For years, we grew a mountain.

Dearest Kellyn: To think that some years ago a woman gave birth to you. And here we are, women too. Tied together as women; a connection unsevered by a country's worth of distance. There may be a poem in this but for now it will be what it is.

June 16, 2010
Shimla to Dharamsala

We cling to the sides of mountains, and squeeze through brown fields where the only sign of life is a drifting pink sari. A hot pink sari balancing a bowl of water on her hot pink head. A husband with hot pink lips waits for his brown wife with a bowl on her head. A lifeless field. Water me ( Read more... )

I wrote a lot while in India ( Read more... )

I am trying to construct a history: I want to know how the people move in relation to the rain clouds. I am trying to understand how the northern hill-towns were built, with houses that appear to be stacked one on top of the other, their occupant's secrets tucked between them. I want to hear the romantic twist of the occupier's narrative - the ( Read more... )

Happy Birthday, dear Kellyn. Tethered hearts.

At times, the self is exhausting.

I do not know how to communicate my current state in sophisticated terms, nor do I know how to present my thoughts by any means other than to build myself a straw house of understanding - an attempt to rectify some sense of clarification that can and will fall victim to slight shifts ( Read more... )

M. and I are able to begin conversation from a starting place that only we share. It begins from the place that develops somewhere between the greetings we exchange when we reconnect in 'our home' after days at work and school, and when we awaken, together, in that space. It's when we're resting, together, and occupying our shared space, together, ( Read more... )

I don't think of her often now. Only occasionally do I find myself running soft pads of fingers over the contours of the memories she has left me with. There are the notes scrawled on the backs of framed posters that sit dutifully stacked with others in the attic. I wonder when the thing of it, the mountain of those moments will come charging up, ( Read more... )