Upside Down Kris

👣 Happy Feet  It was chunky and juicy, the sensation of my barefoot feet on the parquet. I can't describe it any better than a full-bodied walk. It was so delicious that food adjectives seem to narrate the experience the best. It tells a story, the impetus in the arches of our feet 👣 : the filling out and filling in of them. I was pressing my whole foot into the floor, something I rarely do consciously. I felt my whole foot suck in the wood, as if it were craving it (which it probably was, being used to rubber soles.) Yes: it felt like there were suction pads under my heel and under the balls where callouses sometimes grow to protect me...even my toes became little suction cups. How glorious to take the time to truly feel the walk! To feel my weight slowly change, stabilizing in the center of one foot while the other almost dangled in mid-air, only the ball supporting it. And then I pushed through the limits of stability, leaning into the toes of the first foot until the second t...

The Palm in Carnival The palm tree outside my window   is a tall reminder of nature on a street paved with tourists. A motorcycle rumbles and then roars down the road, cars grumbling behind it. The white noise of people chattering provides a background for the sharp slap of a dog's bark. But the tree is silent, or maybe her sound is muted by the bright pink carnival goers below. She is patient, crossing her lower limbs demurely in front of her as she faces me. She is rather slumped from the weight of her many fans drooping or dangling in the slight breeze. Out of her crown, proud palms protect her and bask in the sunlight. In the chunkiest part of the tree strings of peas make a decorative addition to her headress. One side is green as one would expect, but the other streams gold... As the window clicks shut, I exhale in relief. How can the palm stand it out there with all the confusion and commotion? The tree is striped–layers of growth or time spiralling up from the base. Yes, th...

  The After Carnival The lights were still on, but the machinery mimicked the insides of houses at that moment: ground down to a halt, the gears in off position. Shadows in human forms moved the air in front of café's yet to open. The idea of lights–this time bright white–contrasted with the solid shapes of humans yet to enter into that waking space. A person pauses in an entrance with a hood over her head, a shadow looking toward the light. Her hands grab onto the shape of an ivory umbrella which was to be set up outside, Moments before, a bulldog had been bathing his head in a pool of light from another open door. The rest of him had been hunched over in the dark, concentrating on his first poo of the day. I assume his owner was waiting to collect it–although the protagonist of the scene was the dog...the human only a hazy sketch in the background. Even people waiting on the side of the road seemed painted into the morning–already anticipating it in the dimensions of a bus almost...

Pickled Most people either love pickles or hate them. I used to hate them, convinced they highjacked any sandwich: a coup of the main taste. Then, I visited a friend in Warsaw who let me try her grandmother's pickles. Reluctant at first but not wanting to be rude, I cut a tiny piece off one and gave it up to my inner palate. Not only did it turn out to be the best pickle I had ever had, but it didn't make me pucker. Her grandmother's pickles were tangy, yet a slight sweetness lingered in my mouth after chewing them. My friend explained that pickles were an important food for her grandmother and many Polish people during WW2...it was pretty much the only source of vitamins they had, seeing as how they couldn't get fruit and most vegetables were scarce as well. Well, that was it: my pickle views did a 360. I realized that I didn't like most pickles (or any pickled vegetable) because of their too vinegary, unnatural taste.  I have tried other "natural" pickle...