Notes From a Sea Turtle

heavy...
she weighs something
yet floats
buoyed by the water

swimming
she quests..
moving around rocks
and carried
by currents

at times she rests
unbothered
on the ocean floor
as fish scurry by, busy

she loves the manta rays
the octopi
the bigger breeds...
they go on their way
in a certain rhythm
balanced by their arms,
wings...
these appendages
that make them as amphibious
as she
even when they don't arrive on shore

on the sand
out of water
she is not
as convinced...
she feels vulnerable
more apt to
pull her head into her shell
and wait
until the tide of voluntude
pulls her back in
to her element

Comments

I am a Turtle

Its always the beginning that is different, and even when disguised by excitement of the new and fresh, it challenges. Adjustments to having no root, even in the face of being the Turtle, where everything I need is here, beneath my shell. And this shell, not hard to penetrate, but instead welcoming, inviting new friends in, new loves, new sensations. But I am the newcomer and even if the people around seem welcoming, there is history to be made here, and this comes to haunt late at night when alone in a tiny bedroom in a house that isn't mine and in a land where there are no known references to pull from. And so a sudden nostalgia. Things back home look delicious and much more favorable. That little brownstone pad in Brooklyn with a local cafe around the corner, and good friends just a phone call or a subway ride away. This, even knowing that I'm going to give this new city in another country a real shot. Plans. Not just to find another place to live here, one whe...

Tango

Marvelous Night for a Moondance for www.argentinastravel.com So there I was—a more-or-less intermediate level tango dancer, with all the bravura that a lifetime of other dance techniques has given me, which means the tendency to show off when I don’t know what I’m doing. I was in a very popular class of what is conveniently called “ nuevo tango ,” signifying that everyone is young and experimental and in this case, pretty good. We were learning some complicated steps and finding new possibilities with each different partner and I was trying to hold my own along with everybody else. After the teachers demonstrated the next sequence, I looked around for my next partner. I felt someone standing next to me, waiting for me to turn and catch his eye. Dirty nails, fraying socks, greasy hair, bad teeth - there he was, my next potential partner, shooting me a charming, inviting, cocky smile. With a confidence completely unfitting to his appearance, this scruffy mix of pira...

Cold Cafe

It was so cold. Like every day. Grey and cold and if you turned the wrong way, a vicious slash would slap you across the face. But she went out without a hat because it was now April. It was her first year in Berlin. So many things here were a first. The roommates. The language. The change in her career. But she was fine with it all, nomadic and adapting. The only thing that rankled was the lack of a man. The cold weather was bringing it on, this need for a warm body to press up and into. She was exploring streets. She’d heard of a café and found it quite near to where she liked to go. It was small and the coffee was as good as they’d said. She sat facing the wall near the door, reading. Two women and a man entered. One woman was older, perhaps her age. The other, young, and the man was probably hers. He was lovely and they spoke French. She observed, as she does, rating his beauty over her coffee and book. He didn’t appear to notice. T...

Musings and Ruminations

Search This Blog