The word tethered makes me think of the year and a half on oxygen. I had a standing concentrator for in the house. This means that I have oxygen tubing following me on three floors. I had to have connectors and I got caught on everything. I tripped over it. I wondered why it wasn’t helping and discovered the tubing was unplugged. The kittens chewed holes in it.
The sea plants are tethered too, to rocks, to grow up from the deep. I think this looks like a distressed stranded mermaid. Poor thing, her rock, her foundation has been thrown on shore by a storm. She can’t get home. I took this in May 2021, when I was still on continuous oxygen.
Human, pfaugh
I give up
I don’t want to be one
I can be anything I want to be
I want to be a mermaid
again
I sink into the sea
and down to the depths
scales and tail and breathe the sea
the water cools the burns
my charred burnt skin
and lungs
Such a fail again
every time I try
to be human
yes, legs, I can do that
it always makes my voice hurt
but those damn wings
come with the legs
It’s hard to hide the wings.
I don’t know how
but they sense them
even when I hide them
It really pisses me off.
It’s the broken ones that show up
though now I think maybe
they are all broken
they all wander around
pretending they are ok
using lies to try to appear nice
hating parts of themselves
calling those parts unclean spirits
and casting them out
DEMON! DEVIL!
over and over
I try to pretend they aren’t there
the cast out
and I am human too
but the demons kneel and lay their monstrous heads
in my lap
crying
cluster round me
begging for my help
I always fail.
I try to stay present
with the person and the cast out
but eventually I can’t stand it
and I say something wrong
and the stupid human thinks I am the demon
and casts me out too.
I wait and hope.
I wait and hope with the monsters
with the rough beasts.
“You have wings,” say the demons, “Help us!”
“I can’t.” I say, “The humans must help themselves.”
The monsters weep and wail.
Finally I am sick of it again.
I send them home
and I go home too.
I have failed again
and must endure falling through the atmosphere
my feathers and skin a burning star
I am sick of it.
I give up, Beloved.
I am a failure.
I can’t do this.
I must go to the sea again.
Here is the trench, the deepest part of the ocean
I stop swimming and let myself sink
Slowly the light disappears
I am in the ink black
Unlikely isn’t evil. Well, I am tired of evil, so U is for Unlikely because I am tossing in a monkey wrench. U for unexpected, too.
Back to etchings: U is for Unicorn. This is titled “The Virgin and the Unicorn II”, number 10/75, 1986, H. Ottaway. The etching is 7 inches by 8 inches and the paper is 11 inches by 15 inches. She would often frame them mounted but not matted, in frames that have a slot to hold the glass away from the picture. She did her own framing and especially disliked cutting glass. I knew when a show was close because she would be framing and grumpy.
Do mermaids go on vacation? I think they would come up rivers and explore. Lie around on the banks and talk about the ocean and whales and fish and annoying tourist boats.
I have been traveling recently and have seen some amazing art! I wish my mother were still alive and I could travel with her and with my sister! I think this mermaid family is just a delight and I really like it.
I took this photograph last summer at North Beach. I thought she looks like a stranded mermaid, thrown up on shore. I couldn’t move her, she was twice my length. The rock attachment had come too, up from our sea beds.
Happy solstice. Today marks the one year day from when I realized that I was having my fourth round of pneumonia, with hypoxia, agitation, fast twitch muscle dysfuntion and felt sick as could be. I am way better but not well. That is, I still need oxygen to play flute, to sing, to do heavy exercise and to carry anything heavy. Which is WAY better then having to wear oxygen all the time. Today I find a connection between the lungs and the brain, in quanta magazine. This video talks about a new found connection between cilia and the brain. We were taught that cilia and flagella are for locomotion, powered by tubulin. However, this shows that cilia behave like neurons and there is a connection. Since my peculiar illness seems to involve cilia dysfunction in my muscles and lungs, so that I get pneumonia, and the brain, because I am wired when it hits, this is a fascinating connection. If neurons developed from cilia, the dual illness makes a lot more sense. Hooray for quantum mechanics! We use it in medicine every single day.
I go in the sea of dreams open the chest the trunk the saddlebags Empty the dirty laundry Of emotion On the floor Grief and joy Fear and hope Mine All mine
There is a place Beyond words I see you in that place It is very old And very young It is so frightening to go there Lose words The first time It is haunted and hunted
Are you aware Of that place Do you go there Of your own volition? Or do you struggle Fight and suffer in the Choppy boundary between air and water Fear drowning Water surrounds you Above you too You are in the wordless place Over your head Are you too deep?
Open your eyes In the green water light A mermaid waits to lead you To a rope to a raft And me
Discover and re-discover Mexicoβs cuisine, culture and history through the recipes, backyard stories and other interesting findings of an expatriate in Canada
Engaging in some lyrical athletics whilst painting pictures with words and pounding the pavement. I run; blog; write poetry; chase after my kids & drink coffee.
Refugees welcome - FlΓΌchtlinge willkommen I am teaching German to refugees. Ich unterrichte geflΓΌchtete Menschen in der deutschen Sprache. I am writing this blog in English and German because my friends speak English and German. Ich schreibe auf Deutsch und Englisch, weil meine Freunde Deutsch und Englisch sprechen.
KO Rural Mad As Hell Blog 
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