I Call Her Kitten

"The little airplanes of the heart
with their brave little propellers
what can they do against the winds of darkness
even as butterflies are beaten back
by hurricanes
and yet do not die."
 
He’s been in my head all morning. Ferlinghetti and that poem. I recited it silently while I rode to the DMV to register my first motorcycle—a 1991 Suzuki Bandit. Red. Fun. Not so big that my toes scrape the pavement but with enough power to feel badass and sassy. Badassy.
 
I rode my little Honda scooter. Black plastic body with grey scrapes that look like eraser marks or Beaver Cleaver’s grayscale skinned knees. Missing one of its mirrors. A tiny, black plastic road warrior. The friend I bought her from named her Kit and fantasized about getting a red Knightrider lightstrip across the windshield plate. I call her Kitten. I smile when she starts up with a purr. Even in these grayscale Winter mornings.
 
Recently I’ve wanted to learn tricks. I steer in and out of potholes and dashed yellow lines, leaving a tight zigzag trail behind me. I create a small adventure from point A to point B, from my house to work to the grocery store. I’ve been standing up while I ride, like those motocross dudes. I’ve been practicing that for awhile and have realized that, in order to get stable, I just have to commit. Straighten my knees and pitch my weight forward. If I try to ease into my balance, I never get all the way to standing.
 
I’ve been watching documentaries recently. Motorcycle daredevils, back country skiers, skateboarders like Christian Hosoi and John Cardiel.
 
They are so fearless and graceful and joyous in the way they fling their physical bodies towards their sport. Towards their trail, their trick, their path. They are beautiful to watch. Curious to listen to. They all seem so carefree and mischievous, like they have never been scared and their bodies don’t cringe at pain. They make me want to go outside and have fun and get into accidents against pavement and laugh it off. Sometimes these documentaries make me know that I am wasting my life a little if I am not jumping off high places into uncertain, rocky circumstances.

After I left the DMV today, I still had a couple hours of parking left. So I came to this coffee shop. It occurred to me that I could write. I brought this notebook. But it’s been a long time. Since I sat anywhere and just wrote. I've been working towards deadlines and ruminating on themes and editing, piecing my thoughts together. But it's been a long time since I wrote just to write. The thought made me a little nervous—I always worry that I've forgotten how to do that.

I haven’t.

There is a small room in my heart that believes someday I will grow up to be a full-time, professional writer and that it will take more discipline than I have now but will fill my days with thoughtful appreciation and wonderment for the world around me. And I believe it will make me very happy.
 
This room is kept locked with a weak latch and I don’t talk about it. I don’t visit it often because I’m scared that it is only a dream I dreamed a long time ago and has vanished among the thickening tree trunks of my friendships, the cement highways of my theater career, the soft purple sunrise of my love. I get afraid that room is no longer there. So I don’t look for it and I do laundry and email instead.
 
But I’ve tiptoed to the doorknob today. Shaken the latch loose. Forced the hinges free from their rusty closure.
 
It’s sunny in here.
Hardwood floors and upholestered cushions that suck the fingertips in like a warm, nasty little kiss.
I like it in here.
I need to get rid of the ashtrays and empty wine bottles. They don’t belong here anymore. But I can still enjoy the view. Of sidewalks and pigeons. I can see the rocky seams along the Pacific Ocean from here. Hear children laughing. Watch teenage boys picking each other’s pockets. In the distance, I can see a theater.
 
I think I’ll visit that building another day.
Today, I'm just writing.

Marya Sea Kaminski premieres new writing at Laws of Attraction this evening, 7:30 p.m. at the University of Washington's Kane Hall. Tickets are $15-25 and are available at the door beginning at 6:30 p.m.

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