a call to the women of provo.

i need your help.

my hair has gone through a growth spurt of sorts. and i need someone to cut it immediately.

just to thin it out really. and i'm short on funds.

so tell me. where do i go?

POST EDIT: you ladies are the best. i have found a hairdresser and i am so excited, as are my dead ends! will be sure to let you know how it goes.

I had this encounter recently where I met the extraordinary American poet Ruth Stone, who's now in her 90s, but she's been a poet her entire life and she told me that when she was growing up in rural Virginia, she would be out working in the fields, and she said she would feel and hear a poem coming at her from over the landscape. And she said it was like a thunderous train of air. And it would come barreling down at her over the landscape. And she felt it coming, because it would shake the earth under her feet. She knew that she had only one thing to do at that point, and that was to, in her words, "run like hell." And she would run like hell to the house and she would be getting chased by this poem, and the whole deal was that she had to get to a piece of paper and a pencil fast enough so that when it thundered through her, she could collect it and grab it on the page. And other times she wouldn't be fast enough, so she'd be running and running and running, and she wouldn't get to the house and the poem would barrel through her and she would miss it and she said it would continue on across the landscape, looking, as she put it "for another poet." And then there were these times -- this is the piece I never forgot -- she said that there were moments where she would almost miss it, right? So, she's running to the house and she's looking for the paper and the poem passes through her, and she grabs a pencil just as it's going through her, and then she said, it was like she would reach out with her other hand and she would catch it. She would catch the poem by its tail,and she would pull it backwards into her body as she was transcribing on the page. And in these instances, the poem would come up on the page perfect and intact but backwards, from the last word to the first.

over and up.

i'm sitting her looking out at the mountains. from where i sit at my borrowed, wooden desk they eclipse my window completely. and in turn swallow me whole.

these are the mountains facing east. new york lies beyond them. and believe me when i say, that metaphor is not lost on me.

there was never any doubt about this. this little expedition i'm on. there were concerns and moments of terror, yes. but that divinely-inspired voice that lives right there in my gut was very clear. go, it said. go, and life will unfold, you'll see. trust me, it ever so calmly pressed into me. wrapped me in its message.

and so here i am.

but even with God's blessing or goodwill or what have you, i wanted nothing more than to close my eyes and wake up three months from now. i longed to nod my head once and with the genie's blink become the person i'd been promised at the end of all this.

i just didn't want to have to do the necessary work to get there.

but the mountains, of course. and their all powerful metaphor. a gigantic mountain range between me and the life i once lived. or the life i will live. or the life i dream of living.

this eruption of green plopped right there. right in front of me.

when i was little we'd take road trips through the western united states. and my mom would always say, imagine how the pioneers did it. how did they do it?

and the thing is i sure as hell don't know. those covered wagons. entire families in tow. rocky terrain. leaving behind all that is known, not only heading toward a new future, but carving out a never before seen path along the way. can you even imagine? the courage of it. startling.

the only way over the mountain before me is up. one small step in front of the other. a metaphorical tapping in to my own inner pioneer.

so okay. here goes...

speaking of jam...

a few days ago i got my own jar of jelly. and i am remiss to report that it is nearly finished. yes, already. what can i say? this girl likes her jam.

when i was in houston just a few weeks ago i got to have jalepeno jam. at a restaurant called reef helmed by james beard award nominee bryan caswell. let me just say this: this bryan fella, he knows how to make his food. i've been dreaming about that jam for days now. and not just the jam. but also the fresh beet ravioli. yes, beets! who knew?

and palm to palm is holy palmer's kiss.

she was over men. over the idea of it. or maybe just overwhelmed by the idea of it.

she was tired and exhausted and intimidated into exhaustion.

wanted nothing to do with dating or meeting or having to smile.

didn't want to feign a certain level of interest.

suddenly loneliness didn't seem quite so lonely.

but preferable. safe.

but oh how she longed to feel a boy's hand in her own. just that. that simple act. the warmth and touch. mutual touch. and innocence.

yes, that was it, she longed for the innocence.

for the time before. when fingers intertwined was enough.

more than enough.

oh to go back to a time when the holding of hands was everything.