Spring is here. I feel it distinctly. Even though I live in Santa Barbara, with its perpetually mild clime, Spring still makes its annunciation. I don't have anything to write. I just keep thinking about the equinox; this stillness.
A couple weeks ago, he took me up Figueroa Mountain in his new, white truck. There, and there. The first lupines; some little yellow ones; no poppies, yet. Green rocks and copper moss, acorn caps and pink sediments. From the top, everything was a ruffled valley. There's Michael Jackson's ranch, and there's where rich kids learn to chop wood. There's the stone house with the cold pool, built on sloping land. I used to throw my keys in so I'd have to go after them.
I keep thinking about cold keys, the taste of rust. I don't believe in ghosts or in animal emotions. I don't have the energy to explain myself. Even scientists know that bad things stay in the ground. Bad things, good things, whistling a tune--molecules are altered. My jeans smell like rust and my ankles are cold. It's been so long since I've held someone's hand.
Adelbert and Johann were best friends. Adelbert named the California poppy for Johann. Johann named the Sun Cup for Adelbert. The coastal hills were there so long before them, but their naming had a retroactive effect. It's like they lived their lives in reverse and took their ancestors into their wombs, or loins, I suppose. They claimed the lineage of another species, of another Kingdom. They joined an expedition and did not apologize for their diaries. The one-upping--naming flower after insect after shrub for the other--went on until the first one died. By then they'd inherited 4.7% of the earth and took it with them, having already broken the rules.
4.7% of the earth is so much more than a single Spring seen too early from a single mountain. Right now, there are hillsides itching with poppies. I wish I could wear such an obvious sign of growth and be stinky with self-propagation. I wish that writing (and lots of other things) didn't require such a long, hidden process. I want to go exploring and point to things and make up names for them and be fully convinced of my own authority, or at least pretend.
Spring is defiance. Everything I am working on right now is about defiance. Little things, absurdly serious, soon to be made available, boldly taking on meaning just because they exist, and threatening everyone else like badges that read "I did not waste my time," even though I did, decidedly, waste my time. I threw my keys in the water so I would have to get in, even though I was alone and I got right back out.
I don't have anything for you now. Not even soon. I find it weird and satisfying that Adelbert the Botanist is the same Adelbert who wrote gloomy poetry and loved the tale of the man who sold his shadow to the devil. The Bikini Atoll was previously named after Johann. Grave-robbers got it. I like these men. What were they like as friends? Was it anything like the confessional of the little truck, winding its way up the mountain?
I can't form a coherent thought from all the stuff in my head right now. Sorry.
I wonder about the cyclical process of wanting to be touched and touching and hating contact and resenting people for looking me in the eye. I wonder if it has anything to do with actual circumstance, or seasons, or the moon, space. Nothing forever.
I never want to explain anything ever again. I know this will pass. I want to threaten people, not with love. But then I have this terrible urge to spend hours creating tiny gifts to send to certain people.
This is like throwing the keys in the water.
Like staring at the full moon and going to sleep. No further. No trace.
I think people can see you tingle with the promise of tiny flames, like skirts.