Things Are Intense--but Good. (What Else Is New?)

This is flippin' ridiculous. It's been over two weeks since my last, pathetic post. Inexcusable!

And yet, I have some excuses. For example: I have been a busy bee! in such pursuits as Birth in the Bluegrass (still wrapping up the loose ends from that one), Freshman Orientation at UofL (ongoing), creating a myspace account (yes, I'm officially addicted to the internet), Facebooking, reading, having some intense interaction with my husband (not like that, you perv). I also just got hired as a Spanish and Italian tutor for REACH (free tutoring provided by UofL). Oh, yeah, and one other little detail:

I GOT A FULL TUITION "ETSCORN" SCHOLARSHIP FROM THE HONORS PROGRAM FOR THE 2006-07 SCHOOL YEAR!!!!

Bwahahahahaha. I am so very happy not to have money troubles for the foreseeable future. Aaahhhhh..... I also have started doing yoga in my backyard (weather permitting) which has made me feel better physically. Spiritually I seem to be going through some kind of passage.... the immateria and the holy are calling to me. I am beginning to seek to answer that call once more. I have started trying to meditate and pray (on purpose) again. I'm not sure who I'm praying to except that I want to channel the forces of peace and good and power bigger than myself. --I think I've been trying to rely too much on myself for answers, instead of just letting them fall upon me, as they used to. Too much seeking, not enough finding. I need more stillness to find, I think.

Anyhoo. As part of my re-invigorated "Slow down, you move too fast; you gotta make the moment last" mantra, I have written my first poem in more than two years, in an attempt to get the creative juices reciculating through my soul. I share it here with you now, simply to demonstrate that I am rusty, but I am trying to reconnect with that part of me. Here it is:

I never noticed, till now
how the clouds resemble bones
A front of sirrus whisps
lined up
like a column of crooked vertebrae
with good bone density
...no celestial kyphoplastys on this front.

There, after the spine,
a single, trailing hyoid circle
of a cloud
smeared by the wind
--Someone must've smashed the throat.

These cloud x-rays float beyond my roof
toward that gibbon of a moon:
waxing, the densest bit of bone mass in the evening sky.

Yeah, it's weird. Sorry. As an aside in case you're curious, a kyphoplasty is an outpatient surgery performed by a neurosurgeon or orthopoedic surgeon wherein a collapsed spinal vertebra has a needle inserted into it with a balloon on the end; the balloon is blown up to resotre the vertebra to its original height, and special cement is inserted to fill the balloon and recreate the density and structure of the vertebra to its original state. In addition, in case you are burning to know, the hyoid bone is the only bone in the body that is not articulated (does not connect) to any other bone. It's high in the throat and helps the tongue navigate its intricacies. It's cool to look at on an x-ray because it appears to be floating in the throat, different than the stacked architecture of the spine, shoulders, ribs, et al. Here's a representation of it in the body, relative to the cervical spine and skull:



Here is a short pictorial representation of the main parts of a kyphoplasty procedure: