When I was little, I wanted to be Speed Racer's girlfriend, Trixie. I would get on my swingset and swing really high, and at the top of each swing I would yell out "Speed!" the way Trixie would when Speed was heading for the guardrail or over a cliff. Now when I watch the Speed Racer cartoon I think it's the cheesiest piece of shit I've ever seen. But my memories of it are quite sweet.

When I was little, I wanted to be a Native American. I thought being an Indian and living off the land would be cool. I learned about Coast tribal culture in school, of course, and I would come home and mash up berries and dogwood seeds and blue food coloring and pretend it was pemmican. I never actually ate it, because . . .

When I was little, I thought sweet peas were just another kind of pea you could eat. I was about 4 or 5, and I clearly remember having to swallow ipecac syrup and then sit on a stool with a green puke bucket while my mother, father, grandmother, grandfather and aunt waited for me to throw up so I wouldn't die of poisoning.

The person I miss the most and would have back at almost any price is my father's mother. Her name was Elsie when she got her citizenship, but her birth name was Else Mathilde, pronouned Elsa Matilda. It's the Norwegian spelling. She was a luminous, mysterious creature when she was young, from what I could tell, and had some native Sami blood in her. (My grandfather was a Swede who was fascinated with Native Americans, and I think he married her because she spoke his language, and she had blue eyes and black hair.) My grandmother gave and gave and gave. Everyone in our town knew she could be counted on to be thrifty, and still somehow incredibly generous with what she had. During WWII she had an immense vegetable garden, and she traded/bartered for fish, meat and sugar. She could make anything taste good. She could sew entire garments just as good as any you would buy. She canned fruits and vegetables, and her pickled salmon was a true joy. She would warm our bath towels in the oven and then let us sit on the red kitchen stool by the heat register as we dried off. (I just started crying. I really miss her, and it's been 21 years). The last thing she said to me, while cupping my cheek with her hand, was, "Oh, my little Elsa, I love you so much." What else could have been so sweet? She was fiesty, polite, long-suffering, strong, and certain of a good many things. She was entirely beautiful.

When I am really stressed out, I bite off all my fingernails. I swear that, because I've bitten my nails forever, I have a great immune system. In fact, when I was a kid I got pinworms probably 4 times because there was soil under my nails and the worm eggs were in the soil. There's nothing as fun as having worms make your butt itch and you have to not only let your mom see your butt, but then you have to take nasty medicine. I learned about handwashing after that!

Another thing I do when I'm stressed is eat. I get two days a month of intense hunger feelings, and I usually give in to them, then I get back on track. The suffering of trying to deny the hormonal imperative to eat is far too awful to endure. Just not worth it. Today it took the form of an artisan cheese plate, a Tanqueray and tonic, two diet cokes, and three mini burgers, all in the space of an hour. I would have thrown up if I weren't opposed to that whole idea. So now I'm sitting here, drowsy, full, and regretful. But it'll all be over by tomorrow and I'll clean up really nicely.

In junior high, I was fascinated with anthropology and wanted to be an archeologist. Then I figured out that you didn't discover Troy every day, and all that digging around with toothbrushes in the desert seemed like way too much fucking work. I had a real jones for Egypt (though didn't see Tut's treasures when they came through), anything Louis Leakey did, and Greek/Roman ruins.

I love waterfowl and can identify dozens of native birds. I added about a dozen more when living in Nebraska. I love the way magpies look, even though they are arrogant bastards that take over other birds' nests, the pigs. I loved my high school biology teacher, and I can only hope he was still alive to hear that ivory-billed woodpeckers were found in the south. It would have made his day, for sure.

I respect and admire large, 50's and 60's era American cars. Dusters, Chargers, GTOs, Impalas, Novas, Mustangs, ooooh boy. I don't need to own one, but I'd sure love another drive in a 68 Nova SS. Balls, pure balls. Thanks to Uncle Victor for parking his in our driveway when he needed somewhere to keep it. I'm sure he didn't picture me at 15 years old, stealing it and driving it 90 miles an hour on the suburban back roads of Edmonds. It wasn't smart, but shit, was it fun.

I have several favorite body parts on my own body. They are:
- my eyes - duh, they are just right out there, aren't they?
- my calves - they're kinda big, but I like that.
- my quads - damn, they are strong
- my general upper body mass - big tits, big lats, plenty strong.

Whenever I get a new calendar, notebook, whatever, I have to do a collage on it. Don't know why. But it's one of those things that's just easier to give in to than to prevent. Art is art. The collages kind of remind me of where I was in my life when I did them.

I am bad at remembering to water the plants and change the catbox. I like a clean house - untidy is fine, but unsanitary is not. I have treated this apartment like a dorm room, impermanent and without much respect. I want to be elsewhere, back on my island, or in some other place that feels grounded. Right now in my life, Vashon's that place. There are others.

Swimming in rivers is an activity that is almost spiritual to me. Being a part of that flowing water, sometimes resisting it and swimming upstream, sometimes letting it carry me, that's beautiful. I like overcoming my initial shock at how cold it is. I like settling into it and becoming more it than myself. Letting it subsume me and make me a part of all creation around me. This next passage sums it up (bear with me); it's from "Life After God" by Douglas Coupland, and is about a man grappling with the uncertainty of the world, confessing to his small child who he seldom sees:

"I peel my clothes and step into the pool beside the burbling stream, onto polished rocks, and water so clear that it seems it might not even be really there.

"My skin is grey, from lack of sun, from lack of bathing. And yes, the water is so cold, this water that only yesterday was locked as ice up on the mountaintops. But the pain from the cold is a pain that does not matter to me. I strip my pants, my shirt, my tie, my underwear and they lie strewn on the gravel bar next to my blanket.

"And the water from the stream above me roars.

"Oh, does it roar! Like a voice that knows only one message, one truth -- never-ending, like the clapping of hands and the cheers of the citizens upon the coronation of the king, the crowds of the inauguration, cheering for hope and for that one voice that will speak to them.

"Now -- here is my secret:

"I tell it to you with an openness of heart that I doubt I shall ever achieve again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. My secret is that I need God -- that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, beacuse I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love.

"I walk deeper and depper into the rushing water. My testicles pull up into myself. The water enters my belly button and it freezes my chest, my arms, my neck. It reachers my mouth, my nose, my ears, and the roar is so loud -- this roar, this clapping of hands.

"These hands -- the hands that heal; the hands that hold; the hands we desire because they are better than desire.

"I submerge myself in the pool completely. I grab my knees and I forget gravity and I float within the pool and yet, even here, I hear the roar of the water, the roar of clapping hands.

"These hands -- the hands that care, the hands that mold; the hands that touch the lip\s, the lips that speak the words -- the words that tell us we are whole."

Isn't that magnificent? And I know the place he's talking about, which is part of why I would go into the hills above Vancouver and climb around, finding the secret, wild places.

I think that's enough for now. I'm going to bed early so I can get up early and have some thoughtful time in the morning before my brain takes over and makes me run around "getting things done".

Peace, love, light and life,

E.


e l s a s v e n s s o n
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bilingual postmodern motorcycle diva

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