• The Dawn Of A New Literature

the word of 3

~ omne trium perfectum

the word of 3

Monthly Archives: April 2012

Marshmallow of Death

30 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by Alisha Dickinson in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

When we were kids, my sister Anna nearly choked to death on a marshmallow.  It was a wintery afternoon, with snow deep on the ground when we trooped down to our uncle’s house to have hot chocolate. There being six kids in our family plus a token adopted neighborhood kid or two, inviting ten rambunctious children in to drink hot beverages was risky enough without one of them nearly dying.

Sitting mere centimeters away from me, Anna silently gagged and turned a bluish shade of purple before I had any indication that there was something amiss.  It was our friend Kristi, cozied up across the table from us, who finally noticed Anna’s predicament.  Instead of flailing out or banging a distressed fist on the wooden tabletop, Anna sat quietly next to me and stoically fought death off.  As Kristi’s hysterical screams echoed through the room, Anna calmly pulled the offending marshmallow from her mouth and layed it, slimy and dripping, on the table.

It was a good few years I believe before she was able to gulp down whole marshmallows again and though ultimately she saved herself that day, I often wonder why Anna struggled on alone, noiselessly choking, instead of making a scene for help.  Yet, that is Anna, always determined to seize life in her way, in her terms.  Whether she knows it or not though, there always are and always have been those of us standing by, at the ready, should she ever need saving again or just a good strong pat on the back.

Freud wouldn’t have liked me

28 Saturday Apr 2012

Posted by Alice Salles in Whatever

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Freud

Not even for a second.

Introverts, he believed, were oddly engrossed in themselves. Belief, as a matter of fact, is something Freud wouldn’t admit to engage in since believing is a type of verb individuals who don’t rationalize their motives too well like to use too often.

Oh well, oh well… Freud would analyze me, puff his cigar away and simply conclude that my lack of excitement in enjoying group activities is nothing but a sheer desire to be dominated by a masculine, superior and rather overwhelming figure that would force me to cultivate my submissive self.

Freud would walk me to the door and tell me to leave. He would then walk back to his study to sit and ponder. Was it doubt that suddenly clouded his senses? No. Was it an honest fear that forced him to wonder whether he had mistaken me for an introvert too hastily? No. Would he ask himself any questions at all related to my prognosis? Probably not. What he would definitely do, however, was to whisper to himself presumptuously that I might have been one of those cuckoos who are much in love with the mysticism Jung attached to psychology…

After all, who in the world would believe that judging value would top rationalizing intentions as the best approach to understanding the psyche? Only one of those filthy bastards is all!

Yes. Freud would have hated me but I would have loved him.

To sit and play with words and roles that would drive him mad. To forcefully be the one female who makes him wonder if he would ever really understand a woman and if so, what kind of woman would this be that all her secrets were to be unveiled by such a filthy old man like himself?…

Not me. ~

A Morning In April

26 Thursday Apr 2012

Posted by Aubrey Anne Dickinson in Living

≈ 6 Comments

I woke early this morning; slight drizzle, sound of hammers and someone singing in Spanish. A baritone. I have no idea what his words were; if he were singing of love or the grey sky or his goldfish at home but it sounded incredibly happy. So I woke early with the design to seize my day.

Today I could conquer the world. I could build bridges and float thru time. I could witness a miracle. Hell! I could be a miracle. So I padded down my miniature hallway and thru my long living room and made the corner to the kitchen. I pushed boxes aside and traveled thru the maze of unhung canvas in a determined manner to that beautiful contraption: the coffee pot. Fuel to feed this fire. And while it was brewing I took a shower. What would I do today? What couldn’t I do? I could grow wings.

Awake and refreshed, I let that first cup of coffee flow slowly. I sat. I relaxed and let my mind wonder. I dreamt of purple gardens. I slowly meandered over topics of which to write this very blog.  I made mental to do lists. I sank further into the chaise lounge and Zelda curled tighter up to me; purring ferociously. I poured another cup of coffee and did nothing but held the warm cup in my hands and breathed.

The sun is slowly beginning to peak out of those dark clouds and that man is still singing his song. So maybe just this, this very moment, is the miracle of my day. The miracle of being.

A little THC from mom…

20 Friday Apr 2012

Posted by Alisha Dickinson in Family & Friends

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

mamabirdie

The other night, while gathered around my mother’s butcher block in typical Sunday night dinner style, she commented on how tired I looked and that I had dark circles under my eyes.  She then proceeded to get up, sneakily left the room, and returned with what I took to be a vitamin.  “Here”, she said, as innocently as a cocaine king pin about to enlist his newest drug mule, “take this”.  My mom, the woman who handmade all my baby food and fed us nasty organic granola bars before it was the thing to do, with the nurturing air of Mother Teresa, handed me the stinky green pill and a tall glass of water.

Being really the only drug free person in my debaucherous family, it has become somewhat a matter of pride for me and a running joke within my family, that I have never even smoked a cigarette.  So as I felt the little green pill slide down my virgin throat, I noticed, rather suspiciously, a glint of evil trickery in my mother’s eyes.  “Do you know what that was?” she said in a guilty whisper.  “What?!” I responded, somewhat panicked now that I noticed her eyes were a bit glassy.  “THC,” she said, which registered in my naive, drug free brain as something much worse.  “You just gave me PCP!?? What the hell is that, acid??!!” And as I rushed past my chortling mother, determined to purge my body of the noxious drug before the hallucinations started, I realized that the universe had got it wrong.  Though we were destined to be together, I clearly should have been the parent and she, the unruly child.

‘Something about a River’ or ‘Why I’m always going to be so fond of Texas’

10 Tuesday Apr 2012

Posted by Alice Salles in Film, Living

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

'some badass shit', river phoenix, texas, the thing called love

(Consider reading this post with an accent, if you are not from the ‘hot as hell’ state)

For a night, he was from Texas.

During those intense two hours or so, that was a man who believed himself to be the quiet and stoic cowboy of bad fortune, with a guitar in hands and a ‘lone star state of mine’ scribbled on a piece of paper. That was a man who lived by his beliefs and I believed in him, just as hard. While his skin reflected the same tone and his hair swayed with the same leisurely weight it did when he was younger, this was his final goodbye. A true man who could only go down while keeping it real, while being true to what he seemed to be (at least to me): the tough romantic who would never back down from the fight of his life, because you know… He was a Texan.

I stepped into this episode of my life knowingly and embraced it bravely. This was the last time I would ever see him and feel it was new, fresh and unique. This was the last time he would ever ‘be’ around and now I see how it marked me ever so deeply.

I know. A movie. That’s all there is to it. A story that could be just another sappy love song, another script that didn’t make the first reading pile or even somebody’s dream, which couldn’t possibly play any role other than what its final destination truly is: the dream itself. However, in this movie, the man who made the music I loved, talked in a particularly inconspicuous drawl I craved and walked as if the world was a very, very cold place, feeling too grand to fit in his shoes and too small to fill up his coat was in love with a girl.

He truly was in love with that girl.

That girl was from New York and she had a dream that wasn’t tangible enough to be explained in simple words so she decided to put it into a song.

The man from Texas, who wasn’t really from Texas but acted as if he were, couldn’t be more in love with the girl from New York so he decided he was too a man of few words who couldn’t grasp the world in any other way: he too wrote a song.

As a matter of fact, he wrote plenty of them and they all sounded like it was hot as hell outside although it was just raining, but each one of these songs made me feel like that goodbye wasn’t just a goodbye but the kind of event that decidedly defined who I would become, one way or another.

I know what you may be thinking at this point. That I was young, maybe 10 or 12 and that the definition of love that a little girl embraces should not be considered the ultimate truth in the life of an adult but you see, I disagree.

I believe that desires and impressions set precedents and that due to the inevitability of our nature, we keep returning to the events and memories we cherish the most (or don’t). These memories could be easily thought of as true ‘defining moments’.

For an hour or two, that man was saying his goodbyes to me, a little girl who decided that those blue eyes and careless hair of his would too define my existence… and I’m sorry but the lone star state he chose to be from couldn’t have been more permanently fitting.

No wonder I was the only one among forty souls who was picked to go to Texas when I was just fourteen ~ Life tells funny stories sometimes so I stop and listen, patiently.

Ode to Red

09 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by Aubrey Anne Dickinson in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

I could liken you, of course, to blood
like on the days that we would
butcher chickens as red would fly
and feathers and sometimes the chickens themselves
or when I was little and scrapped my knee
or the time that they had to sew my finger back on.
But Red, that makes you sound so ruthless
especially when you sit peacefully
in my kitchen on a beautiful platter–little cupcakes
with white frosting
or the round little pillow with the button in the middle
that is on my bed that I too am on
or his lips when he is hungry for me.

Red, I know you to be the walls in
the room where my piano stood and the tall shelves
that held all of those books
that I grew up reading
and Red, you are my favorite coat
and my sexiest lingerie.

We are told that you are roses
but you are a million other little flowers as well.
You can be dangerous little berries
that stop the heart (also red)
but I’ve discovered you in a market in Tokyo
on a terribly rainy day in the sweetest strawberries
I’ve ever had.

Red, you can be rosy cheeks and laughter.
When I think of grizzly hugs, aside from grizzlies, I think of you.
Needless to say Red, we have given you Love.

I paint my toenails up in you
my lips too, that have so much to say
and sometimes nothing to say at all.

Red, we are told that you are passion
but they won’t come out and say that you are an animal
wild and hungry
and they won’t say how sometimes you can be soft
and sometimes even quiet,
all they can remember is your fire
like the time the neighbors house burst
into flames and the red truck came to hose it out
and all of their water-damaged, smoke-scented belonging that meant
everything
to them was brought out into the front lawn
or they remember the fire of the red shoes which meant “come and get me!”

But I know you Red
because, don’t forget that I am an animal too
and we’ve got a bit of it all
don’t we?

Far Reaching Sadness…

09 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by Alisha Dickinson in Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

His death spreads out before us, like a pebble tossed into a smooth, clear lake.  And, like the ripples on the pristine surface, growing ever wider and encompassing more and more, it’s evident that the loss of him has, and will, reach the far corners of this world.

Though my heartbreak is small, even infantismal, when compared to the engulfing grief of others, I can feel his absence.  Yet, his essence lingers.  The sound of his voice and the soft swish of his leather jacket still echo in my ears and I can almost catch the fleeting smell of his cigarettes.  Very few people in this world have lived life as fully and courageously as he, and his enthusiasm for living was inspiring.  What a legacy he leaves, what a life he lived, what a man he was.  His calm and capable presence pervaded all he did and I feel proud to have known him at all and ashamed to have not known him better.

Dedicated to a true pioneering spirit, Mike Worthey~

A bubble (reflecting you)

04 Wednesday Apr 2012

Posted by Alice Salles in Reality check?

≈ 1 Comment

You hope somebody will say the word so you don’t have to.

Admitting to it evokes shame, but

~ Why?

You want it so bad, to get it off your chest, let it be expelled through your pores like the sweat you sweat in days you wish were over before they even started. You pray, you beg, you fall into blind despair; you sleep with it and flirt with death. You sigh, cry and expect someone, something ~ anything out there ~ to hear you. Why can someone say it for me? for I cannot form words to express it.

I accept that this is the easiest way out and I am asking for it: I just want somebody to come and set me free.

~ Free from what?

The shame of wanting to say this, the shame from wanting this so much but being incapable of holding it against my prosecutors.

(but, the World is not a temple of doom, there’s nothing wrong with wanting what you want.)

But there is, you see, we were taught it’s wrong to want such splendorous things, such glories if all we wish them for is to make us feel better in our own skin.

~ Says who?

The World, society, gnomes, the United Nations, the birds for all I care.

(but it’s not true), I know. (Then, why shame?) Because what I feel is not guilt. (But why is it so hard to let go of this feeling of shame?) I don’t know. I just don’t know.

So I talk about it without touching the subject. I dance around it without keeping its pace. I flower it and create excuses, I survive around it wandering if life would have turned out any better if I had survived in it but never seem to get an answer… so I don’t question it and don’t entirely suppress it: it dwells in me but its voice is toneless.

And so I remain alive. Still waiting patiently for someone to set me free, just not too sure it will ever truly happen.

Ode to Blue

04 Wednesday Apr 2012

Posted by Aubrey Anne Dickinson in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

My eyes; His eyes

The sky that falls to meet that blue blue sea

This ink

This blue coat with its blue hood that holds me

The lake that I learned to swim in—yes that same one that nearly captured my last blue breath

Willie says blue eyes crying in the rain

Which makes me think of Seattle in the early morning

As I meandered thru the city before class

And that boy who stood outside smoking,

Making me wish that I smoked

But I didn’t so I never talked to him

Instead I left that school and migrated south to where the sky is nothing but bright

And there are not too many rivers

Just giant blue ocean waves that carry surfers and every now and then, you can spot a dolphin.

Tonight is a blue night (not that happy Greek blue either)

I thought about crying because my heart is lonely but I don’t want to mess up my mascara

So instead I sit here chipping the blue polish off my nails and think about when he will walk in the door.

I am listening to Bob Dylan (who knows a thing or two about dark blue nights) but can also sing about the bluest of mornings & cake & love.

Oh blue. Blue. You hold my heart.

You are both the happiest color and the saddest.

Had you a voice, blue, I would imagine it to sound like Otis and his arms and his dreams.

Had you a taste, it would have to be the plump huckleberries that grow wildly in the mountains of Washington that my Grandma bakes into the most delicious dessert these lucky lips have had.

Willie says blue eyes crying in the rain

Which makes me think of Seattle

And makes me miss them even more.

  • Alice Salles
  • Aubrey Anne Dickinson
  • Alisha Dickinson
  • Aubrey, Alice & Alisha.

Recent Posts

  • You See, My Mom Is Special
  • The Beginning
  • Grateful
  • Jeannette Rankin: The First U.S. Congresswoman Was Also Antiwar – Updated
  • Northern Migration

TheWordof3

TheWordof3

Archives

  • May 2015
  • December 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • June 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011

Categories

  • Beat
  • Brother
  • Dirt
  • Dying
  • Family & Friends
  • Film
  • Hollywood
  • Living
  • Ocean
  • Raw Passion
  • Reality check?
  • Sunday loving
  • True story?
  • Uncategorized
  • Whatever

Blogroll

  • The DHarma Bum
  • They Fight For (Your Right To Party)
  • We Love Diners
  • We Will Wander

Advertising

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy