Children sit playing bongo drums
scraggly hair couples
in loving circles
signes of infinity
scraped on each dirty neck
a tribe of the present
anti-
government, taxes, rules, 
hey but that was my parking spot.
What have you done, America?
He's out on parole after three months
for rape?
Flowers gently rest in the barrel of the
 soldiers rifle
and gentle fingers 
sign the go-ahead
to let Fat Man and Little Boy 
fly.
The mind's eye sees that day
and some guy on the hill has
a never greasy formula to fix all these
blemishes on the six-o-clock news.
There's East Coast
where breakfast is served all night
to pierced platinum haired people
seeing the speed of life and
running with it, car by car.
Where a diamond is a rock
and gold chains are as common as roasted chestnuts on a streetcorner.
West coast has
tans,
who's washing my car today?
Skipping on bleached streets
views from a mountaintop of the
forest hills
with huge cuts and
chunks missing from the wooded hills
eaten by the man-parasite.
Who's got time for dinner together?
Lunch together?
Nope.
What have you done, America?

They're right.
The ones that
walk
strides matching beats welling up in the soles of their
converse.
They walk easy
like Sunday morning
never lifting their heads to
see anyone else walk by
because those that don't feel the swelling music
don't exist.
I long for that note-filled solitude
every
​beat.

​If I didn’t talk about myself
Or write about myself
Or think of myself everyday
Or journal about myself
Or what I want
Or wanted
Or thought I wanted
And watched (and listened) to those around me instead
To see what they have to say, how they move, how they just…are
So much focus on ourselves/myself
I’m sick of thinking of my own wants and needs
I think now about being surrounded by people in capes representing their countries as they hoped to get a glimpse of the Pope in Portugal
Why were they there
Who were they
What were each of their stories, these young people from all over the world
There was so much humanity
I met someone the other day
At the dentist
I asked her how she was doing
She looked like a normal human with a normal life
And then she told me about the twins she is carrying
And how she is a surrogate for an Italian couple who are gay
And cannot carry their own child
They were hoping for a sibling
She has been their surrogate before
And they got two
She was feeling sick the day before
And fainted, hit her head, had to be admitted to the emergency room
This angel of a human
Carrying life for those who cannot
Who chose to share her true self with me
While I waited for a cavity to be filled on my child
And I was struck by her honesty
And the fact that she was willing to reveal so much to me
It made me feel like I want to know more about EVERYONE
How would you like to live?
What do you want from this life?
What are your truths?
What are your secrets?
What makes you yourself?
Are you curating a life you love?
What are your hurdles?
Do you love yourself?
Are you happy?
Are you happy?

​I didn’t know what to expect when I winged my way to Portugal
My own pilgrimage, combined with 1.5 Catholics on their way to see the Pope
(this overlap was accidental, but oh what a happy accident)
But I knew I would be safe with my people
yet I worried
that I would fall into a flare up of one of my illnesses
or that I wouldn’t sleep
or I wouldn’t be able to keep up with my sweet yoga crew.
I’m still scared of my body.
But I landed. I went on the journey, even though I was scared.
We arrived in the hilly, colorful town
full of boundless bougainvillea flowers, stairs, views of the vast river, the ocean, of life.
We dropped right next to an old Roman amphitheater,
met up with friends I haven’t seen in years,
a reunion that is so sweet I am still trying to find the words.
But I want to write something quickly, put words to my experience
before my brain is tainted by regular life.
I’m so proud of all of us,
for how far we’ve come in four years.
Four years ago, we were different people.
In four years, we’ve overcome loss, tragedy, depression, separations, sickness
and a worldwide pandemic.
But so much grew…so many seeds my sweet friends have planted, and it is my profound and deep honor to bear witness to their new lives, to see how far they have come.
New partnerships, new life, new jobs, new ways of being in the world.
We’ve all worked so hard, tried to heal and grow with such care.
We keep saying we’ve leveled up.
This trip made us level up again.
We surfed (!), ate amazing food, visited different towns, hiked to an abandoned Monastery
on a blustery day, lay on the beach, swam in the Atlantic Ocean, taught each other yoga, hugged (a lot) experienced a Fado Portuguese music performance, did healing ceremonies, hung out in a castle, laughed, cried (me), visited museums, we did it ALL.
And walked up a lot of hills.
And, in the midst of all of the adventuring, I forgot to worry. I forgot to wake up each day wondering if my body would cooperate. I forgot to be sad. I forgot to live the lie I think I keep telling myself. I was just BEING.
So now, now, I am sitting at the airport
halfway home
mulling over what I want my life to look like now.
This new space that has been created is such a gift,
one that I refuse to squander.
I don’t know exactly which steps I will take moving forward
But one thing I am sure of, is that I know some of the best people on the planet, and I love them more than myself.
And right now, that is enough.

​There isn’t perfect cinema.
We watch to be numbed, to be taken out of ourselves.
But sometimes, sometimes,
There is something that hits us hard, hard in our hearts.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Crack. Sparkles.
And we know we are connecting with the greater creative.
The author Elizabeth Gilbert says:
“Ideas move around space, seeking humans who will take them on and give them life.”
According to Gilbert, humans do not give rise to ideas:
“Ideas exist independently of us. This means that ideas are free to come and go as they please”.
I believe this. I’ve seen it in action, and it has been both sad and pleasing.
I think that it happens beyond movies.
It’s food, it’s books, stories, entire lives.
I have a lot of magic falling in my lap right now.
Some of it I’ve created on my own,
some of it has clearly been creatively crafted by the universe
and the timing is precise. 
I feel like my head is surrounded by glitter bombs.
I hope you can see them going off
everywhere.

Now I need to finish the darn thing...xo

I remember watching the movie “Crossroads” a lot as a kid
and hearing my Dad tell stories about the musician Robert Johnson,
who, as the myth goes, supposedly met the devil at the crossroads
and sold his soul to be able to play the guitar,
one of the greatest blues musicians of our time.
I think about the juke joints he visited, playing surrounded by
pool tables, Colt 45 bottles, jukeboxes, artwork on the walls.
We listened to every one of his songs growing up.
 
But the myth…
The idea of being at the cross section of roads,
each leading to different futures,
I am standing there now.
It is stark, desolate, the only thing of note
are the telephone poles
with lines running, energy humming between them.
 
Here I stand.
I don’t know how far to push, how far to fight for myself.
I’ve been living very small, on purpose.
No writing, no social media, no evidence of myself anywhere,
for fear that I’ll be deemed too healthy.
I’ve been trying to get disability since October of 2020,
I just received my 2nd denial.
If I appeal, I have to wait another year.
4 years to get my lawyer in front of a judge.
Another year of tracking symptoms, working hard to find
new ways to heal my body
as it continues to morph, some symptoms dropping off,
new ones appearing.
I am still reliably unreliable.
 
Do I keep fighting?
Or do I just let it go, and give up?
Do I walk to the right, left, forward or backward?
I will just stand here for a bit,
and see who might walk down the road.

​There are many types of addictions we humans must carry;
chemical, behavioral, the reward system, cravings, TV, sex,
Facebook, control. We are products of our upbringing, of
who we are born as, of our harshest moments, of our situations.
It's not our fault.

We all have many addictive behaviors, all that dopamine
reinforcing your brain's actions, driving you to seek out
what gives you pleasure, even if it causes harm.
I have my own addictive tendencies (I used to revel
in stalking and finding other people's spelling errors,
before I lost my brain, that was a lesson, thank you very
much Universe).

I have to watch my workaholic impulses, it scares me
daily that I will slide backwards and forget that "work" 
doesn't matter, doesn't have priority over all the other
wonderful things in life. Family, living, breathing, being.
My addiction to control is a lesson that I get to learn
over, and over, and over in this lifetime. I know I have 
none, rationally. But, there is this little niggling feeling that
I still have control, even though I keep learning the opposite
in sometimes brutal situations.
Over, and over and over. And over. I'll have a PhD in 
You Have No Control by the time I exit this human uniform.

I've had people with various addictive propensities in my life.
I love them all, we are all flawed. But the one type of
addictive personalities that has caused me the most harm,
are those that are addicted to their secrets. In LOVE with their secrets.
They covet and create more, and more, a gossamer web of distortion.
I don't know if this type of addiction has a definition, or is a 
"real thing", cursory glances at a few books doesn't say much 
about it.

But, I am recognizing a pattern in people that I sometimes
​attract. Maybe it's who I am, maybe it's because I'm a bit of
an innocent, but I've had enough people come through my
doorway seeming to be one person, but then showing a penchant 
for hooey, fabrication, fiction. Some have been blatant
about letting me stumble upon their secrets, wanting me to 
find them. Hiding everything in plain sight. Waiting, watching,
probably getting high off of my reaction.
I guess it's called Gaslighting (this term is based on a most
excellent film from 1944 starring Ingrid Bergman, worth watching).
Knowing that I will flounder in that direction, will make a discovery that
will cause me to hurt, and there they were anticipating and observing,
it makes me sad. And skeeves me out. Knowing that they were not
doing right by me, on purpose. From the very beginning.
I see this now. Another hard earned lesson, painful, but I have
gratitude that I am able to detect it and examine it nowadays.

And so, as I raise 2 tiny humans and hope to help them
​become good, kind, helping, humble bigger humans, and as I reflect
on my lessons learned in my few years on this earth, 
our small family now talks about the 2 most important things we share.
Love, and Truth.
Because you can't have either without the other.
Maybe this is a double negative. And I don't care. 
Check my grammatical errors, I dare you. :)

Didn’t sleep
Cried
Slept
Am a covid 2x survivor
Have 4 chronic illnesses
Baked cupcakes for Charlie’s 6th birthday
Am in relapse mode
Said I was sorry too many times
Saw the sun
Looked at the shimmering pool, the greenery around me
The desert drying the sickness from my body
Cleaned up the animal cages
Gave up
Kept going
Got mad at the internet
​Got off social media (again)
Signed up for COVID research programs
Let Mike do more than his fair share of the household duties

Am a fighter

I was talking to an old friend the other day
it’s been a minute (or decades?) since we’ve chatted
college buds, we got into lots of good trouble.
Watching WWE wrestling, dancing, football games, homework.
he taught me how to make
the best drink using Country Time Lemonade, ice and vodka (remember??)
I still use the recipe.
He’s a good egg.
He called me funny. He said I was a riot.
…..
…..
I think forgot how to be funny?!
It stumped me when he said that.
I’ve been so bogged down in the mire of sickness
I don’t know if I’m sick or
it’s the ghost of sicknesses
or whatever, it doesn’t even matter.
The point is,
I forgot that I like the funny in life.
That I like to laugh
to make people laugh.
to ring the funny bell in a room full of people.
It was nice to have that reminder.
So, for your reading enjoyment,
Here are the funny things I’ve learned
over the last few fucked up years.

1) Don’t foster 2 giant parrots at the same time. They are loud, and one of them will scream “HELP! I’M IN HERE! HEEELLLP! HELP ME!” so you know the neighbors are going to call the police. The other will hide under his cage and wait for your children to come down the stairs so he can dash out and bite their toes HARD. We’re a free-range animal household, so…no more macaws (for now). The other bird, dog, and angry bunny are enough (for now.)

2) When in the tropics, always make time to have hermit crab races. After the sun goes down, and the kids have buckets, and we’re all screaming trying to catch baseball sized hermit crabs without losing a finger. Make your own fun(ny). Always win, even if you are playing against small children. As my Dad would say, it builds character.

3) Keep listening to Dark Side of the Moon every night since 1998 while you fall asleep. Repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat. Repeat. Keep people around who are ok with listening to the same album over and over every day because it pleases you.

4) Make friend with people that will come a visit you, who chase gelato and churros, who bring corgis with them with their cute heart butts to your house, who force you out of bed to see your world the world any world, who buy you board games you’ve never heard of, who give you a reason to adventure and who let you expose them to scorpions, tarantulas, and wildfires all in one day.

5) Get a stand-up paddle board. Get on it. Take it out into the ocean. Start paddling. This is a sure-fire way for you to change polarity of the earth and the weather and bring in heavy wind and rain to the point that you’re not sure if you will make it back to shore.
 
Thanks, Gringo, for the reminder. I knew I reached out for a reason. Thank you for saying words I didn't know I needed to hear. <3

We were really there to chase seagulls. <3 Alexa Hummus Novak

I have a lot to say
and I have nothing to say.
There are times in my life that I don't wan to to talk about
or I can't find the words.
A lot has happened
lots of good things
some hard things
some wonderful things.
I left Oregon 2 months ago 
​after living there since 1989
and now live somewhere warm.
I think this is the biggest, bravest thing I have ever done.
We did it. 
​As a family. 
Leaving was hard, hard to know where to put my energy,
having to make choices between having emotions
or driving south.
Processing feelings or going back to Mexico for another treatment.
We decided to just go South and see if that would help my symptoms.
Somewhere peaceful, safe, quiet.
I like the solitude, the sound of the birds, the peaceful mornings 
walking the dog
before the sun comes up over the mountain
with it's beams of light streaming upward
before the crown of the sun peeks over.
I like the evening sunsets, 
the way the palm trees look like they have
diamonds on their tips
as the sun sets behind them
and the wind blows the diamonds
they look like fireworks
and then the darkness comes. 
How do you settle into a completely new life?
How do you let go of the guilt?
I don't know how to feel my feelings yet,
the good ones and the hard ones. 
It's kind of like hanging upside down
and seeing things from a different perspective.
​I will keep hanging here.
I am grateful for a new perspective
and the sun that slowly simmers healing into my body.

People have magic numbers 
that they see on clocks.
I have no idea what 10:43 means to me.
While I try
 to tap on this stupid phone
my thoughts go to 
where we met
you were there
you were here
always here.
And as we get older together every year
(every blessed year)
I am stripped naked now.
As I appear to you each day
a different me.
Sometimes with no energy,
sometimes feeling ok,
sometimes unable to do what I used to.
You take it in stride, all of it.
And I see what you hide,
the few times a year you let me
see you worry.
I see it.
I hear it.
I am sorry.
But life with you is still living in infinity.

​I've always been in a hurry.
Well, maybe since we moved to Oregon, to the suburbs,
where the life pathways are written for you much like the sidewalks.
Clean, white, with direction, showing you exactly which next step to take.
So there is an expectation that you will follow your sidewalk.
I guess I've always been what the world wanted me to be.
So I hurried to go to school, got to band class, got to drama class, got to college, 
had relationships, bought a house, etc.
And worked, worked, worked. And worked.
I think the first real choice I made without caring of other's expectations
was when I married Mike. And had our 2 babies.
But the rest of it wasn't for me.
Living in Oregon, having respectable jobs, being "respectable"....
it took a lot of my energy.
I used to tell everyone that I lived my life in 15-minute increments.
Being on-call 24/7 will do that to you. 
If there was a problem, or a friendship issue, or someone needed something,
(even if it was people that I knew deep down weren't truly my people) 
I would fix it. I would work harder. If I hurried and worked harder, 
everything would work out. Right? Right?
It turns out, none of that is true. 
It finally took getting sick and having all of my identities stripped away
to stop hurrying.
And once I did that, I realized...
When I hurry myself, I take away from other’s divine timing too. 
So instead of fixing, instead of hurrying, 
I get quiet.
I wait.
I stand in muddy water, and let the detritus settle to the bottom,
so I can see my bare, clean feet, 
and then I take a look at what I see in front of me, behind me, above me.
And while I've taken that time, maybe things have shifted on their own.
Or maybe I've figured something out.
Or maybe I haven't figured anything out and need to go in another direction.
But I realize how much my ego is involved in what expectations I set for myself,
for others,
and that I don't control those things. I cannot. It's not fair to anyone.
So I won't. 
My life has shifted again, and I'm heading in a new direction,
one that I've picked just for me. 
Now I'm just going to take care of myself,
and let the divine timing do the rest for those around me. 

My Grandma always said shuffling cards seven times was as good as shuffling them a million
I wondering if shuffling things in your life seven times can bring the same outcome as shuffling cards
Being seven was my favorite year of being a human
Full of toads, turtles, forests, beaches, leaf piles, learning more of who I was, being a free child
It's a Newman-Shanks-Williams prime, a lucky prime, a "happy prime"
It's the lowest natural number that cannot be represented as the sum of the square of three integers
Seven is my name when I'm at Burning Man, what people call me there on the bare, alkali desert
And Seven is sometimes my name when I am not there, but out here in the real world
There are seven chakras in the body
Seven chakras representing grounding, creativity, confidence, love, communication, seeing the big picture, and spirituality
Our skin regenerates every seven days
Every cell in our body is regenerated every seven years
I kiss my family 7 times for good luck
Or they kiss me, those kisses all over my face, those sweet children with wet little mouths
My husband was born on the seventh in nineteen seventy seven
The perfect combination for a person to be born on
There are seven seas
And seven continents 
There are seven colors on the rainbow.
​Do you see them?

my father’s secret last requests…
a bulldog 
concealment
and 
a motorcycle

I’m back.
Been years
Too long
Too much
To love
To grieve
To land
To sigh
And be satisfied

With where I am.

When you write a poem and push publish and it disappears?
​Ok Universe, the world didn't need to know those words. :)

Being sick is full of platitudes,
so is Life, I guess.

"Well it could be worse!"
(it could be worse, but being in pain every day, always trying on the quest for something different that will help with all the symptoms of all the things wrong with me, watching the impact on my life, watching the money drain, feeling like a drain, watching myself circle the drain, not being able to look beyond being sick towards any future at all is not the best place to be.)

“You need to get out more; that will make you feel better…” 
(Some days I wake up wondering if I will have the strength to get through the day. Getting out DOES make me feel better, but stopping at talking to people that want to know how I am doing, makes me tired and sad. I go to the pharmacy. I go home. I get tired. I go to bed. Getting out does not make me feel better.)

“But you look so GOOD!…”
(It's a fake wipe on tan. And makeup. Sometimes it's the right cocktail of drugs. If I took it all off I'd look like a zombie. I just got diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis, you can't see that sucker. I still can't even pronounce it. You can't see the long-covid either, or the fibromyalgia. Or the EBV. They hide really well, sometimes the doctors can't even find them.)

“Have you tried exercise?  That can be very beneficial for illnesses…”
(Yes, and yes, and no.)

“I wish I could stay at home all day…”
(No, you don't. You really don't.)

“Are you sure, it’s not just in your head?”
(Possibly? Isn't everything just in our head? But I have tried to get out of my head, I'm pretty good that that now, and the illnesses are still there in the body, just moving around, lolling, sipping on their cocktails. They are loving their new vacation spot. I can't have the cocktails and kick it with them.)
 
"Today is a gift. Be grateful for it."
(I try. Every day. Every. Day.)

It is okay to be angry about an apology that will never come.
It is okay to feel stuck today and in the flow tomorrow.
It is okay to be confused about the future, which future, what future.
It is okay to not know the answers.
None of us really know the answers. 
It is okay to admit you don't.
It is okay not  to rush towards a goal, a conclusion, an ending with a bow.
To allow the process to unfold
without pushing or straining,
with a truly open heart,
without a personal agenda 
other than love.
And see what comes.
​What will come?

There is always another way.
We are creative beings,
born into a strong set of rules and guidelines
that define us and our societies. 
Raising humans, who are born as souls, into our environments
that ask them to sit up straight, use the right fork,
to bow at the right time, to wear this type of clothing,
do not hit, to do not grab from another, do not believe in fairies.
To work hard, even if it's not your passion, because you need 
the money to buy the things. 
Because this is just how it has always been done.
But has it?
And does it?
And do we?
Why are we not questioning more,
as the world seems to die around us?

We should call the caterpillars 
who are literally a physical manifestation of change,
not just metaphorical examples.
The snakes who continue to shed their skins,
the frogs who undergo such metamorphosis,
to start as a fish and grow legs and leave the pond. 

There is another way.
Love can come before power.
Humanity can recognize and honor the individuality in us all.
The darkness and shadows have shown where they are hidden,
and we can shine the light on the depths where harm lurks.
Nature is our teacher, guiding, showing us the way
if we are quiet enough to listen.
So, let us be quiet.
If only for 5 minutes, 
to see what comes.