A peek into my journal

Sunday, March 11^th

“I cannot imagine a better idea than this. My lungs pump, knees and ligaments strain to navigate the steps and inclines, passages. I buy wine, step into ancient churches, dip my fingers in holy water, make the sign of the cross, bow my head. Of course, every sip of light and color, the square grains of sugar that puddle in the coffee cup, lemons that have dropped from swelling trees, are sacrament, all sacrament.

Boys play football in marble squares, a man lets out the long lines of his net, shaking so the waves make the ripples of the sea catch more light. The sea is a fingerpaint of shadows pooling and puddling – light streaks of grey, turquoise where it meets the rocks. The rocks are themselves ripples, as if some iron rake combed the shore in curves, the ridges of shale split open. Water kneads knuckles against the round rocks. Wind brushes and fingers every branch. Down in the water beneath me, I can see through clear blue to the land’s more secret curves and coves. Up on the tops of hills, towers ring.

Trees are budding, and blooms opening to the warm kiss of air. I breathe, and feel breath go down to places that have not been filled in long long months. Feel breath bringing life to my blood, feel my blood as red as wine; see the cup and the bread, the pierced side that gives me this permission to live.

And He saw that it was good. And He gave me eyes to see, and hands to fill – with lemons, with cups of cappuccino, with blue water, with holy water. With time.”

Tuesday, March 13^th

“The air is dry, cool, flecked with moths and wings; bird shadows smooth over the grass and depart. The air is still and moving like breath, a living air that has breathed you in. There is no distinction between toes and stones; you’re brought inside of it.

The blue overhead slides down to a stretched-out grey along the horizon, where the blue-mirror of sea then deepens. Smooth sea currents like skaters-paths stir through the rippled face of the water. Sun scatters off spray and the white foam where blue meets rock. Turquoise where the sea shallows.

I lie on a polished stone bench and feel how my hip bones push down on the flat. Stone is warm and seeps up through my shirt, melting me into the bench. I can no longer feel the thin membrane that holds my cells apart from the air. It gets in. My pores expand to let in the sensations, the small sounds as they tickle an ear drum, the squint of light where it intersects eyes, the way feet and hands and muscles stretch to fill the day. I try to save it – the day making a deposit, a ray on carbon paper, a stamp on skin.

Words are a leaky bottle, hold things in a shape of their own making, fermenting in time.”