At least a letter from me

NOT yours/done

From my last week in Europe, over a year ago

(I still vividly remember the color of the sky that night)

Regardless of whether or not I got on the night train
it's fucking beautiful outside.

My last day in Castellammare,
I walked down the dock,
in the harbor of the Mediterranean. the bay.
And I stood
up and down I went with the wind blowing my hair
in each direction on that dock
waves like I might have been eaten,
had I feared them.

The water, aqua marine.
Italians have more than one word for blue.
We have adjectives,
light blue, navy blue, dark blue, electric blue.

Madonna De la Aqua.
Spouts of mineral water,
coming from the Madonna herself-
Italians come here to the spout and fill jugs, wash their
faces, pray.
Put together with mosaics made by locals.
Good for digestion.

I feel stronger than I ever have.
Like a horse, an elephant, a whale.
Just because I left my hoodie with a skull
doesn't mean that I have abandoned plans
to play cello in a metal band.

I have become rather accustomed to being alone,
without foreign English speakers nearby,
I think this is as long as I could have taken it.

what should I pray for and how to begin

Step 1: Get out of Bed.

Step 2: Go do something.

Be thankful for all that you have.

Resolve. Patience. Love. Trust. Service to others. Service to self. Remembering without regretting. Letting go and accepting new things as they come. Being ok. Being thankful. Inviting success. Be an artist. I am an artist.

I ate it.

That big black ball hanging onto my esophagus.

It went down my throat and

through my digestive tract

and then it circulated through my veins,

Around in my body, emptying out

until it eventually evaporated through

my sweat

as it dried.

Oh how long,

since I have felt this falling feeling.

At one point, you realize that everything has changed.

And that you made it this way.

You ricochet pavement upturned

unnegotiable frienships,

jumped-up-and-left

and thought, for a second,

that maybe you could just say

yes-and-continue-as-usual.

But then you realized there

was nothing to go back to, or be usual with.

You can come back to that place

that you've called home,

and you can sift through the belongings

of

the-girl-who-was-once-me.

You used to paint your hair and talk to animals.

You used to have people, old friends,

at your fingertips.

You used to sneak out of your window to put

poetry on the windshields of the cars

of the boys that you liked.

And even when you see those old things and

remember those old people, not

one part of it is the same,

nor could it be if you tried.

And you've tried

you've tried really hard.

You've tried hard to set free

and go back all those

times that you tried,

tried to forget them, tried so hard to forget them while in

them, cold and dusty train wrecks in the middle

of the desert trying to catch sunset on a camera

before dinner is served.

And you can thank yourself-or-god-or yourself-as-god.

That you can move away from all of those

teenage big dreams

of making it

and you still wonder if you

can.

Until 5-10 years have gone by

and you're completely satisfied

with the every-perfect-little life and

death that is happening/has happened

quite constantly,

all around you.

From last night

I kept on waking up from dreams, not sure if at this point I remember all of them but

The first one I woke up from. I went to bed around 10:30 and woke up at midnight. I was squatting in this house, there was gang violence going on. Someone shot me but I lived and I was still hiding in the house. I remember people looking in through the windows, shots happening. I woke up after this, crept down into the kitchen and ate bread and butter until I felt better.

The next one I was with my mom, we drove to Portland for Shine a Light, the reason why were were able to was because we were stuck playing this giant video game together, and we got someone to fill our spot. We got there early, and I remembered thinking that I looked kind of crazy from the trip. The art museum was so beautiful and fun and no one had shown up yet, I remember thinking that I would soon see Justin there, but never did.

The last one:

I was at a Whole Foods, and I was buying all kinds of beautiful vegetables. I couldn't afford all of them and checked out through this woman who was flirting with me. Since I didn't have enough money for everything I had to take some items back. As I was leaving she gave me her number on a 3X5 card and had drawn little animals on it. When I got to my car a window had been wiped out, everything in the backseat was gone, and the trunk was wide open, with my pottery wheel gone.

I still feel tired. Too much battling in waking and sleeping life.

Time to Get Better

I dream, I succeed, I grow, I learn.

Katherine's P.S.U.

Artist K.B. curated her own Public Social University on an island and artist residency near Indianapolis. She asked Ro and I to write a letter that she could read at her event on the topic of WATER and here it is:

Dear K. and Public Social University Attendees,

K., congratulations on curating your very own Public Social University! It was always our intention that others would create their own events, and Public Social University would soon spread like a wild-fire throughout the city, or in this case the country. I am currently in Oakland, working on new projects, and getting used to the rhythm of the bay area.

A beautiful part about putting on Public Social University events, among many, was that the more we explored different themes and topics, the more we learned about our community and the wonderful things that people where doing in it. It was also enlightening, that when picking a theme like Oral History, people from all over the city would come out to show and share with us their similar vision. So many people donated their time to learn and teach!

When Ro and I first got together we would go on long walks and talk about what our school would be like as well as what we would like to learn. It was important to me that our events be multi-sensory, as I have been a kinesthetic learner all of my life, I wanted people to be able to come and learn about a topic from many different modalities. As Ro and I were dreaming, everything was falling into place, like being able to use SEA Change Gallery for example, or randomly meeting that new person who just happened to be the missing link to one of our events.

I did my last event on the topic of LOVE. It was a special and important topic for me because I was about to leave on an international journey. I also dreamt of talking about love in a public and open space with strangers. That night, we had lectures, a performance, a conversation share, and food all based on love. It was a perfect prelude to my adventure, and made for a bittersweet goodbye.

It is extremely difficult for me to compartmentalize all of the feelings that I felt during and after Public Social University. I held onto it so tight, I started to become acquainted with how to organize community events, and I felt, and still feel, so blessed to have met all of insightful people that I have throughout that time. If we join together like we know we can, we can create amazing things! We have each other, which is truly something powerful.

I often think of moving back home and continuing the project, I leave myself open for such opportunities to arise.

We can never really know one another

Buckets filling abundant glitter smoked

night skies of fleeting feelings

staying up into the wee hours

because I don't want to wake up

and have this feeling be gone by morning.

Making maps of backyard memories

and all the pain in my body.

The various places where I have felt

how special it is to love.

In my hips, my head, my heart, my toes.

I will show you this map one day

if you have not already

come to know it.

It doesn't quite hit until the bottom.

After I have completely committed to falling.

Until I have completely committed to standing up.

To looking around.

Poem By Thomas Fleming

Hi Dad,

I remember once when I was around 15 years old. I was at a poetry reading and you came to pick me up there. It was at the really old coffee shop, the one that was where Dominos is now.. by where that record shop "Solid Gone" used to be. I remember you came in to pick me up and you recited a poem for us. I remember really enjoying the poem. Sometimes I think about it, something about past lives... does that ring a bell?

Love,

Judy

I once had a chat monk; a Buddhist guy
Who told me when my heart stops and my blood runs dry
I'll come back as another man in a whole new life.

I told him that when you no longer dwell
If you're good you'll go to heaven, if you're bad you'll go to hell
You'll pass through the gates of Peter or you'll live in satan's cell

My last day on this earth did since come and go
I didn't see the fires of hell or the lights of heaven glow
For I wear an unfamiliar face and speak a voice I did not know

I live my life in the body of another
I have a different father and I have a different mother
And the monk that I'd once spoke to has now become my brother.

-----

Something like that.

Love,
The Dad

My Birthplace, Creston Iowa

I am almost 27, I was thinking about going to Creston for my birthday.

I haven't been there since I was a one-year-old, though I have since been writing it on identification papers. The photos of Creston somewhat surprisingly remind me a lot of the town that I grew up in, similar to any small American white-bred agricultural town, perhaps. I imagine myself arriving there with a great sigh, only to return to the pavement in awe and wonder of the absurdity of our lives.

Maybe I will just drive to New Mexico instead.

UPDATE: I went to neither Creston, Iowa or New Mexico for my 27th. I went to Burning Man, it was fun.

Woke Up From This One

In Oakland, CA.

I watched the wine glasses sink in the quick sand.

Off the banks.

The sky were bricks of grey, building blocks.

The ground was a beautiful brown, so close from red.

I went after the glasses as they were sinking.

Like I was so afraid to lose the nectar nightcaps.

I lost my footing and

as I was shrunk into, I fell into the river.

Quick moving sand down and then I was swept away

by the fast-moving current. It curved.

When I side-paddled

hard enough to make it to shore I looked

up and through the brambles noticed a man approaching.

Who could have been the man of my dreams-

tattered, labor-working

vest, suspenders, cowboy hat.

He had a stern, kind deep sadness in his eyes.

He put a gun to my head.

I said.

(on my knees)

I don't want to die

I want to live

I want to live

I want to live.

And he put the gun down.

We embraced so tightly that I could feel the curve

of his back.

Hypnosis

"I am stuck because I am stuck because I am stuck, and so I am stuck."

"I am free because I am free because I am free, and so I am free."

A message sent to my friend Ariel

In San Francisco, CA.

I woke-up from a dream that an old Indian (who was missing teeth) woman was living inside of me. I think I tried to tell her I didn't need her anymore- in an exorcist way she left my body and I met her outside of myself, she expressed that she was keeping me safe. We thought of making art made with sticks and bamboo.

Side Steps

In Portland, OR.

My heart is,

from the depths of 5 layers of surface land-mass,

deposits of sediment and golden, rolling endless hills

of feeling and experiencing

loneliness deep in arches

made by sea-weed kelp forests

seemingly celestial by-ways.

Atop mountains

(photo-synthesized)

gardens of grey neon.

Forging through memories

of all the pain that was swept up again,

by all of the trivial

ins and outs of my every day experience.

so-low.

solo show sailing out to sea.

So imagining I would be with you

until I escaped and ended up by your side.

Even though we both had changed,

our communities were the same-

and it was so glorious to be among you,

still.

In this memory that we were forming

that was no longer about happiness,

but about side-stepping

Maybe avoiding the ontological trauma

we had endured being, separate from one another.

And maybe learning that it was only me missing you-

And romantic -OH- this sentiment was not double edged.

It was not head to head

it was head to tail

edge to handle

Being together, we were, and again remembering why

it happened that we fell

apart

field faked roaming

waist deep and sniffing

pollin-sleet, skin/fresh air in cities.

It's ok that I let you,

and all of this.

go.

Back in the States, stuck in Fallon, NV

I have been back in the United States for maybe almost 3 weeks now, I haven't been keeping track so well. I have been spending a lot of time on Craigslist, applying for jobs, looking up places to live in both Oakland and Reno. Somewhat reluctantly, I admit that if I had a best friend right now, it would be craigslist.org. After my last post on Craigslist, asking to house-sit and dog walk, I got strange emails from someone. I have thus decided to steer clear of posting images of myself on the site. The conversation is shown below. Kind of made me feel uncomfortable.

Thankfully, I am looking on the bright side of things. I am seeing this stage as a time for my ideas to grow and develop, to give myself a chance to apply and do research for things that I normally would not have. I am certain that when I get around my friends, with opportunities abounding, I will find little time to work on my projects, or to research into dreamy programs such as Pland summer artist residency. The key is to remind myself that this was my choice, to enjoy the freedom of not having a home yet. This may be also be my last chance to share a space with my family before I make a valiant effort toward some form of adulthood.

The photo above was taken somewhere between Vienna and Bratislava. The photo below was taken from my computer in San Francisco, after my first night sleep in the US.

*************

Judy Fleming,

I would love to meet you.

I own a new 5 bed 3 bath home in Reno.

I live in it alone.

How old are you?

Any more pics of you?

Glen

------------------

Judy,

Did you get my email?

I want to talk to you about your living situation.

Glen

----------------------------

Yes, I actually just found something else. Thanks, though.

-----------------------

So are you in Reno?

Can I meet you?

Glen

-------------------------

No. Stop emailing me.

The Last Page

In Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Maybe if I didn't fall in love so easily,

it would be easier to avoid heartbreak.

Maybe if I loved myself as much as I loved people,

I wouldn't need to sell all of my belongings,

take a road trip and fly to a foreign country-

just to lock myself up on some hilltop countryside

surrounded by a language that I don't speak

because

things didn't go exactly as I had planned it.

And so.

I got lonely with myself.

I started having dreams

that I was with people-

flying in the sky like a

helium balloon.

Taking ice-cream from passers-by.

and writing poetry on the naked body of a lost lover.

Maybe the hardest part,

was that I made it so hard on myself.

I kept walking and searching

thinking I could force-find

what I was looking for

Only to end up with blisters on my feet and a profound

longing from something from my past,

anything.

(I kept looking for us)

And although I don't think that I have found it.

I have found something.

I have satisfied a deep curiosity

and I feel more able than I ever have.

I don't feel afraid to love

but I feel less certain that it will happen quickly.

If at all.

But maybe that's not the point.

Because I have found that dancing with myself

-eyes closed-

is a great way to dance.

And being and feeling love no matter

with whom, it is just that I am feeling it at all,

is better than being locked up with only myself

to converse with.

Time That I Leave This

In Barcelona, Spain.

Stand among the space

between tears and laughter.

Don't stop walking.

Forget your plans if you ever had any.

To tumble over the steep steps

because you were distracted by the sunset.

The bright colors,

that fill your belly better than any

fruit plucked high from cherry orchards.

In a song you were singing in your mind.

A melody that no one else will ever hear.

Bookends

Pick yourself up,

but I can't

get up.

I can't see clearly

while hunched over in pain.

My stomach is fighting some demon.

And my mind is having colorful dreams.

Of entering my mother's house

and holding her new-born baby,

white-dress-in-white-bonnet
just home from church

and so happy to see me.

I am fasting

but only because it hurts to eat.

I have been shitting rivers of

membrane and blood

every-other-hour.

Thinking

Maybe I am getting it out of my system,

maybe I am purging my past,

maybe I am letting go,

maybe I have food poisoning.

I don't want to go back to that place,

with the constant hum of the television,

children screaming and every

time I try to explain something

there seems to

(literally)

be a language barrier.

That.

And my grandmother

died yesterday.

peacefully.

How she devoted so much time

to loving her family

and her community.

How I am so deeply saddened

by her departure.

So much so that her pictures make me cry.

And every time I think a story of her,

I laugh, and then cry again.

I say,

"It's ok, you're ok."

Until the pain goes away,

and I try to get up once again.

January 10th

In Castellammare Di Stabia, Italy.

Things from my mother-

like a past life.

But I am alive.

Take a run through the citrus fields,

past the olive trees-

run around the town castle-

past the burning fire of a

vagrants breakfast

preparation.

Past the ornate alters of Mother Mary.

Shrines of Mary, mother.

Exit on the porch to the

large marble steps

it's not fair for me to fall in love.

(because)

Missing people hurts too much.

A reflection of current and past jobs.

A sample of some of the jobs I have had in my life: annual report editor for a French non-profit working with folks with disabilities in Hanoi, Vietnam. I have poured cob in a raw foodist family's circular mansion in Central Oregon, been a Resident Assistant on the 15th floor of a Portland State University dorm building, worked as an organic farmer with Osmogaia farm trading work for knowledge and food, cleaned a metal sculpture studio in NE Portland, guest taught art at Portland Community Center, and now a live-in English nanny to two children in Southern Italy.

I hung out with Italian kids all day today. It was great until some of the kids at school found out I didn't speak so much Italian and then started talking in what seemed to be a nonsensical language, to which they started laughing profusely. If that's the worst it gets than it is really, not such a bad job.

update: It gets worse. Today I cleaned up puke that was a mixture of snot and pasta, after which I had to hold the little girl while she screamed, telling her that her mom would be home shortly.

The video below was recorded after leaving a couch surfing experience in San Cugat, Catalunya. That day was a holiday, The Three Kings, where kids get candy if they have been good (that would have made the date January 6, 2011). I would soon be walking the streets for hours, somewhat lost, but enjoying it, to soon peer down at the city of Barcelona and later meet up with a friend in the lovely neighborhood of gracia.

And As Such (poem at 7 am)

In Rome, Italy.

To arise (to come up from) the ashes

Post war apocalypse

Adorned with rhinestones and pearls.

And a memory of you.

to leave it as that,

A memory between us

As stable as five stones in an emptied ancient sea.

Who have experienced- side-by-side

Only that which they will truly understand.

I told you, drunkenly

That if one day you decided that

You wanted to meet up, I would.

(I meant that)

I know that the probability that we will

Collide in patterns of

Mixed up day-to-day

Agreements of life

Is endless ly – so short

Seem too slim especially considering

That we may never meet again in terms

Of singularity.

As of, similar to, now.

Our bodies post pictures of the then.

Our bodies have not forgotten what has been.

And my childless womb knows too that she yearns for this special

Type of person of

Whom you fit the bill.

I also feel simply and sweetly fond of being held in your arms.

You are not a place.

You are not a symbol

Of a person.

You are special to the likes of which

I have never known.

And I know that life gets only better.

For this,

I feel gratitude

(I hold tight to my confidence that I will

last much longer and as such

stronger than what was

previously imagined

of myself).

2010 turns 2011

In Florence, Italy.

She spit him out but not out of malice.

Out of a can-foil submarine

Shapes that you couldn’t make out

Even if they were right in front of you.

Your kiss I had once.

Laying into me like I was a...

prize you had won.

And I liked that.

those kisses were

Soft

those kisses were

simple

Those kisses are

Echoes of we once knew each other.

It was once just as we had left it.

I put the colorful beads in an emptied jar.

Let’s re-scatter them-

Scatter them under the rugs from Africa-

Pavement of ruins- under lids-eye-shut,

Put them in/under, just to…

Just to sneak them back in the jar like

That wafer- that no-one saw me eat.

As if it had never happened.

I’m fucking lost like I never thought that I could have been.

Hand to mouth!

What language are you speaking?

Did you forget your name like I decided I would when I left your city?

Would you remember your name again if everyone started speaking it to you?

Are our fire feet in the front or in the caboose?

Oh to make love whole-heartedly somewhere deep within the intestines of this place.

My heart jumped when I thought,

“You are going there, with nothing much at all.” And you are going there without him.

My first night at my Grandmother's House

I left Portland yesterday and I stayed in Spokane my first night with my sister, Kevin, and my cousin Michael. It was really good to see them. Portland was raining when I left it, the last person I said bye to was Justin, it was the second time we had said goodbye to each other. I cried when this slipped out of my mouth: “I am scared.” My last few weeks in Portland was a series of goodbyes, and tying up loose ends. I feel the first time in a great while ok with being alone. I know that there are things I need to figure out on my own. Sometimes it feels really impossible.

Now I am in Montana. It was a beautiful drive with the leaves changing, and the people and cars growing more and more scarce. I realized that the last time I was in Montana in the fall must have been when I was a small child. I was romanticizing that I would be living in Montana, taking care of my grandmother, and being the Fleming family oral historian. On the way up I listened to old tapes that my father had recorded. These tapes are old oral history from 1987 of many members in my family, some alive some deceased, some I had met, others I hadn’t. I was three years old at the time of the recordings. The tapes are full of stories and laughter- and also of things that were uncomfortable to recount. My grandmother’s voice was so different then. You can hear in the background kids running around, talking and crying, playing high-pitched piano notes, opening and closing the screen door to my grandmother’s old house. I thought of the backyard that opened up to the garden and rickety swing set. You can hear the trains rolling by across the street, and her old phone ringing- all of this is breaking up the conversation. I can tell from these recordings how much my grandmother had been through. As well as how much all of the kids in her family, my aunts and uncles, had been through when my grandfather died. There is too much to report, too many stories, and the sadness that my grandmother might have endured.

When I walked in to her house today, I realized that her health was no joke. I am care giving for her now, and her life is in my hands. While she sleeps the hum of her oxygen is pumping. I give her a cup of pills at night and in the morning, I made her soup and a salad. After she ate, she starting talking about my eldest cousin who had died in a car accident, and my aunt who died several years ago from pancreatic cancer. I wondered if when it comes close to dying, if you start thinking more and more about who you might meet up with again after you die. My grandmother told me that the lord forgives everything, but she said that it is much harder thing, to forgive yourself. She had realized that two months ago, when her health started kicking. I told her that sometimes before going to bed I tell myself good things. Every time that people leave her house, I wonder if it is with a thought that it may the last day that they will spend with her.

Post Script: Below is an oral recording that I took of my grandmother and I. It is the last recording of her voice. I used an excerpt of my interview with her coupled with a video that I took near Snake River, Idaho, on my way from Montana to Nevada- en route to Europe. I miss my grandmother dearly. (post script written March 2011)

Prague Week 3

In my body I know that I am not going home.

And somewhere in my bones

a quiet whisper responds

that I must stay,

that I must also go back there.

Shut the door to my basement sanctuary

making art,

in the garden feet deep in the golden dark soil,

listening to the

squawk of the blue jay.

Somewhere deep in my bones

I know that I am not going home- but maybe.

My hands remember that

I once made things, colorful things-

things that you could cuddle up with,

get lost in.

Somewhere hidden deep within me I am so sad

that I won't get to know you better.

That maybe I am changing so fast

that the me,

with you

can only be around for so long.

When I am meditating

my old friends are with me.

They have not forgotten about me.

Somewhere in the ache of my back,

I will be with you, again, very soon.

*(possible optional ending)

I might have never thought that I could

be so alone in this.

but I am alone and I am able to

be with so many new people-

to experience new things in a way

that I had never thought possible.

On the plane from San Francisco to London

Sitting next to you

was something to get used to.

Lying warm on the sofa-

cuddled up so closely,

that with any sudden movement

we would both (suddenly) fall off.

I can't stop breathing,

like I can't stop loving you.

And I obviously can't be on a flight-

to a new continent,

alone without

intermittently crying my eyes out.

what it is to be alone

far away alone

who lives far

how is being far

being anywhere from exactly this place?

I have forgotten certain things about you so soon.

and I am getting used to the notion that maybe you

have, for me too.

Arrange the suitors in a line-up.

None could have been there for me.

Perhaps because I am too broken,

to really be there for anyone, myself.

To be in love

love like it could be a thing that comes and goes.

Forgotten, to be remembered like it was after seven months

of not seeing you

We felt each other's arms in disbelief-

"Is this you ?

I am still in love with you."

I am fucking heart broken.

And I am not sure where I am going from here.

because,

Moving forward

feels like moving backwards

as we learn from our mistakes

our mistakes become are our memories

And so I

I build, I break.

I break, so that I can build.

I am trying to breathe a fire of my own belly,

to have no doubt that the

one who is doing this

is me.