Saturday, March 28, 2009

on the other hand


Cold and rainy, cold and rainy.
But in my front yard the plum tree blooms.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Pabla and the agate


Someone objected to my statement that I have been fired, when really I'm only being moved out of my school and into a different one. Okay, fine. I am overly dramatic. 
I am sad about leaving the school where I've worked for 13 years. Today ten year old Pabla gave me an agate and a note that said, Happy St. Patrick's Day, and then she skipped away with her long black braid flying out behind her. I remember when her big sister was a baby. I knew her family before she was born. Her big brother loved my dinosaur books.

Sunday, March 08, 2009

schools

Chuck says I can't blog about sex or drugs, even if it's from thirty year old material, because I work at a school and they'll fire me. I'm not sure that's true. 

diary 1980 vegetarian in Antigua

In 1980 Chuck went to Antigua to help members of the Antigua Caribbean Liberation Movement set up a printing press, after the right wing government destroyed the one they were using. We were in Antigua for three months.

February  1980  
Antigua
Saturday is market day and the day we go to JP Market, crowded with people from the countryside. In some of the towns men will set up a table to sell a newly slaughtered cow or pig by the side of the road. On the tables are piles of red flesh. chop chop chop goes the cleaver. The intestines are hung in a string from a nearby tree. Last Saturday the pig's head sat on the table, its ears sticking out. 

1980 Seashell Beach



January 28, 1980
(from St. Barts)
The beach is an ideal setting for lsd: restful and rhythmic and safe. Blue water white sand.  We played in the water nearly all day turning red in the Caribbean sun. Our friend from Dominica, Mantoo, came by to visit. Annalise from Vermont and Leif from Sweden stopped to talk. The French children have gym class yards from our tent. We explore sea life and social life in the cosmopolitan setting that is our living room. 

diary 1980


Today I found a book I created for Chuck, using excerpts from diaries I've written over the years. 

August 10, 1980

Dear Diary, 
Why am I compelled to keep journals and write compulsively about myself?