Enervation

There are those words, that no matter how careful you are, you can't shake the original incorrect definition your brain has latched onto for dear life.  Enervation is one of those words for me.  I cannot help thinking such things as joyous, lighter than air, ephemeral, light, and so on and so forth.  Instead it means (h/t to Merriam Webster):
 Definition of ENERVATE

1: to reduce the mental or moral vigor of

2: to lessen the vitality or strength of

— en·er·vat·ing·ly adverb

— en·er·va·tion noun

Examples of ENERVATE

1. <a lifetime of working in dreary jobs had enervated his very soul>
2. <the surgery really enervated me for weeks afterwards>

And that, Dear Reader, is what I feel today after my first full body workout after about 10 years away from the gym.  How could I resist?  The university offers a 3 month membership for $25 (although godknows I've paid for this many times over in all the  "registration fees" I'm assessed each and every semester I enroll in a class.)  And since I've gotten tired of the sound of rotating helicopter blades every time I raise my hands above my head (and yes, my age cohort female friends, I'm talkin' about us) I thought why not?  Why not indeed?  I drove my sorry ass home, took a shower, sat upright for a half-hour and then promptly went to bed with my clothes on.  Tomorrow I expect to be put in an iron lung.

I've been through this twice before -- once in my late 30's when my friend Shawn seduced me into going to the Harlem Y with him.  (I should have put a camera around my neck and pretended I was a tourist.)  After that I told everyone who'd listen that I felt like I'd just birthed quintuples and then got run over by a Mack truck.  Then the bout of fitness in my late 40's because the Brooklyn Y was 2 blocks away.  That's where I started to lift weights and loathe yoga.  Both times I grew to love the bodywork; wouldn't miss it the way some wouldn't miss church.  Now, in my late 50's I'm at it again.

The stakes are higher for sure.  So far this year I've got a 4 figure physical therapy bill to pay down, and every time I stub my toe I fear I'll be paralyzed.  It's time to preserve what I've got and if I'm lucky maybe go at this long enough to actually experience an energy gain and significant weight loss.  I am my own summer project.  But first things first:  how am I going to get out of bed tomorrow?!

Mother's Day Observed

Only 2 things I’ve ever wanted to be in this world:

A Writer      √

A Mother    √

Lots of people I have to thank for that not the least of which is my own mother, Robbie, a woman who could put the loon back in lunatic and

Dailey

Khaalid

Lela

Lilli

Remo and

Shaquana

It is for them and because of them I live.

Happy Mother’s Day one and all …

C'est Fini

At least for now.  Having realized at this very late stage in my formal education that grades are obtained by a steady accretion of points, I think I got me enough points to pass Foundations of Mathematics with the requisite B so that I can return in the fall as a graduate student.  I thought I'd be delirious like I was a semester ago; sickeningly giddy spouting bad puns and skipping backwards around the house singing Jerusalem but oddly enough I'm quite mellow.  Perhaps it's because the past 4 semesters have been just to get to the door; I've got a long long way to go to the finish line, and less time than many to get there.

This orgy of contemplation probably comes from having time.  And, it's May, a season of graduations and farewells, a re-setting of the clock and a perceptible slowing down of the worlds of commerce and enterprise enough to give some a chance to play.  Me?  I've joined a gym and opened up my story files.  A summer for Body and Soul.

Be Good

Gregory Porter.  Enjoy.

Saturday Poetry: Venus (excerpt from East River Soliloquies)

Oh no.  I will never.

Ever.

Fall in love again.

My heart's weighted.

Hemp-tied in a thief knot

sinking in the East River

because once I saw a woman crawl

into that water

one liquid August night,

with her hair on fire.

I remember her braids:

one at a time, popping,

sizzling, filling her tracks

as she scuttled backwards

down the bank.

Maybe drunk, who knows?

Kerplunk! she clove the River

into an ovation.

And I watched as her arms

like blades scythed

the dirty River

yet, her face stayed

shuttered, above water.

Her eyes blinked, apertures

as the dissenting fire,

oblivious to its circumstance,

played on.

A homeless dog divined the water

to kiss her skin,

the head now a

blackness bubbling away.

The dog danced on her unshielded crown

until she pushed him under.

Get off, she brayed.

It was then I laughed:

She's going to live, I thought.

She swung her embered eyes on me

and I went blind.

By the time it took me to see again

I was hard,

waist-high in water,

reaching for her smoldering arms.

Women of A Certain Art: Zusaan Kali Fasteau

Kali and I met back in the early 90's when I was writing operas with the late Leroy Jenkins, a friend and colleague of hers.  We've known each other ever since mostly over a performance or coffee in the Village.  She's a formidable musician/force of nature -- if there's an instrument she doesn't play (and play well) it hasn't been invented yet.  A sample of her music ...

 

... and of her writing, from the Megaphone column in the March 2013 issue of The New York City Jazz Record, her essay, Spontaneous Composition in the Round.

Music
offers a sweet alternative to the mundane,
transporting us to a non-logical enjoyment of being.
If you read this journal, you feel the power of music.
We musicians are lucky making music that feels good to us.
Rather than ‘improvising’ (improving) upon a preset structure,
I prefer composing music in real time, shaping the sound
energy coming through me without forethought.
The body and spirit seem electrified by
the high-voltage energy of contouring sound live.
Spontaneous composition is almost magical, producing
amazing results when the musicians are well chosen.