Rail Travel

Some people see time as a unit of measurement, simple and inanimate and standard. An hour, a second, a year. Chopped up segments of life.

But  I think time has a personality, an essence, and sometimes, it changes.

And in the last week, as spring slides towards summer in a riot of wildflower color, it has been energetic, forceful.

Sometimes it is quiet and lazy, lounging in the sun,

But his week, it has been loud and riotous,

And the days have slipped from my fingers like silk, impossible to hold on to.

My eyes are wide open but I still feel as though there are things I am not seeing.

I stay up late and wake early

But still the hours collide into one another,bouncing, crashing, bumper-cart moments. 

I am filled with the kind of manic excitement that is one step away from heart-pounding fear,

And I know that nothing will ever be the same.

That each of the routines that govern my life are about to be tossed away like last Sunday’s paper.

I will use an alarm clock instead of my father’s steady voice,

And I will take a shower with flip flops on, my shampoo in a plastic caddy

I will walk to class  across a foggy morning quad instead of driving,

And no longer will my mornings resound with the smooth dark chocolate voices of an NPR news show.

In four months, 120 days,

These things will happen.

And this week I began go realize how fast it all may go,

That time may not sit back for me to say my goodbyes.

That the railroad tracks of my days are pounding with the sound of my future rushing to meet me, 

About to let out a harsh train shriek of arrival.

I will have to trust in God and myself,

And I will  have to begin. 

Choreography

When I was a little girl, I took dance classes,
Because I was going to be a star,
A triple threat,
I was going to dazzle.

So I twirled through that room full of mirrors, my mistakes on a thousand surfaces.
A muscular woman in a leotard, telling me to turn faster, keep my head up, make it sharper.
I was always a few steps behind
I was lifting the left leg when they were on the right,
Stepping forward when all the other girls were on their way back.
My limbs got tangled, and I would fall, over and over again.

I was clumsy and messy,
My hair never stayed in a proper ballet bun, high and tight.
My costumes pinched, all that suffocating sparkle.
When a girl in my class complained,
An older dancer said to her
They aren't supposed to be comfortable. They are supposed to be beautiful.
And isn't that what we were supposed to be? Beautiful, if not comfortable?

I felt like I was neither.
I was just a kid with a terrified grin, trying to remember the steps.

Now I dance in yoga pants and a tank top
My hair in a simple pony tail.

I make my own choreography,
And sometimes,
I fall,
because there is a marvelousness in the unexpected

I don't plan ahead.
I make music with my body
hands pounding, feet thumping.
I don't think out the next step,
don;t make it all fit in eight counts,  or even sixteen.

Now when I turn I make sure it isn't sharp,
because the world is full of watercolor streak softness

I dance a little differently now
But I still dance.
I dance comfortably
And beautifully too.
I unfurl like a flag,
Unfold like a crisp letter.
And I bloom.