Last night Brooks and I were on the phone talking process and art and inspiration for at least two and a half hours.
He quit his job the day after I did in March, we both worked in the same office and the idea was we were both moving to the city to follow our dreams. He is doing amazingly well, is the host beginning tonight of the Balitmore Song Writers open mic in Fells and this is among at least four or five other big deal things. When we used to work in cubicles across from one another every week we would talk high-energy, deeply riveting "Narnia" talk (Narnia a reference he came off the cuff with last night, talking about relationships with "normal", un-arty people. We need them, he said, "to help pull the ropes and lead us out of Narnia.") I used to grab him and yank him towards Narnia--literally take him hand and run us out the back door of the employment agency and through the hard parking lot in the cold light of the sun. I'd make us walk on a patch of grass-slanted hill, the only section in that area of Easton not paved. Eventually he caught on and would do the same to or for me. Yank me out the door when my head needed a check and take me out for duende talk, food and sun. Our enthusiasm, talking Campbell's bliss-talk and serendipity and inspiration--constantly quoting philosophers or poets or musicians musicians musicians--was unstoppable.
I've tried not to think about it at all and the proof of that fact is it didn't even come up in conversation last night, but my laptop is down and it is killing me. The hardest part of not having it is staring me down this morning--all scowling face and fang-toothed today. And that's going on the road. Ahead of me is lots of uncharted time, 6 days in fact of road trip, that would normally be cleaved in to long swaths at various coffee shops between Annapolis and Baltimore working on my novel and blogging and so forth. The thought of being without that sustenance is making my stomach turn. The other thing about not having my laptop is not being able to write poetry, too, which I am used to doing at least once a week propped up in bed on a lounge of pillows in the most comfortable place in my world, letting the words drop and flow and come and come.
This all happened in Memphis the week before last when I went to visit Sean. He has this intercom thing that runs radio stations all through the house and we listened to Christmas music from the moment my family stepped through the door. So I was in my guest room after a shower and turned on my laptop and turned off the intercom and typed in the address for Pandora. I'm all for being festive but I needed a break and the myth is always upon me these days, the creative life flourishing there beneath the surface at all times and I believe I need to nurture it much as I can, I believe this can be done through music and reading poems and being present in the still cold winter air and also by being brave. There were ads that kept popping up on my computer though, and a commercial for Wal-mart that wasn't even connected to a pop-up but that wouldn't turn off. Next just like that my adrenaline was already going and my head full of panic and memories of the late nineties and the computer at mom's infested with spyware. I quick turned my laptop off and pretended it wasn't happening and I numbed the part of me that needs that nurturing same as it needs air.
A few days later Justin from work texted me through trying to remove it on my own. It didn't work. Full-fledged denial kicked in, this was last week on Tuesday. I have literally glossed over the reality that my laptop is unusable. This weekend my dad was home, rendering the computer I am typing on at this moment--in his bedroom--unusable. I pretended like the urge to write just wasn't there. This is similar, for those of you unfamiliar, to say not having a tongue but trying to pretend you are able otherwise able to eat and speak. I laid in bed with library books all weekend listening to the radio. My music is on my laptop, too. I kept telling myself, this too shall pass.
And therein, the point of this post.
Thank god for Brooks, for Sam, for Erika. The ones who need the nurturing as much as air. I lived for years denying that part of me, and then wondering why I felt so consistently deadened inside. I am writing an entire book about this struggle. I dont feel crazy, or like it's something made up, anymore. In the past month I have had extensive conversations with each of those people about this very thing. It makes me miss Laura Walsh, who I spent every solstice with for years, and our talks. Laura who sat for hours and hours in the Chestertown coffee shop with me discussing this struggle as I bit by bit garnered the strength I'd need to change my priorities. So this post is for them, the crazies. For Laura and Kat, Erika and Kirsten. For Molly, who lost the battle. For Sam and Brooks, the two most kind and gentle, glorious magician men I have ever known. This holiday, at the end of this good year, I am so, so thankful to have such tribespeople in my realm.
So long as I have pen and paper I will have to be alright.
And that is all I know to say about that.
December 22, 2010
December 21, 2010
Solstice: Meditation & Application. And sexy high-heels, too.
It is Winter Solstice. It is Winter Solstice and I am off work with nothing to do other than the words and the inside-shining light and the outside sunniness of white and leave-less black outlines of everything on the land. I spent over an hour just coveting shoes. Shoes shoes o god, these shoes that are whole entire outfits unto their godly selves, shoes that live with whole cities of liveliness and stories inside them, buildings on the horizon brights lights flashing promise and all. Shoes that make my heart-throb go. How funny, I thought to myself, in bed, smiling, the light of the white sun on the flesh of my face. Earlier in the same bed with the same smile the white light of the moon, same shine on same flesh. How funny that I who am wild woman, who understands the currents and the tides, who drinks knowledge from her air and her sun and her rain and her seas, who finds myself when lost by securing heels deeply rooted and bared-down on her greens or florals or browns. How funny that in all this, my ache to be of the land again, to wild craft medicines deep from the woods, to live in cob houses I built by hand, to give back food to the land every day in the form of compost not waste, how funny that I too have whole rooms of my self, have whole cities complete with docks and transit ports and inroads and funny back alley ways where shadows lay and neon lights fizzle and buzz, whole entire worlds in myself as true as the moon and the tides but built on Vogue magazine, on Macy's credit cards, on Facebook and Youtube and the gas guzzling car I drive...
God is in the details, no? God is in, nahhh...is every single one of us. Is all, is all of us is every single solitary little thing. And no thing primarily is right or wrong. And all that space, too, in-between. There is peace in this, and great joy. Abundance of present moment being as good as it gets...holiness are your own truths, you the only king, queen, you'll need.
And so it is solstice, time of Winter Passing and Great Still Tide. What is esoteric, anyway? I said to Ben this week about relearning to read (he is a musician as well as a fantasy-thinker thus Jedi is in make-up and so self-study, by words and music will serve him so good) : words have a vibration based on their intent and where there intent meets your own soul. Sit with certain words, the phrases or sentences or songs that make your insides give a little hummmm. He gets it, he always does. What is esoteric anyway, for the rest of you reading along? Belief in the interior-passage. Believing that the inside world--to which you and only you have the gift of forging--is where all messages and answers lay, yet undone. To believe esoterically is to likewise avow yourself of the present moment. To show up to this moment right now because you understand that there is no disconnect between what is happening in the outter, material world and what for you, and specifically you, is within. One is a guidepost, always, to the other. Both are infinite and ever inter-changing.
So, sit still with this:
Winter Solstice.
The world over, four times a year via a variety of religious and/or secularly celebrated festivals, people mark the time of Nature's seasons and passing's. Twice each year the amount of day light and darkness are equal and these are known as Equinoxes; and twice each year the amount of daylight or darkness peaks at its longest point for the year. These are known as Solstices. The esoteric recognizes these times as appropriate to consider the same tendencies within: that which is your most light, that which is your most dark. The esoteric recognizes that light and dark, as nature teaches, are neither to be demonized. Each passes and teaches its own lessons, as do these stages of our inner life.
Winter Solstice brings us to the peak of darkness. Dark merely means without light, so depending on your application darkness could be the time that, as a seed slumbers during the darkest part of winter to re-bloom in the spring, your potential is quiet and unknown yet, but gaining strength. It could too be about an aspect of your character that you would rather not "shed light on", as gluttony or sloth or pride. Whatever it is, the concept of darkness requires us to regard it with wisdom, recognizing that what lay in the dark can never be brought to the light if we purposefully run from it, judge it, or try to destroy it. Remember, whatever in the world makes you cringe or hide or hate or flare exists wholly within you, otherwise you could not recognize it with such response.
Winter Solstice speaks this message quietly to our soul.
Equally important, the Solstices and Equinoxes are times of great energetic shifts. Remember that the esoteric sees the everyday at once as it is, and at once with wise respect for the layered significance it holds. Here's where astrology comes in. For centuries astrology has been a guide to all cultures and civilizations, based on its myths and stories. Myth is merely story, and stories are no more than lessons to our hearts and souls. So each astrological sign has a story or lesson behind it, and it is this story that the esoteric applies to his or her own life path. The Winter Solstice marks the longest night, the return of the light (hence the popular Jesus, or Return of the "Son/Sun" myth) as well as the shift from Sagittarius to Capricorn. Ok so here we go--I love this stuff!!! Sagittarius's myth is the story of Chiron. Chiron is known as the wounded healer and what we learn from his story is that through injury, and more importantly fully healing our injuries, we gain greater knowledge of our own condition and of each other. Chiron is the medicine of compassion. Capricorn is the myth of the Goat God, or anyhow the old-school Male God that was most esteemed. In this story Bachus defeats the scary spiteful God Typhon and he does so because he is half-goat and half-fish. The symbology of this is so important, particularly for men today. He wins this battle for being able to see in the world of day to day (the material, symbolized by the goat or literal earth-god) and for being able to see from under water, water of course always being symbolic of the emotional world. Therefor it teaches that to overcome a battle one must be willing to be a hero in the outter, and inner world. Capricorn is associated with the sign, or symoblism, of dad, as Cancer is mom.
In alchemy, another one of the esoteric's interests, elements and qualities are very important. So the story of Winter Solstice is about the shift from knowing your own injuries and being able to be a hero (a dad) in your own outter and inner life. In November we revisit our own "wounds", in December, at the moment of darkest dark, we are called upon to own and heal them by being our own hero. We move, at Solstice, from Fire in the mutable form of Sagittarius (fire changes forms by burning--think of baking or forest fires or the crucible--burning away imperfections; mutable means literally to be changeable) to Earth in the cardinal form of Capricorn (earth element is matter, the element of what can be seen, felt, tasted, heard; cardinal is of foremost importance.) So the energetic shift at Solstice is that from changing within to making that change real, felt, in reality.
Finally! We had a full moon overnight. Full moon illuminates, sheds the greatest amount of light on something. Greatest amount of light on our "most dark." In all, a deeply significant time. Mercury is retrograde right now, too, almost two weeks in. Retros in Mercury occur right before the equinoxes and solstice and are meant as an internal review of all the lessons, esoterically, that we just learned in the season that is about to pass.
I mark these important days by taking time to be quiet, self-aware, and full of thanks. My intention, for the darkest time of the year and at once the energetic return of the full-bodied, completely aware light of knowledge: That at this time of trouble and chaos in our world, each person know the love, joy and abundance of their own rich and meaningful inner-life. Of their own true source, and the contagiousness of this out in the day to day world. That the two--your inner life and outter, reflect in a way that is harmonious. That there be peace and wisdom in this, and that this peace and wisdom be more than enough from each of us to each of us, the world over. Amen amen, amen, and happy winter solstice to all my precious dear, dear friends.
God is in the details, no? God is in, nahhh...is every single one of us. Is all, is all of us is every single solitary little thing. And no thing primarily is right or wrong. And all that space, too, in-between. There is peace in this, and great joy. Abundance of present moment being as good as it gets...holiness are your own truths, you the only king, queen, you'll need.
And so it is solstice, time of Winter Passing and Great Still Tide. What is esoteric, anyway? I said to Ben this week about relearning to read (he is a musician as well as a fantasy-thinker thus Jedi is in make-up and so self-study, by words and music will serve him so good) : words have a vibration based on their intent and where there intent meets your own soul. Sit with certain words, the phrases or sentences or songs that make your insides give a little hummmm. He gets it, he always does. What is esoteric anyway, for the rest of you reading along? Belief in the interior-passage. Believing that the inside world--to which you and only you have the gift of forging--is where all messages and answers lay, yet undone. To believe esoterically is to likewise avow yourself of the present moment. To show up to this moment right now because you understand that there is no disconnect between what is happening in the outter, material world and what for you, and specifically you, is within. One is a guidepost, always, to the other. Both are infinite and ever inter-changing.
So, sit still with this:
Winter Solstice.
The world over, four times a year via a variety of religious and/or secularly celebrated festivals, people mark the time of Nature's seasons and passing's. Twice each year the amount of day light and darkness are equal and these are known as Equinoxes; and twice each year the amount of daylight or darkness peaks at its longest point for the year. These are known as Solstices. The esoteric recognizes these times as appropriate to consider the same tendencies within: that which is your most light, that which is your most dark. The esoteric recognizes that light and dark, as nature teaches, are neither to be demonized. Each passes and teaches its own lessons, as do these stages of our inner life.
Winter Solstice brings us to the peak of darkness. Dark merely means without light, so depending on your application darkness could be the time that, as a seed slumbers during the darkest part of winter to re-bloom in the spring, your potential is quiet and unknown yet, but gaining strength. It could too be about an aspect of your character that you would rather not "shed light on", as gluttony or sloth or pride. Whatever it is, the concept of darkness requires us to regard it with wisdom, recognizing that what lay in the dark can never be brought to the light if we purposefully run from it, judge it, or try to destroy it. Remember, whatever in the world makes you cringe or hide or hate or flare exists wholly within you, otherwise you could not recognize it with such response.
Winter Solstice speaks this message quietly to our soul.
Equally important, the Solstices and Equinoxes are times of great energetic shifts. Remember that the esoteric sees the everyday at once as it is, and at once with wise respect for the layered significance it holds. Here's where astrology comes in. For centuries astrology has been a guide to all cultures and civilizations, based on its myths and stories. Myth is merely story, and stories are no more than lessons to our hearts and souls. So each astrological sign has a story or lesson behind it, and it is this story that the esoteric applies to his or her own life path. The Winter Solstice marks the longest night, the return of the light (hence the popular Jesus, or Return of the "Son/Sun" myth) as well as the shift from Sagittarius to Capricorn. Ok so here we go--I love this stuff!!! Sagittarius's myth is the story of Chiron. Chiron is known as the wounded healer and what we learn from his story is that through injury, and more importantly fully healing our injuries, we gain greater knowledge of our own condition and of each other. Chiron is the medicine of compassion. Capricorn is the myth of the Goat God, or anyhow the old-school Male God that was most esteemed. In this story Bachus defeats the scary spiteful God Typhon and he does so because he is half-goat and half-fish. The symbology of this is so important, particularly for men today. He wins this battle for being able to see in the world of day to day (the material, symbolized by the goat or literal earth-god) and for being able to see from under water, water of course always being symbolic of the emotional world. Therefor it teaches that to overcome a battle one must be willing to be a hero in the outter, and inner world. Capricorn is associated with the sign, or symoblism, of dad, as Cancer is mom.
In alchemy, another one of the esoteric's interests, elements and qualities are very important. So the story of Winter Solstice is about the shift from knowing your own injuries and being able to be a hero (a dad) in your own outter and inner life. In November we revisit our own "wounds", in December, at the moment of darkest dark, we are called upon to own and heal them by being our own hero. We move, at Solstice, from Fire in the mutable form of Sagittarius (fire changes forms by burning--think of baking or forest fires or the crucible--burning away imperfections; mutable means literally to be changeable) to Earth in the cardinal form of Capricorn (earth element is matter, the element of what can be seen, felt, tasted, heard; cardinal is of foremost importance.) So the energetic shift at Solstice is that from changing within to making that change real, felt, in reality.
Finally! We had a full moon overnight. Full moon illuminates, sheds the greatest amount of light on something. Greatest amount of light on our "most dark." In all, a deeply significant time. Mercury is retrograde right now, too, almost two weeks in. Retros in Mercury occur right before the equinoxes and solstice and are meant as an internal review of all the lessons, esoterically, that we just learned in the season that is about to pass.
I mark these important days by taking time to be quiet, self-aware, and full of thanks. My intention, for the darkest time of the year and at once the energetic return of the full-bodied, completely aware light of knowledge: That at this time of trouble and chaos in our world, each person know the love, joy and abundance of their own rich and meaningful inner-life. Of their own true source, and the contagiousness of this out in the day to day world. That the two--your inner life and outter, reflect in a way that is harmonious. That there be peace and wisdom in this, and that this peace and wisdom be more than enough from each of us to each of us, the world over. Amen amen, amen, and happy winter solstice to all my precious dear, dear friends.
December 14, 2010
Good Morning, I love you.
It was cold when I left and cold when I got back and winter, with a shock that felt like jaws snap-clamping together, I get it, you're here.
I've always avoided you before. My muscles would start to clench before I even got out the door, my body on frigid lock-down against the cold. Shivers would start the second I felt the air. I guess I just figured if I squinched my eyes tight enough I could somehow will the weather away.
I dreamt of a hispanic man it was weeks ago he was short like most my favorite hispanics are. He was helping me my mom and dad remodel the house I lived in and he took me aside and said you know you are a mole, this is your medicine. I looked at him and said thanks, I looked really deep at him so he'd get I meant it. Then I took his pretty hispanic girl to my side and hugged her til her heart was well again which I did by looking third eye to eye. I didn't know her heart was bad but in my dream I felt it as soon as by my eye to eye hug it was made well. This I did for him as thanks, then I walked back to him and said please come to me when I am not asleep and remind me of this mole medicine. I woke and not long after remembered that dream and mole medicine is intimately connected to the earth and really needs fresh air. We know the truth before it ever is seen...
So now winter, whatcha gone do? I relish you, I go to the ocean or the woods everyday now and I walk and I breathe. I dont shiver, I am awake. In the morning when I open the shop as soon as everything is ready I step down on to the docks and I breathe the fresh air. Good morning, I say. Good morning, I love you. And winter there's where you're a show off, if you were a man I'd a left you a long time ago for that song and dance so dazzling it's almost boring, so old. Trying always to impress me like that. How you poke your light through the grey shadows or flurries of snow. How you wash the river with so much longing it is all I can do to not dive in. I guess I am lying, huh? Because show off as you are you still get me, everytime.
I've always avoided you before. My muscles would start to clench before I even got out the door, my body on frigid lock-down against the cold. Shivers would start the second I felt the air. I guess I just figured if I squinched my eyes tight enough I could somehow will the weather away.
I dreamt of a hispanic man it was weeks ago he was short like most my favorite hispanics are. He was helping me my mom and dad remodel the house I lived in and he took me aside and said you know you are a mole, this is your medicine. I looked at him and said thanks, I looked really deep at him so he'd get I meant it. Then I took his pretty hispanic girl to my side and hugged her til her heart was well again which I did by looking third eye to eye. I didn't know her heart was bad but in my dream I felt it as soon as by my eye to eye hug it was made well. This I did for him as thanks, then I walked back to him and said please come to me when I am not asleep and remind me of this mole medicine. I woke and not long after remembered that dream and mole medicine is intimately connected to the earth and really needs fresh air. We know the truth before it ever is seen...
So now winter, whatcha gone do? I relish you, I go to the ocean or the woods everyday now and I walk and I breathe. I dont shiver, I am awake. In the morning when I open the shop as soon as everything is ready I step down on to the docks and I breathe the fresh air. Good morning, I say. Good morning, I love you. And winter there's where you're a show off, if you were a man I'd a left you a long time ago for that song and dance so dazzling it's almost boring, so old. Trying always to impress me like that. How you poke your light through the grey shadows or flurries of snow. How you wash the river with so much longing it is all I can do to not dive in. I guess I am lying, huh? Because show off as you are you still get me, everytime.
December 9, 2010
It's Been A Good Year (but dont make her lift her skirts or I'll be pissed!)
It's been a good year. I am sitting in conversation with this guy at the door of a coffee shop in this place called Severna Park and I have not seen him since no shit 1995 (oh my god, how funny I just remembered we were Class Partiers together in the year book, that's why he was explaining so bummedly and borderline apologetically about having to quit smoking! Holmes my dad's got lung disease c'mon! We're grown up now it's alright...) and all I can think is it's been a good year.
I am kind, and ground myself and remind myself to be present. It is genuinely good to see him: he is one of the only people from my high school, or the one near where I worked as a teen, that via facebook or some other networking means hadn't been found and labeled: Married, Divorced, Parent, etc and I tell him as much. I admit I do, now I can check him off in my head. Our funny little ways of keeping track of one another that get complained about but that at the end of the day matter, afterall. Me, I have a Mama-Soul as part of my spirit, and a tight-knit tribe of Family which marked me deep in the place that gets marked by how we are nurtured, so knowing where and how people are adds to my security. I grounded in this, and was happy to connect again to this guy.
But It's been a good year, and that is the line that has the little wick attached. It's the line that when gionng through my head while walking out of Brian's house this morning in desperate strides towards the nearest wifi-having local coffee shop, triggered the light inside to tell me the Muses are near. There is no other way to explain this to you if it is not your experience--the best I can do is what I always do when I sit down and write. Just tell the truth tell the truth tell the truth and follow that little feeling of light. I do not know when it started but I do know that it is real, it is the most real thing I know. It is a feeling that comes on inside that alerts me to the inner creativity the boundless place and my duty, my calling here on this earth no matter what else is to bring it to the surface, to midwife it and breathe in to it the life it needs to fly. And when I disregard it I get short and turn in to an asshole and so help me if you cross my way when I am in the middle of my dance with the Muse. So help me, that is, should you make her lift her skirts and high-heeled or bare-footed run away.
But what a superstition that is, too? Writing involves discipline and the most clear lesson I learned in the past two years is to not underestimate what happens by simple alchemy of action. Showing up, not bitching, and doing what the hell's got to get done, which almost always is what's right in front of me. It's more than just saying ahhh yea I will start with It's been a good year because that is where the little light is attached. It's also bringing in to the coffe shop two books that really turn me on and reading a while this morning, and even more it's about sitting down especially when the light hasn't or doesn't feel like it's going to come.
It's been a good year. In November it was the Harvest New Year and starting out--the first week of the new year!--my bank account was in the red. So what was in front of me was get a better job and get your finances re-ordered, no matter what. So I did because after the last two years of my life dont ever underestimate my hustle. Turns out now I get to manage this way hip, way mellow local coffee shop in the Pines where I live. It's brand new and the boss needed someone with experience in community building and coffee-shop culture, which has nothing to do with caffeine and everything to do with supporting and growing your local tribe. Even the business model functions that way and I brought to this my barista-ing for Peggy those years back at Play It Again in Chestertown, as well as the local art, food and music movement we grew around The Oregon Dialogue. So far sooo good. It overlooks the Bay and River on the west side of the inlet of Ocean City. I watch the sun come up every morning and breathe and exhilarate in how fucking rad it is to be alive.
And I am writing, and chilling a lot outside, and that is that. It's been a good year. In November 2008 I left my relationship of 6 years. Right after that Josh and I tried to be lovers after a decade of being Muse to one another. I still believe he was a true love, but we ended too because just because something's true doesn't mean it's meant to be. Losing him, and leaving Brandon and Chestertown and Anngar Farm all at the same time was the single most painful part of my life and from start to finish it lasted until around the middle of this summer.
It's been a good year.
I worked for Chesapeake College when I left Bran, I was one of four people who started the GED and community English program that now serves all five counties on the upper and mid Eastern Shore. I worked my fucking ass off while I was there, and stepped down in May after living in isolation for a year out on the Choptank River and licking my wounds. I was lonely and needed family and friends. I went on a month long sabbatical in the Pac NW in May and June and while there had more than one other-world experience of being Called again. I moved back to mom's at the beach after that and partied like a rock star all summer long and still found that I had one more hall to cross to transition my life from Brandon-Josh-Chesapeake to the one that lay beyond. This stuff cant be made up, you know? The light within is real, what if that is our only choice, to surrender to the myth of what could be and give it our all to bring it to life? How about learning that the only way to do this is to do it!? And what about the struggle of being a woman and feeling this is the work you're meant to do? This is subject matter for another post (or a whole damn book, ehem...) but what about that? I know plenty of artist men whose art is their main and only priority. What about when you're a woman with the same compulsion, what happens then? When the pain is that bad I know now that actually it's my only choice, to believe in this mid-wifing and keep breathing and trusting in the birth about to come. The pain is my spirit--not a religious thing I am talking about the place inside of I AM--calling out a red alert to listen the hell up.
It's been a good year. Tuesday night I watched Candace, Jessica, Shanika and LaShae walk in their caps and gowns and receive their Maryland State High School Diplomas. They were four of 43 graduates from Chesapeake in just the last six months! And at one time I held each of those girls hand in hand. I hooped and hollered from the audience because I dont work there anymore so now it's okay for me to be wild and exuberant and un-professional even if it seems I'm acting a fool.
It's been a good year. I dont live in fantasy anymore about a man who's love will finally change or set me free. I dont dream of someday when I get to do.....all these millions of different passion-fueled things. For the first time in my life I wake up now and just live today. Seriously. It's the first time in my life I've ever done that, you dig how crazy that sounds? The passing from then to now was long and great and so dark at times that I often forgot what path I was on. But I am me today and at peace with who I am. All I need to do now is trust in her day to day.
And pay attention to when the wick-light comes on, by listening and more, taking action on what's right in front of me. By practicing what I learned in those two years which is easy to say but takes a while to get the footwork right. It sounds silly maybe but what the hell is there other than saying yes ok, the next step is just be present that's how right now that I can Show up, and the peace is inside knowing that the rest will be what it will be.
I am kind, and ground myself and remind myself to be present. It is genuinely good to see him: he is one of the only people from my high school, or the one near where I worked as a teen, that via facebook or some other networking means hadn't been found and labeled: Married, Divorced, Parent, etc and I tell him as much. I admit I do, now I can check him off in my head. Our funny little ways of keeping track of one another that get complained about but that at the end of the day matter, afterall. Me, I have a Mama-Soul as part of my spirit, and a tight-knit tribe of Family which marked me deep in the place that gets marked by how we are nurtured, so knowing where and how people are adds to my security. I grounded in this, and was happy to connect again to this guy.
But It's been a good year, and that is the line that has the little wick attached. It's the line that when gionng through my head while walking out of Brian's house this morning in desperate strides towards the nearest wifi-having local coffee shop, triggered the light inside to tell me the Muses are near. There is no other way to explain this to you if it is not your experience--the best I can do is what I always do when I sit down and write. Just tell the truth tell the truth tell the truth and follow that little feeling of light. I do not know when it started but I do know that it is real, it is the most real thing I know. It is a feeling that comes on inside that alerts me to the inner creativity the boundless place and my duty, my calling here on this earth no matter what else is to bring it to the surface, to midwife it and breathe in to it the life it needs to fly. And when I disregard it I get short and turn in to an asshole and so help me if you cross my way when I am in the middle of my dance with the Muse. So help me, that is, should you make her lift her skirts and high-heeled or bare-footed run away.
But what a superstition that is, too? Writing involves discipline and the most clear lesson I learned in the past two years is to not underestimate what happens by simple alchemy of action. Showing up, not bitching, and doing what the hell's got to get done, which almost always is what's right in front of me. It's more than just saying ahhh yea I will start with It's been a good year because that is where the little light is attached. It's also bringing in to the coffe shop two books that really turn me on and reading a while this morning, and even more it's about sitting down especially when the light hasn't or doesn't feel like it's going to come.
It's been a good year. In November it was the Harvest New Year and starting out--the first week of the new year!--my bank account was in the red. So what was in front of me was get a better job and get your finances re-ordered, no matter what. So I did because after the last two years of my life dont ever underestimate my hustle. Turns out now I get to manage this way hip, way mellow local coffee shop in the Pines where I live. It's brand new and the boss needed someone with experience in community building and coffee-shop culture, which has nothing to do with caffeine and everything to do with supporting and growing your local tribe. Even the business model functions that way and I brought to this my barista-ing for Peggy those years back at Play It Again in Chestertown, as well as the local art, food and music movement we grew around The Oregon Dialogue. So far sooo good. It overlooks the Bay and River on the west side of the inlet of Ocean City. I watch the sun come up every morning and breathe and exhilarate in how fucking rad it is to be alive.
And I am writing, and chilling a lot outside, and that is that. It's been a good year. In November 2008 I left my relationship of 6 years. Right after that Josh and I tried to be lovers after a decade of being Muse to one another. I still believe he was a true love, but we ended too because just because something's true doesn't mean it's meant to be. Losing him, and leaving Brandon and Chestertown and Anngar Farm all at the same time was the single most painful part of my life and from start to finish it lasted until around the middle of this summer.
It's been a good year.
I worked for Chesapeake College when I left Bran, I was one of four people who started the GED and community English program that now serves all five counties on the upper and mid Eastern Shore. I worked my fucking ass off while I was there, and stepped down in May after living in isolation for a year out on the Choptank River and licking my wounds. I was lonely and needed family and friends. I went on a month long sabbatical in the Pac NW in May and June and while there had more than one other-world experience of being Called again. I moved back to mom's at the beach after that and partied like a rock star all summer long and still found that I had one more hall to cross to transition my life from Brandon-Josh-Chesapeake to the one that lay beyond. This stuff cant be made up, you know? The light within is real, what if that is our only choice, to surrender to the myth of what could be and give it our all to bring it to life? How about learning that the only way to do this is to do it!? And what about the struggle of being a woman and feeling this is the work you're meant to do? This is subject matter for another post (or a whole damn book, ehem...) but what about that? I know plenty of artist men whose art is their main and only priority. What about when you're a woman with the same compulsion, what happens then? When the pain is that bad I know now that actually it's my only choice, to believe in this mid-wifing and keep breathing and trusting in the birth about to come. The pain is my spirit--not a religious thing I am talking about the place inside of I AM--calling out a red alert to listen the hell up.
It's been a good year. Tuesday night I watched Candace, Jessica, Shanika and LaShae walk in their caps and gowns and receive their Maryland State High School Diplomas. They were four of 43 graduates from Chesapeake in just the last six months! And at one time I held each of those girls hand in hand. I hooped and hollered from the audience because I dont work there anymore so now it's okay for me to be wild and exuberant and un-professional even if it seems I'm acting a fool.
It's been a good year. I dont live in fantasy anymore about a man who's love will finally change or set me free. I dont dream of someday when I get to do.....all these millions of different passion-fueled things. For the first time in my life I wake up now and just live today. Seriously. It's the first time in my life I've ever done that, you dig how crazy that sounds? The passing from then to now was long and great and so dark at times that I often forgot what path I was on. But I am me today and at peace with who I am. All I need to do now is trust in her day to day.
And pay attention to when the wick-light comes on, by listening and more, taking action on what's right in front of me. By practicing what I learned in those two years which is easy to say but takes a while to get the footwork right. It sounds silly maybe but what the hell is there other than saying yes ok, the next step is just be present that's how right now that I can Show up, and the peace is inside knowing that the rest will be what it will be.
December 6, 2010
From When I Was Wild. OC & Coming Home.
It was spring time I was fine you looked finer with your brown hair long then and the body you still took care of we were eighteen I had bleach in my hair and a checked blue shirt tied at the belly I wanted to say was gingham, but was not, we were suburb not country kids and you took me on a picnic under the power lines so I tried to play the part. It was hot for the spring and the pot made it so we couldn't tell was that just the heat or was that melting in our minds. You loved Jesus but wouldn't admit it, and late at night we'd get in fights because it was a misogyny thing afterall for you who secretly didn't trust his mom, who thought the world was going on fire because the women were aloud to speak again the weird thing is you an Only Man back then...only one never turned on me but loved me better when I got to use my tongue. Voice people, this is about voice not sex. But we did that too didn't we, the hot kind the teenage kind wicked and innocent out back in the car at parties or the church parking lot or the one time under the tree in the graveyard on acid our bodys seemed so big, then small, our arms wavery my breath its own language echoing off the red coming off the trees.
I wore dark purple lipstick then, or red, and had the hottest little body remember I used to show off my tatoos.
There were all those others at the beach, it was never easy for me to talk about that. Part of it was how I hurt you when you and my one friend went off walking down next to the ocean. That was the night, or more next morning on the boards yellow mist of sun trying to make up its mind am I heat making dry this water or light making clear this new day from the dark that I knew that I was different for good that I had made my choice, without meaning to. Seeing what I was capable of. As if you'd ever cheat on me. You know that night--two of the four guys I was smoking with are dead now? We were on acid then, too. One of them I never even write about. He was a mean little fuck, we used to get drunk and I'd run my mouth and the one night over in the Meadows at that one place when they were living with RayRay we had a flinching contest where I let him hit me hard as he could, as long as I got to hit him back, and again and again we hit one another and I stood and took it all 108 pounds of me thinking I was a man. And that was the choice, there were always two in me la santa y la diabla, and that is the night I ran off with the devil holding my hand.
God damn did we have fun. I heard from someone on the periphery back then this week--this happens enough, private messages thanking me for this blog--that I would say it happens regularly and so thank you all publicly for reading it makes me feel so, so good and this is a shout to all you private ones reading along, and a specific story just for him. I remember you and some others were living uptown on 143rd doing the more mellow surf thing I only made it up there for example when Jesse or Kareem came to town because hidden in someone's wet suit was all the drugs! And anyhow one day I was off or likely just on break from hot assing on the mic to Big and Meth and Tom Petty and The Dead up at the peir (Jerry still alive in the beginning of that summer, dead by the end and vigils on the boardwalk and the 9th street squatters house still there, near where the old, old old Chat Street used to be) and you walked in I think with Mike? and we were in the middle of an all out indoor water gun fight, blue plastic dollar store beach sand buckets filled to the top with oozy automatics and us shooting water or late at night emptied-forties malt-liquor straight in to our mouths...The boys all shirtless only wore only baggies that summer that's how you knew the local rats downtown, so I was always like fuck it I'll just wear my bikini all the time! You who was always on your own buzz keepin it so chill had the most shocked look on your face when you walked in the house--front door always wide open bedroom me and Fannon's then me and Kev's once Brian moved out always closed
--and then it broke, the shock and you smiled like I'd never seen before a light of joy and radicallness breaking out straight from your mouth. You grabbed a seat way on the side of the room one of the bros tossed you a beer and then of course did we proceed. That might of been, but likely was not, the same watergun fight that wound up across the street running the outdoor halls of the Americana sneaking around corners and hiding behind doors when I camped out upstairs at the dirty frat guys (I used to stand in the alley out back and cus those fuckers out all the time even back then clear to me down the center how we were different and stood on different lines) on their front porch and waited until Jeremiah gave up and then dumped an entire bucket of water on his head when we was walking back surrendered to the apartment. Remember that shit? We kept a baby wading pool out on our front porch to chill in and would add ice in the afternoon to keep all the beers more cold.
Hahahaha. I live here again and barely ever think of that stuff, those times anymore. Fannon gone, Kev. Blugh Kev. Phil...
Una Santa, y Una Diabla. The poetic imagination and living our own myths. Last week I was chilling one night over with these friends of mine, hanging out with this girl from the county but who I never knew back then only met down here at the beach, an old friend's friend. I got to telling stories and of course because I am writing so much again and also because I am a McMullen and all those all those all those late night convos as a girl, or around the table basement at Grammy and Pop's or any single one of the aunts and uncles the Jameson and laughter and warm remembering every time, because of all that and because of my myth, my heart my spirit where the saint and the devil collide I am a wild women, full of the spirit and the ancient forbidden gnosis which is just know-how which, common sense people is just know thy self, this wisdom business that penetrates so deep within. And so for all of that of course I am storyteller, La Cantadora she who knows. And so chillin last Wednesday late night, and Saturday too I got to telling some stories of my own, I have a lot, and a lot of them some of the most important ones are from the beach they all, so much happened right here.
So without meaning to I am gathering bones again and doing it near the ocean in the northeast wind under the winter sky. It is so important, this archeology, these bits and pieces scattered everywhere it is the real work it is the poet's work it is the work always always always of recircling the brave warm or coolly shadowed places we continually label or even disregard that when we are still live deeply, live on, within. In the end these are known and called by that most powered word of words, home in the end I choose not to go with the howl scowl on my face but the wicked happy satiated smile of she who knows that peaceful all-knowingg grin, so right now today and tomorrow's today and each and every step I take I say Amen. Amen Amen. This is all real and really happenening, this is life it does and it did.
I wore dark purple lipstick then, or red, and had the hottest little body remember I used to show off my tatoos.
There were all those others at the beach, it was never easy for me to talk about that. Part of it was how I hurt you when you and my one friend went off walking down next to the ocean. That was the night, or more next morning on the boards yellow mist of sun trying to make up its mind am I heat making dry this water or light making clear this new day from the dark that I knew that I was different for good that I had made my choice, without meaning to. Seeing what I was capable of. As if you'd ever cheat on me. You know that night--two of the four guys I was smoking with are dead now? We were on acid then, too. One of them I never even write about. He was a mean little fuck, we used to get drunk and I'd run my mouth and the one night over in the Meadows at that one place when they were living with RayRay we had a flinching contest where I let him hit me hard as he could, as long as I got to hit him back, and again and again we hit one another and I stood and took it all 108 pounds of me thinking I was a man. And that was the choice, there were always two in me la santa y la diabla, and that is the night I ran off with the devil holding my hand.
God damn did we have fun. I heard from someone on the periphery back then this week--this happens enough, private messages thanking me for this blog--that I would say it happens regularly and so thank you all publicly for reading it makes me feel so, so good and this is a shout to all you private ones reading along, and a specific story just for him. I remember you and some others were living uptown on 143rd doing the more mellow surf thing I only made it up there for example when Jesse or Kareem came to town because hidden in someone's wet suit was all the drugs! And anyhow one day I was off or likely just on break from hot assing on the mic to Big and Meth and Tom Petty and The Dead up at the peir (Jerry still alive in the beginning of that summer, dead by the end and vigils on the boardwalk and the 9th street squatters house still there, near where the old, old old Chat Street used to be) and you walked in I think with Mike? and we were in the middle of an all out indoor water gun fight, blue plastic dollar store beach sand buckets filled to the top with oozy automatics and us shooting water or late at night emptied-forties malt-liquor straight in to our mouths...The boys all shirtless only wore only baggies that summer that's how you knew the local rats downtown, so I was always like fuck it I'll just wear my bikini all the time! You who was always on your own buzz keepin it so chill had the most shocked look on your face when you walked in the house--front door always wide open bedroom me and Fannon's then me and Kev's once Brian moved out always closed
--and then it broke, the shock and you smiled like I'd never seen before a light of joy and radicallness breaking out straight from your mouth. You grabbed a seat way on the side of the room one of the bros tossed you a beer and then of course did we proceed. That might of been, but likely was not, the same watergun fight that wound up across the street running the outdoor halls of the Americana sneaking around corners and hiding behind doors when I camped out upstairs at the dirty frat guys (I used to stand in the alley out back and cus those fuckers out all the time even back then clear to me down the center how we were different and stood on different lines) on their front porch and waited until Jeremiah gave up and then dumped an entire bucket of water on his head when we was walking back surrendered to the apartment. Remember that shit? We kept a baby wading pool out on our front porch to chill in and would add ice in the afternoon to keep all the beers more cold.
Hahahaha. I live here again and barely ever think of that stuff, those times anymore. Fannon gone, Kev. Blugh Kev. Phil...
Una Santa, y Una Diabla. The poetic imagination and living our own myths. Last week I was chilling one night over with these friends of mine, hanging out with this girl from the county but who I never knew back then only met down here at the beach, an old friend's friend. I got to telling stories and of course because I am writing so much again and also because I am a McMullen and all those all those all those late night convos as a girl, or around the table basement at Grammy and Pop's or any single one of the aunts and uncles the Jameson and laughter and warm remembering every time, because of all that and because of my myth, my heart my spirit where the saint and the devil collide I am a wild women, full of the spirit and the ancient forbidden gnosis which is just know-how which, common sense people is just know thy self, this wisdom business that penetrates so deep within. And so for all of that of course I am storyteller, La Cantadora she who knows. And so chillin last Wednesday late night, and Saturday too I got to telling some stories of my own, I have a lot, and a lot of them some of the most important ones are from the beach they all, so much happened right here.
So without meaning to I am gathering bones again and doing it near the ocean in the northeast wind under the winter sky. It is so important, this archeology, these bits and pieces scattered everywhere it is the real work it is the poet's work it is the work always always always of recircling the brave warm or coolly shadowed places we continually label or even disregard that when we are still live deeply, live on, within. In the end these are known and called by that most powered word of words, home in the end I choose not to go with the howl scowl on my face but the wicked happy satiated smile of she who knows that peaceful all-knowingg grin, so right now today and tomorrow's today and each and every step I take I say Amen. Amen Amen. This is all real and really happenening, this is life it does and it did.
December 2, 2010
I loved him. And he still helps me love me.
I've had three long, or longish term relationships as an adult woman. Each helped define me, term, label and mark the consistency of otherwise un-named or recognized parts of me. I otherwise took for granted: Oh, this reminds me of camping with Brandon, wow he really, really brought out the nature-lover in me....or Oh, there I go again setting aside my decision making power just like I always did with Grimaldi, how I wanted him to be my dad....etc etc... Dynamics of ourselves are deeply rooted, so much so that it's easy for them to remain just part of our natural landscape and not even notice. Even more interesting is how I will learn something about myself, inspect that newly recognized aspect, then watch as it gets reintegrated back in to the whole of who I am anyway... Life is funny--changing but subtle in its evolution most of the time and most often how it all circles back around--which is why I guess that it means so much when someone comes along and really helps me flesh some new understanding or experience of me out.
Last week I was on a roll writing, literally delving bravely forward into subject matter that once evoked usually puts me in a testy place. It was Tuesday, I was on the back porch of the Pines just me and my laptop and the forest breathing. Late hanging red and brown leaves still leaf-talking their funny crinkly leaf-talk ways. The ground all rich and moist and aerobic in how it expands on the air. One of those amazing fall days warm and full that backsteps all fast to the summer again, so that it's full life and full death all at once. I stood to take a coffee break and then a message come through from facebook on my phone: my first real love and first real relationship, the guy I was with after highschool died. I met Joe right around age 20 and was with him for a year and a half and got my heart broken by him in the end, which was the reason I decided to apply to college on the Eastern Shore to just get away...
God damn did that news turn me on my head. I was kind of a ravaged wreck, but as I said I'd literally just finished writing about some painful subject matter involving my own battles with drugs and alcohol and loss and without meaning to I slipped on that slippery crevice, that place where, it's been said, we dance on the rim with the duende hand-to-hand in combat in hopes of not falling. Well, I. Fell. In. Thank god thank god thank god I am older now and have learned to reach out and scream HELP, to be honest, to pick up the phone and be a fucking hysterical mess, thank god I have good friends.
I went to the funeral and Mandy came too and it was awkward and also beautiful and we were in the back against the wall because as customary when someone dies too young there was only standing room. It was the day before Thanksgiving and the day after I had to be back in the Pines to start my new job. And I am here now, working which equals writing not Java-ing, on the most beautiful spot by the Bay on my day off. Happy to be alive and happy for Joe and sad as hell for his family and grateful as hell for awareness and just the little things that mean fuck yea, I am living and therefor going to enjoy this my precious precious miracle life.
Last week I was on a roll writing, literally delving bravely forward into subject matter that once evoked usually puts me in a testy place. It was Tuesday, I was on the back porch of the Pines just me and my laptop and the forest breathing. Late hanging red and brown leaves still leaf-talking their funny crinkly leaf-talk ways. The ground all rich and moist and aerobic in how it expands on the air. One of those amazing fall days warm and full that backsteps all fast to the summer again, so that it's full life and full death all at once. I stood to take a coffee break and then a message come through from facebook on my phone: my first real love and first real relationship, the guy I was with after highschool died. I met Joe right around age 20 and was with him for a year and a half and got my heart broken by him in the end, which was the reason I decided to apply to college on the Eastern Shore to just get away...
God damn did that news turn me on my head. I was kind of a ravaged wreck, but as I said I'd literally just finished writing about some painful subject matter involving my own battles with drugs and alcohol and loss and without meaning to I slipped on that slippery crevice, that place where, it's been said, we dance on the rim with the duende hand-to-hand in combat in hopes of not falling. Well, I. Fell. In. Thank god thank god thank god I am older now and have learned to reach out and scream HELP, to be honest, to pick up the phone and be a fucking hysterical mess, thank god I have good friends.
I went to the funeral and Mandy came too and it was awkward and also beautiful and we were in the back against the wall because as customary when someone dies too young there was only standing room. It was the day before Thanksgiving and the day after I had to be back in the Pines to start my new job. And I am here now, working which equals writing not Java-ing, on the most beautiful spot by the Bay on my day off. Happy to be alive and happy for Joe and sad as hell for his family and grateful as hell for awareness and just the little things that mean fuck yea, I am living and therefor going to enjoy this my precious precious miracle life.
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