Rebel girl, you are the queen of my world...

Dangerous Life

I quit med school when I found out the stiff they gave me
had Book Nine of Paradise Lost and the lyrics
to "Louie, Louie" tattooed on the inside of her thigh.

That morning as the wind was mowing
little ladies on the street below, I touched a Bunsen burner
to the Girlscout sash whose badges were the measure of my worth:

Careers ...
Cookery, Seamstress ...
and Baby Maker ... all gone up in smoke.

But I kept the merit badge marked Dangerous Life,
for which, if you remember, the girls were taken to the woods
and taught the mechanics of fire,

around which they had us dance with pointed sticks
lashed into crucifixes that we'd wrapped with yarn and wore
on lanyards round our necks, calling them "The Eyes of God."

Now my mother calls the payphone outside my walk-up, raving
about what people think of a woman: thirty, unsettled,
living on foodstamps, coin-op laundromats, & public clinics.

Some nights I take my lanyards from their shoebox, practice baying
those old campsongs to the moon. And remember how they told us
that a smart girl could find her way out of anywhere, alive.

- Lucia Maria Perillo

From Awhimaway and it's wonders, to Nashville, to Chattanooga, to Atlanta... the days keep flying by. Right now I'm reveling in my day spent at the Botanical Gardens (thank you Simmer for the recommendation!) and still processing our day spent at the Dr. Martin Luther King National Park. We've seen Iron and Wine and are about to go listen to Horse Feathers and I am absolutely filled with satisfaction and excitement.

It's funny, how I find myself laying in Caitlin's grandmother's bed (she's had it since she was 16!) and wishing nothing more than to spend all my days lying there, out of nerves or exhaustion or simply overwhelmed by the task we've undertaken. Then only four days later, to be couchsurfing in Atlanta and taking in all of the sites and to be all wound up by the energy created from traveling and learning.

We're kind of lagging in terms of our next bout of planning, but it keeps coming together and it's becoming easier to let go of some of that ridiculous worry I carry around with me!

Here's to the Dangerous Life!