perchance

His phone beeps and though dinner is ready I step outside and respectfully give him time to talk to his husband.  I sit on the concrete steps which are still warm from the afternoon sun, the dog is by my side quietly watching the world.  I see two little pale yellow moths flying and alighting on a flower.  And for but the briefest of moments my troubles are cast from me and I am free from the white noise of them in my head.  I cover my face.  And for a moment a few tears splash into my pressed palms.  I feel both broken and whole.  Strong as hell and yet still so very vulnerable.  So very vulnerable.  There is a certain feeling that rushes in on me, I am almost breathless with it, the feeling of accepting my vulnerable side.  Of acceptance of all things I have and all I do not have, and a gratitude for the love that fills my heart.  Love for my child, my family, my pets, my friends.  I tell my mind to hush and all there is now is the lush green and dark red edges of the beard tongue leaf as it curves elegantly against the frost silver leaves of the artemesia fern.  I hear the sounds of the insects as they go about their early evening chores.  I have to go back to the Zen Center and to doing Yoga because I need some quiet in my mind.  I am chaotic.  My art is almost like the trite and ridiculous crap I did in college.  I am floundering.  But suddenly I realize that all of this imperfection is truly perfection.  That even the broken pieces of me are loved by God, even if by no other.  Or at least I hope they are.  Because I don’t love them at all.  Not one little shard.  Not one tossed sherd.  I think of this Footprint prayer.  And I say to God, you know that prayer where there is only one set of footprints?  I don’t need you to carry me, I can walk just fine by myself.  But I sure could use some gluing the pieces back together, or at least making them into something more beautiful, like a finely crafted ancient roman mosaic.  So maybe for a while you can carry this burden for me, and when you get tired of it, I will take it back.  Then suddenly it hits me, all that matters really is learning how to carry it all with grace, fortitude, and integrity.  You know what I think.  Let me be this way.  Let me be all big hearted and yearning for love, let me be a little bit ashamed of the way I carried on ignoring everything though it was smacking me in the face, was it really so bad to be a person who believed?  Let all of this constant white noise of it go.  I want to sleep again.  I want to dream again.  I want to feel full of love, whether or not it is well received.  This is me.  Take it or leave it.  I have to stop trying to leave it.

I heft the heavy sack onto my back.

God, I say can you let me be the lantern too, so that I can stop asking for light, because God, I am afraid of the dark.  So afraid of the dark.  And I don’t want anyone else to be shivering frightened in some shadowed corner.  I would rather be the light on this dark path than to be cowering on it alone and exhausted.

Bill has ended his phone call and we say a prayer for each lit candle.  He says God we are okay.  I say God thank you for everything good and bad, help us to find acceptance of both.

 

 

A Prayer

I wrote the first half of this prayer in January, I wrote the second half two weeks ago.

 

Dear God,

Please don’t let the stupid things I say and do keep people from loving me.
And also please don’t let the stupid things other people say and do keep me from loving them.

Amen.

 

‘nough said?

I think I just messed up a really good thing.

Forged from the Salted Sea

Marooned with an Elephant

Rueful she snaps the lid of the strong box closed,

one could call it a treasure chest
or the precursor to a Halliburton case
but maybe her avatar thinks
maybe it is just a stupid cardboard box.

Whats inside my lady
asked the pirate,
who could see for himself it was a shining pearl.
that is no treasure, said he
it is but an iron musket ball

She sits herself upon the breaking rocks
as the ship sails itself away
along with the nina the pinta and the santa maria
this is not an unmooring
it is a marooning

i am a fool she cries to the darkening sky
why do you delight in hurting me so?
the surf pounds so loud
she cannot hear the reply
that nonetheless is not forthcoming.

Here he is with a patch on each eye
he cannot see but is not blind
the apparition moans
and rattles its chains
but it is always Velma not Daphne who solves the mystery

But it is Daphne that they all choose.

She holds her treasure box
triumphant
even though it is just a stupid cardboard box
and inside,

it is just a stupid rock.
forged from the salted sea.

Strong Woman or Fat Chick? Probably the Latter.

So a couple days ago, I went to the basement to put in a load of laundry and discovered that one area of my house, that had never leaked before was leaking.  Alot.  I cleaned up the mess and then on Wednesday a friend was over and I mentioned it and we looked at the gutters together and realized that was the problem. I was pretty happy it wasn’t a big deal really.  So this morning I took the old grey chair that used to be in our kitchen when I was growing up, and though it is probably 36 years old is the sturdiest piece of furniture I own.  And it works good outside ’cause it is ancient and looks like crap anyway so I don’t care about it much.  While I was up there inspecting the old gutter and it too is old, possibly original to the house, my neighbor asked me what I was trying to do, and then offered her lighter weight aluminum ladder.  It weighed maybe 25 or 30 pounds.  I think the aluminum ladder I have is 75 pounds, and it requires ratcheting various sections to make it the configuration you want it to, so by the time I get it out of the shed, and finishing the ratcheting process I am usually pretty well into a solid workout.  She handed her lighter ladder over the fence to me and I got to work and I fixed the gutter.  She has gone through her own divorce and said to me that it was the one thing you need a man for.  But I didn’t need a man, at all.  Strong Women Rule!

After I mowed the lawn, did the weed whacking, and cleaned out one shed and swept part of the other, I should have done the whole thing, and will make that something else to do before winter sets in.  This of course was after vacuuming the whole house, and mopping the family room and kitchen.  Then I rode 20 miles on my exercise bike while watching a movie, and after that did some light yoga style stretches and a few crunches.  My body feels strong tonight too.  I went to Bill’s house to get a screwdriver because the batteries on mine are shot and I want to wait til I get paid again to hopefully just replace the battery and charger.  While I was there, I asked him in a self conscious way how long it takes for exercise to start taking an effect on  your body.  I find this so funny because I started out the year doing 30 minutes a day.  Took about a month and a half off when I got the tattoo on my ankle, because it was infected and hurt.  I did hike or walk some but also it rained like mad for like 30 days straight so that also put a damper in my plans.  Around mid April I started hiking and walking again.  And from the the middle of June until the middle of July I walked a solid 2o miles a week, on top of the house and yard work I have been doing.  I stopped recording the miles in the middle of July but walked maybe 12-15 miles a week until about a week and a half ago.  I got back into the walking but my knee hurts some so I started biking and have done about 90 miles in a week on a real bike once and on the exercise bike the rest of the time.  The real bike is a piece of garbage, so I hesitate to use it.  Afraid the chain will break while it tries to shift gears, badly, and the brakes are for crap on the steep hills of this town.  Bill knows me, maybe better than anyone else basically because when the ex left he showed me that I could trust him under any circumstances.  ANY. And I do.  So when I asked him he just wrapped his arms around me and told me that my body is beautiful and that I am beautiful and that I needed to stop being so hard on myself.  And of course I started crying.

Confession I am nearly plus sized.  I know.  I look fat.  My belly is wide and thick as are my thighs.  And I have a fat butt.  For the last 10 years or so I have gone through various diet regimes and weight loss programs, and I have exercised, maybe less consistently, because I get frustrated with a distinct lack of progress.  I used to be afraid to walk 3 miles but now 8 is not beneath me.   I once found Clark Reservation to be something of a challenge but now it is an easy walk for me.  And this summer when I was at Upper Treman Falls, and was hiking uphill, my face got red like it always does but at the end I was leaping up the steps.    But also confession.  I stopped weighing myself in April.  Except for one fall through, where of course I discovered I hadn’t lost a pound.  So it comes down to food.  I guess I will have to stop eating so much junk food and fast food now.  Lauging. ‘ Cause I eat so much.  My Mom tells me my portion sizes are too big.  For breakfast that day I ate two eggs, two soy sausages and I cannot remember but two slices of wheat toast (?) which I undoubtedly shared with the dog before I walked almost six miles to and from work.  At work I had a portobello mushroom salad and part of a very soggy cookie and some bread I think, a small piece of french if I am not mistaken.  I forget what we had for dinner, but I can tell you I was famished.  So I guess one slice of bread and one egg, no cookie?  Did I eat a giant bowl of pasta for dinner that night?  Not sure.  But there you have it.  My truth.  It has to be portion sizes right?  Okay will have to work on that.  Today I just had raw veggies and soy milk for dinner, I realized that should be one meal a day for me with a piece of fruit so that is my new goal.  One meal a day, fresh fruit and veggies and a lean protein of some kind.

But really, in the end my body is what it is.  Funny though 150 years ago I think my body images would have been moot.  I probably would have had about 15 kids, the last 10 while cooking dinner or carrying in wood for the fire.  I would have been out in the fields two days after giving birth.  I would have undoubtedly wet nursed a half dozen other people’s babies.  And in the lean years I would have been ruby cheeked and healthy while those of a smaller thinner constitution were looking sallow cheeked.  Thank you Hollywood and Plastic Surgeons for your contribution to my self hatred.  It’s awesome.

Thank you Bill for loving me either way.

What does it mean to be “In Love”

The moth wants to fly to the light of the moon, but instead it flies to the lantern as it flickers in the night, to the porch light as it shines brightly waiting for a loved one to come home.  It uses all of its energy to get to a light that is too bright, to a light that unlike the cool light of the moon, will burn it, singe it’s tender wings.  A match is lit, and it burns brightly, quickly consuming the small fuel of its stick until there is only singed skin, the match has gone out.  Another match is lit, and it instead is turned toward a well set fire.  Dried grasses and bark and small dry twigs at the bottom, larger twigs criss crossed or towered above and a small dry piece of wood ready at the side for when it catches, and later the larger logs that will burn longer and late into the night.  The dry grass catches, it is like the flame of the match, it can burn quickly and go out, or it can catch and then move on to the small twigs.

In love is the match, in love is the moth singeing its wings on the porch light, in love lights quickly and burns out long before anything real can be made or built.  In love is like lighting the match before the fire is set.  In love is the husband who comes home and uses it as an excuse to leave his family for another.  In love is what teenagers say because of the lust that surges through their bodies.  In love, in this cynics opinion is for children and the weak minded and the weak of spirit.

A mother is not in love with her child.  She will love that child, if she is a good parent, from the first moment she feels it kick in her belly, until her last breath.  A child will love their parent, from the moment they look into their eyes from the breast until the their very last breath.  A person loves the feeling they have when surrounded by their family, people they fight with and sometimes hate, people that they stand back to back with, and love, people that share experiences and a demeanor that only family can know.  They are not in love.  In love is for people who are not a part of you, in love is for people who walk alone and for a few minutes of their lives touch another, but whenever it suits them, in love leaves you.  It flutters helplessly against the burning light, and fades just as the sun is rising.  Real love is like the sun, it burns brightly, it is hidden by clouds, it lights the moon, it provides nourishment, and days at the beach, and the sparkling pollen soaked glistening trees after a hard afternoon rain.  Real love is not extinguished, it is as sure as the rising and setting sun.

For me, I do not want a match or a moth or a badly tindered fire.  There is a moment by a campfire, when the laughter has faded, the songs have been sung, the memories have been shared, the plans of the day to come have been made and there is only the souls that shift quiet like in the darkening night.  The stars twinkle, and the fire crackles, and the last flames are flickering low and deep inside the fire there is are embers glowing red and black and grey.  A moment when your face is warm and your toes are so hot that you have to move them, and your back is chilled so you turn it to the fire, and turn back again.  This moment where your own serene solitude is unbroken and at this moment, what you wish for is a face full of wrinkles to be looking back at you.  You are not just lovers, not just friends, not just companions, not just a partner, but you are family.  And for all the rainy days and thunderstorms, for all the hurricanes and floods, for all the scorching days and sweltering nights, for all the perfect days, and after rainstorm moments of your life you wouldn’t change one single thing except to have spent more time together, and less time arguing about the little things.  And when that wrinkled face smiles back at you, with their own thoughts and memories, and their own ugly voice, and their own voice of reason and their own inner light, you accept that face exactly because of all of those things.  And that face as it looks at you with the eyes now failing and the farts that let go of their own accord, and the warts that grow on the knuckles, and the nose picked perhaps not clandestinely enough, it accepts you right back.

This is love.  Not “in love”.

Love is an ember that burns long into the night, and if the wind is right, and the fire is banked well, and the rain holds off, that ember will be the coal that relights the fire in the morning.

I never want to be IN LOVE again for the rest of my life.  But someday I hope to look into the fire and see that ember, to look across the fire and see those shining eyes, and that wrinkled face.  And in the morning when my old bones are creaking, I want our weathered hands to touch.  And to not even have to say the word love to know it is there.

 

Truth

The morning is cool for summer and I sit on the back porch with a coffee enjoying the morning sun and light breeze.  I breath in and out and for a second I realize my mind is in a meditative spot.  Yet another thing I did not accomplish this summer.  Yet.  I must get back to it.  I have been angry maybe out of proportion to the small issues that have come up.  I have to let it go I realize because in the end I am only hurting myself.  I have this notion of things that annoy me are my own issues, not the issues of the people that have said or done things that on the front hurt but on the back end of it are right.  The other day I read someplace, I believe it was a quote from the Dalai Lama that we must temper truth with compassion.  That we must make sure that when we tell a truth to someone that it is not an all out attack.  Every single person on this planet has a perspective, mine is neither unique nor is it so special that it makes me right.  My truth is not everyone else’s truth.  Truth is a concept examined by philosophers, poets and filmmakers and by religion.  Can anyone truly know what absolute truth is?  Until you do know, pipe down and spend some time listening.  And trust me you probably don’t know.  What harm is there in listening for a moment.

Religions claim that they have the one and only truth, the only path to God.  But if there is only one God, are not all paths leading to it?  Politicians claim to have the truth, but we all know that their truth can be bought, is sold, and is said with forked tongue and crossed fingers so they can take it back if and when it serves them to.  News agencies, in print and televised and flashed over the internet, they too have a truth, that can be purchased, manipulated and sold to the highest bidder.  So you must really seek out truth by turning those things off and thinking.  I know thinking is hard, it is difficult, but not thinking is why we are in the big mess of this culture that we are in.  Not thinking is cool, according to the children.  Smart people are nerds and geeks, a compliment to someone that is.  But the kind of slack jawed acceptance of the absolute garbage we are being fed is not going to work really, anymore.

I come to this notion that I have my own truths to work on.  I sit for a while with this notion that I have the power to react to things as I react.  Its old news I know.  I can choose to react like a maniac and I do sometimes, I can choose to react with shame or fear or hurt, but isn’t it better to just speak, and say what it is I need.  Stand up for me if someone speaks ill of me, figure out a way to do so, know that I am already criticizing myself and I don’t need you to, find a way to motivate me by holding me up and not by punishing me.   But in the end accept who I am.  And if you cannot I am good because I have so many friends in my life that do.  I thought of  this as I walked in the wonderful refreshing night, how very fortunate to know exactly who stood by me when I was a train wreck.  And knowing that even those that could not do what I needed or wanted, were in fact exactly who and where they were supposed to be for their own reasons.  They had their own truths.

I know the song is kind of random to the post.  But in a way it is my truth tonight as the breeze flows across the open windows of the house, it was the truth as I was kissed goodnight under the moon and stars, it will be my truth as I close my eyes, and when I wake in the morning it will in part form my day.  And there is one thing I can promise.  My truth is that I am so worth it and as a friend said some days ago there is something intrinsically beautiful about a scene reflecting on rock skipping waters, so you are not sure what is up and what is down.  And while you rest awhile by these quiet waters reflect on truth.  You may find your mind drifting somewhere in the vicinity of it.  Please, do not shout when you discover it, let others get to it on their own, in the quiet serenity.

 

 

 

 

Pajarita Muerto

The dead bird

Pajarita Muerto

om shanti om shanti om shanti om
your skeleton is placed lovingly in a carved wooden box
lined with shimmering red velvet
as the prayer maker sheds a splashing drop
on your lifeless skul
tenderly caressed by calloused fingers
wiped clean of the salty tear
your flesh has come and gone
your chance to beg for worms has ended
and never will your voice know song
your vacant eye socket will never see the sun rise or set again
your soul, it flutters nearby
waiting for the chance to fly
your one attempt at flight
the disaster of your demise
the nest from which you tumbled
disintegrating twig by twig
moldering bit by bit
a downy feather drifts and is caught
like a faint memory of your scent
before being lost again
on a current of a passing wind
pajarita
muerto.

big fat f^%$,

Naughty finger

It is clear to me as I look at the stars trying to shine through the light haze of city night that what is in front of me is nothing but empty space.  I will not look at any object in the possible light of my vision, I turn away as my heart is breaking.  I hold my knees close to me, arms wrapped round myself, protective.  I am still always protecting myself, I know no one else will.  How can I not be strong?  No one will ever defend me.   I suddenly feel cold, really cold and I want to walk away.  How many stand in judgment?  How many?  Can you not stand in defense?

It is a struggle always this, I deserve better, I am so strong, but I am just a child, weeping.  I deserve more than you are willing to give, and I am so stupid to believe it will come to me.  I have more faith in mankind than they deserve.  That is my greatest weakness is it not?

I don’t see what you see, but I do see what you do not.  I know what I have done, I know where I have been, I know my position is strongly defensible.  But you will not defend me.  I find my back is turning to the moon that is shining.  And I feel no warmth from it.

I see why you are alone.  I cannot figure out yet why I am.