SPaceS

i've lost count recently-count of how many people i have stayed with since last september. i have stayed in apartments the size of bathrooms and houses where i was unable to have my own space; i was forced to account for my friends, guilty when i had dates over. the time i have spent looking at my life has been extensive, due to financial circumstances and my constant mobility; i made the decision to leave seattle. having little prospect of employment and un-ending drama, usually of the kind where i have walked into brickwalls and was the car without the brakes-it has taught me to think about what i want to create.

if you had asked me 5 years ago that i would end up homeless and on the dole I would have laughed. i came West to grow and to become an adult, that has slowly grinded me into the ground. When i moved to seattle in the early fall of 2000; seattle had been voted the best city to live in, and had ranked high in living &jobs. within weeks of me coming to seattle, the market grinded to hault, i stood in amazement as my future prospects dried up like our current water supply and impending drought season. i came within days of having a job within a dot com and learned after my interview that they had a highering freeze; after that ditch effort-there’s was nothing but low paying jobs and found someone that hadn’t smacked the door shut.

i relocated to vashon island, a place, though dysfunctional i had come to love in my own way. it was a sanctuary and i can count how many times i chased the ferry to breathe fully when i had made it. vashon island will always have a place in my heart for several reasons; i left Vashon island within days of September 11, 2001-and was caught within the chaos of the ensuing fall, and the aftermath. leaving vashon forced me to expand my social circle and to branch out. i started dating, a memorable year of chaos and bullshit i intend to write a novel about.

seattle offered me something i had not yet discovered about myself, myown word on the page. i found it one night at the now defunct landmark of the sit/spin. a locally owned bar/laundromat where the seattle poetry slam re-located to till the doors shut. i had written a piece about my own sorrow of losing new york city, collapse of the towers. the mc a powerhouse in her own right, asked me to return. sit/spin had flavor, smoky, dark and crowded. the bartender was always kind and looked out for the poets that preferred to be somewhat coherent at the end of the night; i started growing a small social circle of other transplanted poets. i look back on this part of my life here and realize how fundamental they where in me staying when all i wanted to do was return to what i knew, albeit no longer there.

poetry has become a fundamental part of my life, a way for me to see myself, in my words &experiences. this past fall i wrote a piece about what my life had been since leaving my emotionally abusive x. i wrote about my suitcase, and about the lies he created in my life-how he attempted to destroy me, he is still hellbent on doing, slandering my name. i am baffled as it’s become a contest to him; as if the emotional violence he inflicted and the doubt he managed to create wasn’t enough. my poem about my suitcase, hit close to home and reading it at another location here in seattle, has been eyeopening, and powerful. that love can be soo simple; yet soo destructive. i see myself in his dusty apartment with his dusty lies. thelies he created and manufactured has not damaged me the way he intended, his friends are not heeding a court document he sought against me and he has openly sought out known parties i have as friends. several people have come forward in disbelief over my poor choices last year; i guess i wore my bad decision on my sleeve.

the subsequent actions and moving has created something i didn’t expect, i have had 2 men within the last month tell me that they wanted to be with me. i have turned down both, for several reasons, and because I am not seeking a man nor love. it’s one thing to spend nearly 2 years with a someone that accuses you of the behavior they are causing, it’s entirely another to notbe interested. maybe i am turning into an icequeen; but soo few things impress me. as someone that grew up in a family of stature in europe; money &titles are best reserved for gated communities with gated thinking.

i am not flattered by men who drive cars they think they are cool because lance armstrong advertisers them; it’s beyond that for me, i can tell say thatmy current situation is not a reason for me to look for love. i live on very little including money, and impressing me goes beyond a title and job. spending time in connecticut, in a community that has gated beaches where the only way you can enter is by having an address or being on a guest list-with SUV’s and botox being trendy there nearly 5years ago. i have dated men who are son’s of men with titles and because of this they believe that they are something. there has only been one man that has shown me differently, he had money but made little attempt to show me until the end. i was baffled and shocked but have come to recognize that he didn’t want to be seen by what he had in his wallet. he was humble and tender and i still believe loved me, loved me when i didn’t see who i was.

money makes people do many things, i also think that people assume that you’re desperate and hence who you say you are is no longer true; i have met many women in my situation or worse, who have gone on the dole and have managed to rebuild; stronger and better than they where before. i see myself in a different mirror 5years from now i also know that the last year will not be the way this way again, for many reasons. i have not givenup on finding a job, nor have i stopped looking, or acknowledging that i hit bottom but floated slowly to the surface. my friends extended their arms, and wouldn’t let me go. i am grateful for their presence, and for seeing beyond my welfare check. i am now in my friends apartment, a small space half-filled with my life, strewn in his living room. i am by myself for the first time in nearly 5 years; i know the situation is temporary and in a few weeks i will be writing from another 4walls, with new stories to tell.

strife and motivation are hard to break, hard to take apart-i was asked recently if i could handle beingbored with my life. bored means no chaos, no stressful living situations, just gettingup and working. doing regular things, boringsimple things.i don’t have to survive through. i have survived for the plain reason of survival for so long, i don’t know how to livesimply within the confines of my own head. having someone there compounds this-as i am for the firsttime in my life, not seeking anyone out.

maybe when i arrive on my own homeland, smell the soil, air and see where i spent the first 10years of my life-maybe then in chaos of being home. a place i havenot seen in over adecade, my heart will soften. till then i will count each i don’t endup begging and living in a homeless shelter a blessing each day my friends rally to my need, and don’t treat me lessthan who i was before. that’s what counts right now. jobs will come as will love, when my heartstops falling into crevices i can’t get out of.