god's candy

I drove to the Skagit Valley Food Co-op in Mount Vernon today because there is a dire lack of fresh fruit out here on the island except for hard little apples and soon to be ripe pears I drove after I ate a bowl of black beans with butter it was 43 degrees impossibly cold for late September and it was sunny with looming black bottomed thunderheads to the east above the Cascade Mountains I stopped at the Skagit River and watched for a while then I drove past the cornfields lining the old highway I saw a hawk low in the wheat hunting a culvert the derelict barns the tiny taco stands the strange chicken coop that is an exact replica of The Overlook Hotel the yard with all the dahlias the pumpkins bursting out the corn being sold 8 for $1.00 on the side of the road my beloved Dari-Delite then I went into the store and found (cue the hallelujah chorus from Handel's Messiah) these gorgeous figs the must luscious fruits on the planet and some baseball sized plums and ripe apples and some fresh baked garlic naan and then and then and then

I had a panic attack

right there at check out my heart started pounding fast faster my face was hot I was talking too fast to the the girl who was bagging my groceries 

ohhiyournameisAnaïsyou'renamedafterafamousauthorthesefigsareamazing

solateintheseasonblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah

I barely made it to my car before my head exploded embarrassed as usual caught found out feeling stupid feeling exposed because I can hear myself I can feel that awful engine revving up the words frothing out of me standing there in my summer dress and winter boots with the furry insides

I took that picture of the figs on my lap before I started the car because I knew I would be eating them on the way home

when  I got home I read for a while then I put a cup of oatmeal in an old sock tied a knot at its hole and threw it in the bathtub and imagined myself being the kind of woman who can soak in a bathtub with lit candles and silky water reading a book and maybe eating figs for a long relaxing time but instead I was the kind of woman who sits in the tub reads two pages before she splashes water on the book then rubs a sock full of soggy oats over her dry legs just as her black cat comes in knocks her soap off the edge of the tub and skitters it across the bathroom floor

my skin does feel better though

for the seven minutes I was languishing in the bathtub I considered how I used to be beautiful not stunning but basic white girl beautiful long of legs and fingers good cheek bones blueblue eyes but like most of us I didn't know it until I was almost old I did think I was charismatic though now I realize I just vibrated faster than everyone else my squirrel soul running running always on the run oftentimes literally I was and still am driven I think my inner storms drew certain people in quite frequently dangerous people I think now I was complicated and obsessive and unsettled with really great hair

and this vibrating this unsettled heart is where art comes from for me this vibrating allows me to bend into Beethoven to force out poems to move forward in intellectual circles to think deep and wide to fool everyone

that's all the introspection I can stand today I'm in my bed alone with Prince Hal curled nearby a belly full of figs a superb slightly damp book and the absolute certainty that now at 66 years old I am once again beautiful

Good evening Darklings here I am my own face with it crags and wrinkles which I love in real time it is nearly October can you even believe it?