journal-05/27/01

05/27/01

(My birthday was the 25th, Friday... and I decided to give myself the nice birthday present of heading to San Francisco with 3 friends. A nice gift, huh?)

Here I am in succulent, wild San Francisco. We're taking a much needed break from all the tourism and I am here in the hotel room, with Lora (but not really-- we've both got headphones on).

I am glad to be here again, to smell you, to remember, to be taken back ten years when I remember life as simpler in some ways-- more complicated in others-- then I am projected forward into the present--

into now, when I am a 26 year old woman living in Texas, always dreaming of some place more fantastic, more me. Always dreaming...

San Francisco is me and it isn't me. It's busy, it's diverse, it's touristy, it's wide spread. There is something here for everyone.

I am strong and vibrant and beautiful and places like this easily remind me.

Sunset is an angel weeping
holding out a bloody sword
no matter how I squint I cannot
make out what it's pointing towards.

Sometimes you feel like you've lived too long
days drip slowly on the page
you catch yourself
pacing the cage

I've proven who I am so many times
the magnetic strip's worn thin
and each time I was someone else
and everyone was taken in

Power is chatter in high places
stir up eddies in the dust of rage
set me to
pacing the cage

I never knew what you all wanted
so I gave you everything
all that I could pillage
all the spells I could sing

It's as if the thing were written
in the constitution of the age
sooner or later, you'll wind up
pacing the cage

Sometimes the best map will not guide you
you can't see what's 'round the bend
sometimes the road leads through dark places
sometimes the darkness is your friend

Today these eyes scan bleached-out land
for the coming of the outbound stage
pacing the cage
pacing the cage

--Bruce Coburn, "Pacing The Cage"

(I am in love with this new song.... even though it's not new... but new to me. Same difference.)