Leanna Banana

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I dreamt

I dreamt of you this morning. There was a sadness between us; I think it's because you knew. In my dreams, you can feel what I feel-- a certain intimacy shared without a word spoken.

^{Posted by Leanna - Monday, May 11, 2015 - 10:00pm}

"The Cinnamon Peeler's Wife"

If I were a cinnamon peeler
I would ride your bed
And leave the yellow bark dust
On your pillow.

Your breasts and shoulders would reek
You could never walk through markets
without the profession of my fingers
floating over you. The blind would
stumble certain of whom they approached
though you might bathe
under rain gutters, monsoon.

Here on the upper thigh
at this smooth pasture
neighbour to you hair
or the crease
that cuts your back. This ankle.
You will be known among strangers
as the cinnamon peeler's wife.

I could hardly glance at you
before marriage
never touch you
--your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers.
I buried my hands
in saffron, disguised them
over smoking tar,
helped the honey gatherers...

When we swam once
I touched you in the water
and our bodies remained free,
you could hold me and be blind of smell.
you climbed the bank and said

this is how you touch other women
the grass cutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter.
And you searched your arms
for the missing perfume

and knew

what good is it
to be the lime burner's daughter
left with no trace
as if not spoken to in the act of love
as if wounded without the pleasure of a scar.

You touched
your belly to my hands
in the dry air and said
I am the cinnamon
Peeler's wife. Smell me.

-- Michael Ondaatje, The Cinnamon Peeler's Wife

Anna Demarco Photography
featuring Miss Leanna Banana
in sunny Southern California

^{Posted by Leanna - Sunday, May 10, 2015 - 9:50pm}

happy birthday, butterfly girl.

i'm stronger because i had to be.
i'm smarter because of my mistakes.
i'm happier because i've overcome the sadness i have known
and i'm wiser because i've learned from my life.

"you’re so

beautiful.

you’re made of the

stardust of galaxies,

millions upon millions

of years old;

you hold a tempest

within your bones and

a light in your eyes

that never fades…

you deserve

only the best in the world

and goddamn I hope

you get every single thing

you want from life."

Mixed media chrysalis shadow box, 2015

^{Posted by Leanna - Sunday, May 10, 2015 - 9:26pm}

Show me your eyes

Weary traveler, calloused and sore

Time and gravity followed you here

Rest, my sister, and tell me

All about the ocean

I've never seen the ocean

Not like this one

Weary traveler, calloused and sore

Time and gravity followed you here

Rest, my brother, and tell me

All about the ocean

Spoils and troubles, they burden you've bore

Pay them no mind, they matter no more

Leave them behind and show me

All about the ocean

Look in your eyes

I've never seen the ocean

Not like this one

Deep in your eyes

I've never seen the ocean

Not like this one

Show me your eyes

I've never seen the ocean

Not like this one

Look in your eyes

I've never seen the ocean

Not like this one

^{Posted by Leanna - Sunday, May 10, 2015 - 9:16pm}

Sometimes

Sometimes life is so strange and beautiful.
.

^{Posted by Leanna - Sunday, May 10, 2015 - 8:03pm}

1esson

Everything that you endure can be put to good purpose by allowing it to train you in keeping faith. This is how the works of evil are overcome... Growing in grace through the very adversity that was meant to cause you harm. Do not fear what this day, or any day, may bring your way. Fear no evil, because good is brought out of every situation you will ever encounter.

"Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present."

( Ensnared Woman by William Pogany, 1910 )

^{Posted by Leanna - Friday, May 8, 2015 - 11:30am}

;

“I understood myself only after I destroyed myself. And only in the process of fixing myself, did I know who I really was.”
—Sade Andria Zabala
,

^{Posted by Leanna - Friday, May 8, 2015 - 5:33am}

*

Not the power to remember, but its very opposite, the power to forget, is a necessary condition of our existence. If the lore of the transmigration of souls is a true one, then these, between the exchange of bodies, must pass through the sea of forgetfulness. According to Jewish view, we make the transition under the overlordship of the Angel of Forgetfulness. But it sometimes happens that the Angel of Forgetfulness forgets to remove from our memories the records of the former world; and then our senses are haunted by fragmentarily recollections of another life.

-- Sholem Asch, The Nazarene, 1939

^{Posted by Leanna - Thursday, May 7, 2015 - 10:00pm}

.

sacrifice.
;

^{Posted by Leanna - Wednesday, May 6, 2015 - 11:22am}

the secret life

August said, "Listen to me now, Lily. I'm going to tell you something I want you to always remember, all right?"

Her face had grown serious, intent. Her eyes did not blink.

"All right," I said, and I felt something electric slide down my spine.

"Our Lady is not some magical being out there somewhere, like a fairy godmother. She's not the statue in the parlor. She's something inside of you. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"

"Our Lady is inside me," I repeated, not sure if I did.

"You have to find a mother within yourself. We all do. Even if we already have a mother, we still have to find this part of ourselves inside." She held out her hand to me. "Give me your hand."

I lifted my hand and placed it in hers. She took it and pressed the flat of my palm up against my chest, over my beating heart. "You don't have to put your hand on Mary's heart to get strength and consolation and rescue, and all the other things we need to get through life," she said. "You can place it right here on your own heart. On your own heart."

August stepped closer. She kept the pressure steady against my hand. "All those times your father treated you mean, Our Lady was the voice in you that said, 'No, I will not bow down to this. I am Lily Melissa Owens, and I will not bow down.' Whether you could hear this voice or not, she was in there saying it."

I took my other hand and placed it on top of hers, and she moved her free hand on top of it, so we had this black-and-white stack of hands resting upon my chest.

"When you're unsure of yourself," she said, "when you start pulling back into doubt and small living, she's the one inside saying, 'Get up from there and live like the glorious girl you are.' She's the power inside you, do you understand?"

Her hands stayed where they were but released their pressure. "And whatever it is that keeps widening your heart, that's Mary, too, not only the power inside you but the love. And when you get down to it, Lily, that's the only purpose grand enough for a human life. Not just to love -- but to persist in love."

She paused. Bees drummed their sound into the air. August retrieved her hands from the pile on my chest, but I left mine there.

"This Mary I'm talking about sits in your heart all day long, saying, 'Lily, you are my everlasting home. Don't you ever be afraid. I am enough. We are enough."

I closed my eyes, and in the coolness of the morning, there among the bees, I felt for one clear instant what she was talking about. When I opened my eyes, August was nowhere around. I looked back toward the house and saw her crossing the yard, her white dress catching the light.

-- Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

^{Posted by Leanna - Wednesday, May 6, 2015 - 6:10am}