my heart but I also was pretty damn sure it was not coronary artery disease and it wasn’t congestive heart failure. That day I went to the ER, normal labs and echocardiogram even though it hurt like shit. I do wish the ER doctor had thought to walk me. He would have put me on oxygen then and I would have gotten better faster. And then I think of 2014 and 2012 and 2005. I didn’t think of it and neither did ANY of my doctors. I did USE oxygen in 2014. I had my father’s tanks because Evil Lincare had kept delivering them even when my father had a concentrator and so there were 16 or 18 full size oxygen tanks in his small house which is a huge fungking fire hazard, those asshats.

Now Lincare is delivering to me and under much improved management. I think the man who delivered it WAS management. He said yes, they had some shady and inappropriate behaviors in the past but he has been KICKING BUTT AND TAKING NAMES and they aren’t going to do that shit any more, not with him in charge. I liked him. Thank goodness Lincare is being run ethically.

I have pulmonary function testing today. I think that will be abnormal. However, I am enough better that I may no longer qualify for oxygen. In which case my insurance may try to refuse to pay for it. Oh, goody, a totally legitimate fight and they will be darn sorry if they try to refuse the oxygen. Mr. or Ms. State Insurance Comissioner! CEO of Insurance! Board of the Insurance Company! Poor sorry little rural family practice doctor, now disabled from her clinic for her fourth pneumonia and ya’ll refusing her oxygen when she has no income because her disability doesn’t kick in until she’s been sick for three months.

Heh. Bring it on. Got my tai kwan do, kinda rusty, my katana, a yard long rusty pipe wrench… bet I get coverage for the oxygen.

Meanwhile I either gotta stick the nasal cannula in my mouth when I am singing or bloody well breathe through my nose…..

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in the air

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: ebullient.

I took this at the Great Port Townsend Bay Kinetic Sculpture Race. This is not part of the race, but our local school Robotics team, showing how many balls their robot can shoot into the air. I think the yellow balls look ebullient and the small observer is entranced. She is probably writing programs by now.

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Mundane Monday #173: skies

For Mundane Monday #173, my theme is skies: not blue skies. Skies that worry me. This is a fire sky, the sun setting through smoke that we can smell. There are no big fires near us, so I don’t know if this is California, Oregon, Washington, or Idaho smoke…

Add a message with your post or a pingback and I will list them next week. There might be a delay, because I have some travel soon.

For the Mundane Monday #172 prompt: windy:

KL Allendoerfer joins in: https://klallendoerfer.wordpress.com/2018/08/06/mundane-monday-windy/

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Mundane Monday #172: windy

Today’s Mundane Monday #172 theme is windy.

Last night a friend and I attended a reception at the Port Townsend Marine Science Center. A beautiful evening and windy. We were welcomed by this wind sock octopus.

 

Entries for Mundane Monday #171: faces.

KLAllendoerfer chooses clock faces.

Send a link or a comment and I will add your post next week.

And here are some of the denizens of the Marine Science Center:

orange and purple

I am posting this now, because even though it’s 6:28 am on Sunday for me, it’s already  1:28 am on the Kamchatka Peninsula, on Monday! I live more toward the tail end of Monday, so I am deciding to post on Sunday once it is Monday somewhere!

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the mystic E2 dragon

We are writing a quest where we ask different people to write more about a topic. The requests are anonymous and some are for existing titles that have no write ups. This topic was given to another person and then I was asked to write about it as well. My sister was an editor on the everything2 website. She was born in the year of the dragon. She died of cancer in 2012.

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the mystic E2 dragon

 

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“They want me to write about the mystic E2 dragon.”

Laughs.

“So I think of you.”

Silence… a weight. “So it’s me?”

“No, but you are a dragon, born in the Year of the Dragon.”

“Like we’re Chinese.”

“Yeah, well.”

“And you are an ox.”

“Thanks.” I wait. “Come on, show up.”

The dragon is made of a coat hanger, a rough gold cloth and black felt hand sewn to the body, thin gold cloth on the wings, gold earrings with rubies for eyes. Probably fake rubies, I’m not sure. I made it in college, tail to curl around the neck so that it can sit upright on my shoulder when I walk around. A gold fire lizard. I gave it to my sister, who said I could take it back when she lay dying.

The dragon morphs and now fills the living room, pushing on the walls and squashing me. The scales are hard and hot!

“Stop it!” I say, “Don’t destroy the house!”

The dragon is now couch size. My couch groans under it. The dragon is very alive and smoke rises from her nostrils. It manages to look like my sister, like a dragon and like the borg all at once. Metal and wires on the left side of the dragon’s face, eye socket with a metal camera that whirrs.

“Mind the couch.” I say.

She shifts a little, not shrinking. I peel myself off the fireplace, with the ache of the metal insert and the mantel on my back.

“So.” I say, “what should I tell them?”

She narrows her eyes at me and shrugs.

“What do they want to hear?”

“You tell me.”

“Keep the site alive.”

“Yeah, ok.” I wait.

She looks around. “Your dust bunnies are dying of old age.”

“That’s ok.” I say. “They are better than a guard dog.”

She snorts smoke.

“Tea?” I say. I have it made already, on a tray. The tray was painted by one cousin, the tea cloth woven by another, the teapot made by our mother, with my poem on it.

She takes the cup and saucer delicately. Five claws on each forefoot.

“What’s it like?” I say.

Shrug again, as she sips the tea.

I wait.

“I’m not telling you. And this is your active imagination, so what a stupid question.”

“But I am talking to the unconscious.”

“Yeah, whatever. And anyhow, you’ve already decided, puny human.”

“Ox.”

“Ok.”

And here a curtains drops, while I thank her and we say goodbye.

 

Submitted to the Daily Prompt: candid.

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Butterfly Girl Comes to Visit

For the Daily Prompt: carve. I think of skiing, bicycling. And I think of a piece of my heart. I wrote this in the early 2000s.

Butterfly Girl Comes to Visit

She is so beautiful with her wings
multicolored many splendored lights caught and multiplied
as she flutters

I freeze
I am an ogre
Huge and clumsy
I know from past past many times
Not to touch you
My rough fingers have brushed the tiny feathers from your wings
You cry in pain and your flight becomes erratic
My kiss is just as bad
Rough lips
If I move the wind of my passing blows you against a window
You fall stunned

I hold and crush
the box of feelings that can hurt you
Sorrow, anger, fear, dismay
Even fatigue turns my aura red
And scorches your wings

I hate to cause you pain

Fly butterfly girl
My baby needs me, my pager rings
My ogre husband stirs
The effort of holding still plain on his face
I can’t hold still much longer

Butterfly girl
Fly on home