What is the BrainHeart Beat?

Trish Szymanski is a multi-genre artist whose word includes
Performance, as actor/director, singer, singer/songwriter, musician, performance artist
Installed work, as conceptual innovator
Music, as songwriter, singer, percussionist
Writing, as published and constant writer of nonfiction and fiction, poetry, script, essay.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Another dream.

I woke up the first time around 8 this morning and thought of him right away. I went to the bathroom and back to bed, fell asleep, and we picked up where we had left off. Part of me knew I was dreaming and was delighted that we were continuing.

I was who I am right now. He was quite a bit younger than I, just barely within my stated acceptable age range, very fair with strawberry blond hair and lots of freckles. The freckles figure prominently in my memory. He has a sweet face, unfamiliar, no one I know.

We had met somewhere just that night, it must have been my home, though it didn't look familiar. There were others around but everyone else left, one by one, and he hung around and it was alright with me. I was occupied with something in which he had no interest, or maybe I just didn't share it with him. But it was easy between us, which I figured was why he stayed.

It was getting late, and I sensed he wanted to lay down together. I did too, but some activity on my lap was taking my attention. I'm guessing it was a laptop; maybe I was writing a poem.

He kept busy while I did my thing. Now and then, he came to me and smiled, or asked if I was done yet, or massaged my neck a little. I enjoyed his goodhearted nagging. I would smile and say nothing or, "Soon."

Once more, he came to me and rubbed his face against mine, like a cat. I rubbed back at him. But I wasn't quite ready and my fingers kept moving. He gave up and lay down in the next room, in the dark. I could see him there, curled up on his side, resting. I considered taking off the long, soft, dark blue dress I wore. I walked over to him and as I sat, he reached out and pulled me down. I lay down, on my side too, lying in front of him, and we spooned, his one arm under my head, the other over my hip and my belly.

I think this dream was partly inspired by a couple of Facebook exchanges recently, but as I thought about it this morning, what struck me was the familiar feeling of calm, feeling present, safe, of confidence that all is well, and when I'm done with the task at hand, I'll get to lay down and rest in the warmth of a friend.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Homeless For One Night


by Trish Szymanski
Late night, Saturday, February 21, 2009



"U.S.A. U.S.A. U.S.A."
She comments to me on the steps at Journal Square tonight.

I watch as history poignantly repeats.
Jean comforts her, hugs and loves her.

"This is inhuman!" she whispers to me,
Not wanting to insult her host at the fountain.
Jean's bags line up neatly as she huddles nearby
And waits for her husband to join her.

U.S.A.
U.S.A.
U.S.A.
She says, "How can we just sit by with people in such plight?"

I watch as her consciousness once again is raised.
And she has known, better than most.

"What can I do now?" she thinks to herself.
Now walking ahead though she sees no path there.
Her fire is ignited. She struggles. She cries.
Looks up, so the answer will find her.

U.S.A.
U.S.A.
U.S.A.
"Don't cry," Jean says, "It's going to be okay."



for Adela, and Jean

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Me, in December 2008



A new me...ish.


Photo by
Elizabeth Solaka

Sunday, February 8, 2009

I like dreaming.


I used to dream long, vivid dreams that I remembered in detail. Sometimes, I would awake and write them down and they would come out like saga poems.

In my teens and twenties, I dreamed stories, like being in a bookshop with my mother who was telling me how to spend my book-buying dollars, me getting frustrated and leaving, then walking back up the street to find my mother standing outside the bookshop in an animal print bikini, in the waves that crashed out of the bookstore (where presumably the ocean was), trying to avoid the shark that was swimming in the surf while getting as close a look at it as possible.

At some point, my dream memory began to fade and it seemed my dreams had become less interesting, shorter, hardly worth remembering. And then, about ten years ago, I stopped remembering my dreams altogether. It was disappointing.

Recently, I had a few long, detailed dreams, like the ones many years ago. In one of them I was in the right place at the right time to catch a baby as it popped out of a friend's vagina. It was slippery, like a greased pig, and I kept almost dropping it as I washed it off and finally managed to deliver it to its mother's stomach. Everything was OK in the end. Whew!

Another dream was long and detailed, like the old sagas, rich with emotion and images. It left me feeling vulnerable and so alive, in that messy, real way.

I couldn't get it out of my head and for a few days I told it over and over, to different people. A friend said it sounded like a great short film. Finally, I wrote it down and couldn't stop until it was done. I embellished it in the writing, just a little, because now the narrative had grabbed me and I did begin to see it as a story, like I used to, maybe even a film. The process of writing it took away the compulsion to tell it. The narrative passed through me, and like a fine filter, it dragged out of me strong emotions, some pleasant, others not so much.

After talking with close friends and confidants, I take this dream as a significant signpost along the amazing personal journey I've been on for the past couple of years. I like the direction it says I'm pointed in.

I'll post it here in time. The photograph in this entry is of my bedroom, where I dreamed this most tender dream.