I Promise

A New Year's Promise

Each step, tentative and unsure
limping into a year full of hope
casting off the disappointments
the hurts and the self-condemnation

waking up to fresh start,
hope has not been beaten out 
of this being as it treads the path
of this mortal coil

I promise to turn my face
up to the sun

I promise to clear my vision
of the cataracts of short sightedness

I promise to lighten my load first
then cast a hand back to others

I promise to breathe each breath
fully, letting them heal me in succession

I promise to speak to myself as a 
dear friend in trouble

I promise to caress my tender heart
with the hands of love

I promise to allow floundering as 
I learn to swim this life

I promise to forgive, for these promises
will ebb and flow like the sea.

blank

blank

nothing to celebrate here.

wide open desolate spaces

interchangeable for tundra, 

desert valley or deep ocean floor

raw and barren

nothing to reach for, 

high and beyond the inner

and outer cacophony of misery

where is the dove that flew?

no branch on this olive tree

that stands alone, 

bent and broken 

from the weight of woe

gutted

hollow



hollow like
a reed whistling
from the crosswind
as it roves across the swamp

hollow
hollow like
a china doll
cracked with age and empty
when her chest is tapped

hollow
hollow like
a galaxy empty
of air and noise and wind
no sound in or out

second skin

 

 

 

cicada 

what was once whole,
confined to irreplaceable -
an identity honed 
in the fire of tumult

crumbling carapaces of 
incoherent ramblings
rest about, strewn and
cast aside, like refuse

now, like once bronzed
skin, thin sheets cast off.
end of summer molting,
readying itself for winter

gone are days of sun touched,
wind swept, salt encrusted
moments, bare and brazen
into now she saunters

Bones

 

 

 

 

Bones

I am fascinated with the

idea, texture, lightness,

of cold, dry, bones;

bleached white and clean

bare of all semblance

of what once was,

of what gave them

motion and drive.

emptied of this flesh,

these scaffolds are free 

to shimmer in the sun, 

burnished and bright.

Pale

Pale

an unassimilated life lays out

ghost pale and transparent 

before me, like a specter

i can wave my hand through

so far away i do sit, aside

and askew from the activity

and bustle of those that 

lay claim to me and mine

this calm, it frightens me

oh, to have my heart quicken,

to feel the hair on my arms rise

in response to connection

rather, i sit deep in the pool

of numb quietude,

waiting for someone to

throw me a line

I turned it off today

 

I turned it off today

my addictions to media,
to nicotine and alcohol
are sad little commas,
pauses in my life

i live still and clear
behind facades of 
lonely, inside social.
connected inside alone

i am tired 
of all this and that.
comings and goings
no where to be

in this moment
i decide, yet
i tremble at the
idea of real

the velveteen 
rabbit with carrots
to spare. i crouch
and wait

Bones

Bones

On the cool blown shore of white rocks at dawn,

By prattling water clear, fresh and thin,

Rests the lone one who tarried on and on.

Clothed blanched bones, wrapped in worn and battered skin.

From sky, the sounds of prey birds make their cry.

On the withering shape below, they sight

This world torn form wracked from a life gone by.

Too numb to be brought to life by fright.

And then down to feast, these birds do glide

To peck the tender parts that lie within.

And with the shell cast, what remains inside

Is quicksilver and bright, and purged of sin.

Loose, freed to rise, roaming wild beauty.

Shattering out in perpetuity.

To dance...to dream

Ballet

Today marked the first ballet class that I have taken in I don't know how long.  Granted, the last time I went was just for a few classes so I didn't learn much.  Ballet is one of the things in my life that I wanted to do when I was younger, yet didn't.  My body is run down and tired. My joints are stiff and inflexible due to lack of activity. Needless to say, today's class was difficult.  I feel pretty good about  how I did - I tried my damnedest to stay out of my head and just be aware of my body.  This was and is really challenging for me. I compare myself to others constantly.  I want to look like I know what I am doing at times.  Cherie calls this the something or other - I don't remember.  All I know is that the end result of these mental machinations is me feeling better than or less than.  either way - I don't feel good.  

Get off my island

Writing

Writing to write because this is a commitment I made to myself.  The last 2 days have been hell on earth.  Son #3 has stolen and lied about it.  grounded to room.  then used son #2's lap top to "listen to spotify" and when I checked the history - yep, he'd been on YT etc.  It's not the poor decision making that bugs me as much as the lying.  He's super oppositional and when I hear him and see him acting out he reminds me of myself as a kid.  Scary.  Super scary.  DH is a concert tonight (he brought a friend of ours) and I'm not on that date because I am policing son #3 - who earned another day/night in his room after lying about the computer last night.  Add to that a shitty day at work, a sore throat, 8 hrs of sleep in the last 2 nights and I am DONE.

Today is a fuck my life kinda day.  I feel ill equipped to deal with the machinations and complexities of my life - I just want to bug out.  Backpack, credit card, passport and go.  Alone.

I'll just kick these people straight off this island and take it for myself.  No shit.

Sounds

Sounds

My life is a series of sounds:

crying out in pain, looking for the remote,

where are my ...

I am looking for the fine line

of silence,

so that I may find

myself.

Like a first date;

kissing for the first time.

The anticipation

of what is to come...next.

Where do i find

this;

this deafening sound

of unknown territories

When do I have

the space,

free-time,

for me

When I make it.

When it becomes

more important,

than the location of a lost sock.

Enter the forest

Add caption

 

 “You enter the forest
at the darkest point,
where there is no path.

Where there is a way or path,
it is someone else’s path.

You are not on your own path.

If you follow someone else’s way,
you are not going to realize
your potential.”

― Joseph Campbell

 

 

 

After much deliberation and some not-so-gentle prodding from The Universe, I've made myself vulnerable, open and ready and will be working with the life coach with whom I spoke on Wednesday.

Whoa. 

We had a wonderful first meeting - I have never had a problem with self-disclosure yet I found myself moving deeper into what feels like the true me. Now, this is a part of myself that I have very little experience with. Well, maybe I have more experience with her than I let myself take credit for.  She was there when I birthed my children and held them in my arms, she was there when my father died, she was there last night while I lay in the arms of my husband. I told Cherie that my wish and deepest was not to continue to exist as a shadow of myself.  

Last summer I went to a solstice celebration at Guru Ram Das Puri in New Mexico.  As I was introducing myself to my partner for white tantric I realized that I was giving her labels; I wasn't giving her me. 

Let's see, here are some of the ways that I have identified myself:

mom, wife, ICU Nurse, ER Nurse, student, yoga teacher, a student of yoga, sacred geometry, metaphysics, a one time recovering alcoholic and addict, a person in therapy, arm candy, a hippie, a goth, an artist, a person who has lived on a commune, a runaway, a high school dropout, an outsider, a rebel, a surfer, a poet, a painter, a person on the path, a homebirther, an attachment parent, a vegan, a vegetarian, a paleo, a runner, a cyclist, a revolutionary communist, a democrat, a chef, a student pilot, a person who has soloed in an airplane, a whore, a misfit, a retail store manager, a want to be gardener, a student herbalist, a student doula, a person in service, a follower, a leader, a wantobe rockclimber, a reluctant naturalist, a mountainbiker, an avid reader, a book hoarder, a control freak, OCD, ADD, depressed, empty....

It's interesting to me to write this list.  I've had so many experiences.  

I'm looking for my own path - the big question is how do I integrate all the changes that have occurred inside me due to these experiences? Who is in the middle of this?

Missing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Missing

I am missing

like a sock

i am missing

like the cap 

for the toothpaste

Somewhere 

there is a place

where all the 

pieces

are hiding

Bright faces

 

Stones

rise to the sound of harps

move, get ready - it's time to go.

clothes, face - hair

coffee, keys, pen in hand

ready to do this.  THIS

work that brings my family

the comfort that I think they seek.

think positive - put on a good face;

elevate those around me,

do not dive down low.

home through rain spattered 

cars, traffic, womb of my ride.

now here, so much moves

looking to be born and seen

shoving and reaching.

tonight i sit with broken heart

yet to mend, writing words to 

brook my own freedom from 

myself. This turmoil swirls 

and moves of its own volition.

i pray and plead, and yearn

that someday, we may be here;

living as who we are,

all stones turned and with their

bright faces shining in the sun.

I Am Much Too Alone in This World, Yet Not Alone

I Am Much Too Alone in This World, Yet Not Alone

 I am too alone in the world, and yet not alone enough

I am too alone in the world, and yet not alone enough
to make every hour holy.
I am too small in the world, and yet not tiny enough
just to stand before you like a thing,
dark and shrewd.
I want my will, and I want to be with my will
as it moves towards deed;
and in those quiet, somehow hesitating times,
when something is approaching,
I want to be with those who are wise
or else alone.
I want always to be a mirror that reflects your whole being,
and never to be too blind or too old
to hold your heavy, swaying image.
I want to unfold.
Nowhere do I want to remain folded,
because where I am bent and folded, there I am lie.
And I want my meaning
true for you. I want to describe myself
like a painting that I studied
closely for a long, long time,
like a word I finally understood,
like the pitcher of water I use every day ,
like the face of my mother,
like a ship
that carried me
through the deadliest storm of all.

– Rilke, The Book of Hours

I am too alone in the world, and yet not alone enough
to make every hour holy.

I understand the opening line of this poem - it strikes a cord in me that rings true.  In my own being, my own self - I have yet to allow myself the lasting quietude necessary to gently and sweetly commune with the seed of me.  The center of me.  What is it that I am so afraid of?  Or, is this a skill that I have yet to learn?

I want to unfold....because where I am bent and folded, there I am a lie. 

This is my mission - what it's all about for me - for real.  All those places in myself I have tucked away and hidden from my view for what reason - I do not know - They must be seen - by me.  Brought up and out and viewed -See, they are parts of me and I cannot live as my true self and orphan pieces of this being at the same time.  It all must come out into the light.  My fear is that I will rip apart and become more scattered and disembodied than I am now.  My belief is that I will become a stronger and more solid version of myself. 

Excited/Terrified.  I can liken this process to the lasts few moments of childbirth - 

I am suffocating and claustrophobic; the feeling that I will die, that I am dying is upon me.  I know in my bones that if I don't PUSH, if I give up, it will be the end of me.  I am terrified.  Yet, the thrill and wonder of what is happening, of who I am about to meet ,supersedes my panic - my panic tells me to crawl away from my body - but the intensity of this moment - this quickening, provides me with the energy I need to PUSH.  I am in transition now - the time is coming to push. I am tired and in pain.  I am terrified and on the verge of panic.  But,  I am excited to birth myself into my life and nourish myself with my tears and hope.

You see, ... I want to describe myself like a painting that I studied closely for a long, long time,
like a word I finally understood,...

It takes a village, seriously.

Today was bearable.  I am assuming that was due to the fact that I spent the entire afternoon locked down in the office.  Today was a day for procrastinated homework.  British Literature is not my forte by any stretch of the imagination.  Reading it - OK.  Dissecting it.......hmm, not so much.  In fact, I enjoyed explicating the Sonnets of Shakespeare much less than examining the inner workings of a cat in anatomy.  Analyzing poetry takes all the joy out of it.  Step by painful step a work of art is broken down into it's most fundamental pieces.  Where is the feeling or essence of the whole? For me, it gets lost in the furious scramble to identify one more independent participial.  I actually had to look that up.  And to be honest - I called my 15 year old son into the room to assist me.  He scratched his head a bit as well.  I secretly smiled when he had a hard time - he's gifted and in a high school for brainiacs

So, here I sit.  I've clandestinely arranged for a super-brilliant and loyal friend to write my paper on Chaucer this week.  I've decided that this allowing and inviting is no more than implementing the "it takes a village" theme.  I practiced this same philosophy earlier in the day as well.  My DH and I were attempting to upgrade a wall switch and adding a dimmer. Tensions ran high as the job the woman at HD assured us would be so easy, was not.  I phoned a friend and neighbor whose husband is an electrician and asked if he  could come by for a few minutes. I figured that just by increasing his physical proximity to the wall plate, we'd boost our chances for success.  Now, in the past I would have felt that this transaction should be balanced by money. That I would owe him this for his willingness to help.  Not today.  I decided that he had a skill set that I needed and what I was asking was not overstepping the bounds of neighborly aide.  I will say though, that as he was leaving I assured him that if he ever needed any nursey stuff - to call me.  I've got skills that are worth something as well.  I wouldn't have (and haven't had) an issue with "nursey" questions from friends int he past and I shan't in the future either (crap this Shakespeare stuff is getting to me).  I give it freely and expect nothing in return.  I made the choice today to allow others to do the same for me.  That's different.  Somewhere, in me, I feel different now.  I am taking note of the little things that make incremental changes in how I feel toward myself. 

Starting out...again

I've made a decision.  I'm taking a chance, on myself.  Through the years I've made many inroads and have found myself back in this place on the spiral of me.  The burning question - is it a question?  Or is it kindled in fear...If I move away all the layers of who I think I am, what I think I am supposed to be doing, how I have learned to adapt and behave - what will be left?  This is the me I am terrified and curious to know.  I honestly cannot look back on my life and say with sincerity that I have ever know who "me" is.  This leaves me with an empty feeling - I feel adrift in my own life.  I have made many choices and taken many risks.  I have proven my courage over and over again - yet I still feel fragmented.  How does this manifest?  Feelings of exhaustion, sadness, anxiety, anger, resentment, disassociation, exclusion and isolation.  I feel alone. I have learned to play the game - to "buck up" and put on my big girl pants.  I can smile and converse - offer support and encouragement.  But, at the end of the day, I feel empty.  I am tentatively determined to find my innermost core and to move from this place in my life. A steady state. I have a belief that it is there - that there must be some solidity in the center of flux.  I must have hope - for that is all I have. 

 To live free from the neurotic bonds that generate feelings of self loathing and mistrust of self - that is my goal.  From this place - I believe I may finally be able to fall in love with myself.  Much as I did my son when I held him in my arms.  Warm, soft, tender, vulnerable.  So easy to love - love in it's fullest expression. A wonder. 

 I am having my initial interview with a life coach on Wednesday.  This blog is a place where I will record my experiences as I chart my course to me.