New York

Rabbit Mother, Tiger Daughter. [Journal entry 6.9.14]

/ Dar Dawson / 2 Comments

I am not going to fight.

I am going to vastly improve my argument (and it’s pretty damned good already).

I am not going to point out the obvious (at least not obviously), and I am not going to name-call.

What I AM going to do is be there. Be present, and supportive, and listen and focus on what is important: She is. My daughter, my child, the pine cone to my fir.

I am a Rabbit raising a Tiger. It is not always easy.
I am a Scale raising a Ram; she butts her head, hard, into every.single.thing.

She will learn tact and compassion, and how humor is our lifeboat during difficult times, and how it is my primary way of coping *any* time – to see the humor in every situation.

She teaches me what it is like to be enraged, fully, and to express myself – as she does – with no filter, with passion and heat and language and every venomous bit of vocabulary when provoked or frustrated (or tired). Her anger is pure and without apology or shame; mine is always “polite”.

She teaches me how to let go quickly and move on, and that there are, in fact, people who just do not deserve to know you. This is a new concept for me, for I have given myself away in pieces my entire life. You wanna piece? Here.

She teaches me that to love someone is to also be in love with how you feel about yourself when you are together. This is new to me, too; I thought loving someone was always about exhausting yourself just to make the other person feel they were loved without any doubt; it never really mattered I received less than I gave.

So many lessons we share, together.

DJDawson 2014

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Starbucks: Fireside Eavesdropping.

/ Dar Dawson / Leave a comment

Dear loud nasal-voiced woman sitting over my left shoulder,

Stop talking. Please.

We three writers sitting quietly by the fireplace are cringing and wincing, shooting each other rolling-eyes about your “how annoying boss, Bob” and how late meeting invites were ignored. The rapid-fire banality of your workplace drama and gossip–Diana is a slut, AND she sounds lazy, yes, you’re right – has meaning only to you. Have you checked if your friend across the table is still breathing? Peter and Ross and Justine should not attack each other, and blame is a byproduct of working with folks who believe “it’s not their job”, whatever it is. Georgia needs a plumber and Henry will not be a good presenter if he can’t come to work sober. That’s a lot of other people’s business you’ve got your snout wedged into. And, now, because you were never taught to properly modulate your voice, everyone is involved.

Even invisible strangers like me.

But, you caffeinated siren of gossip and shrill shrewing, thank you for reminding me why I love a non-office workplace.

Thank you from the bottom of my coffee cup.

DJD

Salt Breathing. [Loose poem]

/ Dar Dawson / 2 Comments

sea-cliff-boulevardOld stomping ground.

Exhale Hill, as it is known by those of us who move
away from that wide open big water and miniscule cliffside life.

water methodists and whalers
yachtsmen gossips artists
the faithful and the bedhoppers
claythrowers gemworkers taverners dutiful counselors

It all seems so endless when you are there, going about the business of living.
And everything every breath: salt inhale, salt exhale.

Young and ripe, as fruit do, some rollaway down from the vine bush yard
and carriedaway by truck bus plane
land far afield for school love work. Breathing salt
inlanders now breathing dirt steel shale desert mountain.
tar grit over sandglass

Some of us suffocate without salt air many
return to this very apex
– not the cliff’s highest, but the most treasured –
simply to breathe
once a year
once a decade
mingle with ghost parasols button-up boots button-down shirts

simply to exhale
simply to exhale

Dar Dawson 2017