Author Archives: Paula Josa-Jones

May2

more notes for the housesitter

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Cho ready to go. . .

Dear Housesitter:

I know that I sent you a revised version of the notes prior to your visit, but several items will need to be further amended.  Thank you for your patience, and have a nice stay.  Remember to put the garbage out on Thursday morning.

  1. Be sure to remove Cho’s (the Spanish Greyhound who sleeps in the bedroom) collar before going to bed so that the rattle does not awake you during the night.
  2. Sometime between 5-6 am, Cho  will stand up and bark.  If you just say “No” in a firm voice, usually he will lay down for another 30 minutes.
  3. However, Eli (black and white cat) will hear him and begin to scratch at the door.  We recommend keeping ear plugs near the bed.
  4. If Cho does not go back to sleep and insists on being let out, be sure to put on the collar that you removed at night, because even though he is 18, he will leap over the fence and have a nice runabout.
  5. Before you let Cho out, be sure to scoop the litter pans in the master bath because Eli will come in and poop in the space between the bedroom and the bathroom if the pans are not clean.
  6. Actually, sometimes he will poop there even if the pans are clean.  We think that it may be that he prefers to have the cover off the big pan by the shower for pooping, but does not mind it for peeing.
  7. If removing the cover and scooping doesn’t work and he is still pooping there, try putting down a bath mat, as he only likes to poop on a slick wood floor.
  8. Cho, after his runabout will bark at the side or back doors.  If he is carrying an old deer bone, don’t let him bring that into the house.
  9. Someone (Obadiah?)  is peeing in the house.  Not sure why or who.   In the meantime, watch where you step.

Well, I think that is it for now.  Have a great time, and thank you!

Paula

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May1

proud flesh

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There are names for what binds us:
strong forces, weak forces.
Look around, you can see them:
the skin that forms in a half-empty cup,
nails rusting into the places they join,
joints dovetailed on their own weight.
The way things stay so solidly
wherever they’ve been set down—
and gravity, scientists say, is weak.

And see how the flesh grows back
across a wound, with a great vehemence,
more strong
than the simple, untested surface before.
There’s a name for it on horses,
when it comes back darker and raised: proud flesh,

as all flesh
is proud of its wounds, wears them
as honors given out after battle,
small triumphs pinned to the chest—

And when two people have loved each other
see how it is like a
scar between their bodies,
stronger, darker, and proud;
how the black cord makes of them a single fabric
that nothing can tear or mend.

“For What Binds Us” by Jane Hirshfield, from Of Gravity and Angels. © Wesleyan University Press, 1988. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

Apr29

litany

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Bless us with the first breath of morning.  Bless the packet of seeds for the garden, shaking like a shaman’s rattle in prayer.  Bless us with spare change in our pockets to give to the homeless, bless us with a heart that has been serviced by the mechanic, bless us with good tires on the icy road.  Bless us so that we’re not just covering our own asses, but weeping for the rest of the world.  Bless our tears so that they irrigate the land for the starving, that there be no more drought.  Bless us with one idea after another that we might sort out the good from the bad, bless us with free lunches and subscriptions, bless us with a winter storm so big that it closes everything down for a week and we find ourselves at the beginning of time.  Bless us with water, bless us with light, bless us with darkness, and bless us with language.  Bless our tongues that we can speak.  Bless our cars so they start.  Bless our computers so that they may connect to the internet, and bring us the news of the universe.  Bless Robert Bly and Gloria Steinem, bless all the worn-out athletes whose bodies are falling apart, bless the tides twice a day and the moon every month.  Bless the sun, bless us as we are blessing you, for this is a two-way street, after all, and we’re in this think together.  Bless mass transit, and the first cup of coffee.  Sing O ye frost heaves and icy patches, praise the spruce trees all crowded together, the crows in the trees flying heavenward and earthward, flying everywhere in between.  Bless the night with its constellations that we have dreamed up.  Bless our stories that they may somehow be true, for this is all we have.  Bless all creatures great and small and the basket makers who weave together a framework to hold emptiness.  Bless the empty spaces that are within our bodies, the vast distances inside each cell.  Bless each cell, which is its own universe, ready to divide, split in two, and make more than enough.

Prayers & Run-on Sentencesby Stuart Kestenbaum

Apr27

mistaken identity

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[i]Vélocité d’une voiture de Giacomo Balla
“There is nothing of which every (wo)man is so afraid, as getting to know how enormously much (s)he is capable of doing and becoming.”
Soren Kierkegaard
There is a Buddhist prayer that I have been saying over and over again, as if it could reach the ears of my lost daughter:  “May you be free from mistaken identity.”  Napoleon Hill says, “Wisdom comes from taking the time to study yourself, to know why you are the person you are.”  In other words, we have to dive into our own silence to hear the deepest echoing emotional sonar.  In a world of compulsive social connection, obsessive texting, tweeting, (and oh yes, blogging) there is no stillness – just wave upon wave of noise.  For a fragile mind, that can be overwhelming.  We all have moments of mistaken identity.  What tethers us is love, what recalls us to ourselves is love.  Love is the center of who we are, of who we can become.