On the 5 today I looked at the coastal mountains around Toro Canyon. I call it Route 5 and pronounce it "root" like I'm from back east. Which I am. Derryn makes fun of me because that's how she says it too, like she's a British African. Which she is. I love my life there is nothing else to say and driving and seeing all the green and high white light and blue that's exactly what I said. Man I love my life. I must've said it ten times this weekend. Moving here is one of the best decisions I ever made. I say this in to my headphone piece. Driving on root 5 on the phone. I know me too Muller says back to me. Me too.
He is going back to Ocean City where we are from. He goes next week. He tells me all these guys from back then say hi Kel and I am like that's so crazy. Because that's what I sit and do write about the beach and entertain their ghosts while I do. I can not see the end of from here how will I ever finish this book who knows but damn am I enjoying the road. I got three rejections letters this month. BLAUAUAGHH I continue and will continue to go. I am in Starbucks now after spending the weekend at Derryn's timeshare in Oceanside. Assing up with her puberty-aged sons. Laughing at Youtube videos they recommend. Seeing how viley immature I am and my sense of humor. Muller knows this part of me too. I am sundrenched and peaceful from being sea-witness again and again. I am full from sharing with a true wild woman friend. I am full and satiated in that salty way of sand stretch skin. I am happy especially to be beside my coffee shop window two blocks from my house in Huntington. I haven't been home yet am still in my swim suit with my wild ocean hair. I love my life the sun the blue skies the words the yoga bike rides the water good food and laughing friends. It doesn't end.
I am enjoying looking out the window you know? Nodding my head at this life and this ride. I've made a decision about some things ruminating in me which have to do with how to commit and how to begin. I am 35 which is old to some but to me brand brand new, or anyway quite young. I have the whole world in me and also around me and I see it and say yes to it and that is an amazingly fruitful way to be. One I've had to learn and learn and relearn again. I like to learn and am a teacher which means learning's my job. So I will look out and say yes this is it where I am and also how cool, the view stretching so far in all directions, the view and all the where's and how's I still will go.
Showing posts with label Wild Women. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wild Women. Show all posts
June 24, 2012
January 14, 2012
I woke up thinking about sex and men
Day off here at camp and I woke up thinking about sex and men.
The most read post on this blog is about relationships, being single, being passionately alive. It's gotten almost a hundred more hits than my next most popular. Interesting. Though I am deeply private about that area of my affairs it does not mean it doesn't compel me. I think about it all the time! Which explains all the reads, I suppose human hearts and quiet passions are the one sure thing we all have in common.
My cycle just passed, meaning it's ovulation time. At Eric's house yesterday I couldn't help but notice all the colts, all the twenty-year-olds unshaven, shirtless, shoeless. Twinkling eyes. The new guy/girl flirtations, the girl/girl couple meeting under a tree, the two tight fresh bodies of young people walking off for the first time holding hands. There was so much frolicking in the air. Last night during the mycellium slideshow it occurred to me that not once since being here have I wanted to join, to throw my flirty breath into the swell...
Further proving there is a transition I believe I am making. A passing. The worst consistent pain I've known flogged me for months and months--this was the time of muscle-ripping when I left my long-term boyfriend in 2008. Grief is like that when it hits. Dizzying, foundation shaking. Nameless. It was an ache that can still visit me, and the variety of griefs that got transposed on to that time in my life were griefs that had haunted me, unfelt, for years. The deaths of friends, the loss of best friends, the agony of family traumas in my childhood home. The shame I had yet to let go of of the years of my life in active addiction. I made my passing though, lived in solitude for a year out on a river, dug out my injuries then worked to re-root myself deeply in to the strong soil of my family and friends. When it was over I quit my career, and moved to my family home at the beach. It was a maturity process that I took on consciously and worked at whole and slow.
After leaving my ex, I had two relationships. Both within that first year. After the second ended, because I wasn't ready, I threw myself in to the Game. My obsession became having fun, and for the next two and a half years I met more young twenty-something hottie guys than I ever tried. Twenty-something guys don't date, they "hang-out" or "talk" so I got good at that lingo, at having no expectations, at keeping it light, fresh, fun and funny. Always remembering I was in the Game. The host of female strength around me, of literal single gals out and also ready to have fun, grew and grew. The most beautiful moments of all were in the center of my grls, realizing my belief in my self was doing the same.
There is still a great stigma around women my age who are unmarried with no beckoning promise of settling down. Married women are suspicious of us, married friends question us, relatives look on with concern in their eyes. What I want the world to know: we have our reasons, they are unique, personal, and real. My new friend Irena, from Belgium, said yesterday that she doesn't know if she can have a relationship and live the adventurous life that makes her most happy. She's tried both; like me the committed life left her unfulfilled. It is her fear, that she'll never find the balance.
Here is my passing: I dont want 20 year-olds anymore. I'm done with that nonsense of "hanging out." I am strong, full of life with tons to give. The Game never once afforded me anything meaningful, the one most recent actual my-age man who I thought offered potential ended badly because that's how we met: in the Game. Today I am certain there is a man out there who wants openness and connection and happiness and also adventure just like me. Certain. Until he shows up though, I wont waste my time and energy on less than that. I'll choose the carload of gypsy single grls, I'll choose following my own light and life and dreams, continuing all this education and fun. I'll be brave, and open. The thing about passings are we dont know what's coming next. We just keep the faith that we aren't the same as what once was.
The most read post on this blog is about relationships, being single, being passionately alive. It's gotten almost a hundred more hits than my next most popular. Interesting. Though I am deeply private about that area of my affairs it does not mean it doesn't compel me. I think about it all the time! Which explains all the reads, I suppose human hearts and quiet passions are the one sure thing we all have in common.
My cycle just passed, meaning it's ovulation time. At Eric's house yesterday I couldn't help but notice all the colts, all the twenty-year-olds unshaven, shirtless, shoeless. Twinkling eyes. The new guy/girl flirtations, the girl/girl couple meeting under a tree, the two tight fresh bodies of young people walking off for the first time holding hands. There was so much frolicking in the air. Last night during the mycellium slideshow it occurred to me that not once since being here have I wanted to join, to throw my flirty breath into the swell...
Further proving there is a transition I believe I am making. A passing. The worst consistent pain I've known flogged me for months and months--this was the time of muscle-ripping when I left my long-term boyfriend in 2008. Grief is like that when it hits. Dizzying, foundation shaking. Nameless. It was an ache that can still visit me, and the variety of griefs that got transposed on to that time in my life were griefs that had haunted me, unfelt, for years. The deaths of friends, the loss of best friends, the agony of family traumas in my childhood home. The shame I had yet to let go of of the years of my life in active addiction. I made my passing though, lived in solitude for a year out on a river, dug out my injuries then worked to re-root myself deeply in to the strong soil of my family and friends. When it was over I quit my career, and moved to my family home at the beach. It was a maturity process that I took on consciously and worked at whole and slow.
After leaving my ex, I had two relationships. Both within that first year. After the second ended, because I wasn't ready, I threw myself in to the Game. My obsession became having fun, and for the next two and a half years I met more young twenty-something hottie guys than I ever tried. Twenty-something guys don't date, they "hang-out" or "talk" so I got good at that lingo, at having no expectations, at keeping it light, fresh, fun and funny. Always remembering I was in the Game. The host of female strength around me, of literal single gals out and also ready to have fun, grew and grew. The most beautiful moments of all were in the center of my grls, realizing my belief in my self was doing the same.
There is still a great stigma around women my age who are unmarried with no beckoning promise of settling down. Married women are suspicious of us, married friends question us, relatives look on with concern in their eyes. What I want the world to know: we have our reasons, they are unique, personal, and real. My new friend Irena, from Belgium, said yesterday that she doesn't know if she can have a relationship and live the adventurous life that makes her most happy. She's tried both; like me the committed life left her unfulfilled. It is her fear, that she'll never find the balance.
Here is my passing: I dont want 20 year-olds anymore. I'm done with that nonsense of "hanging out." I am strong, full of life with tons to give. The Game never once afforded me anything meaningful, the one most recent actual my-age man who I thought offered potential ended badly because that's how we met: in the Game. Today I am certain there is a man out there who wants openness and connection and happiness and also adventure just like me. Certain. Until he shows up though, I wont waste my time and energy on less than that. I'll choose the carload of gypsy single grls, I'll choose following my own light and life and dreams, continuing all this education and fun. I'll be brave, and open. The thing about passings are we dont know what's coming next. We just keep the faith that we aren't the same as what once was.
September 27, 2010
What's Rad: Courier Knew
She was mad on my mind yesterday at work: I was lusting over Vogue and my imagination was getting so epically inspired... She lives in me because of poetry, because of poet-heart, because of the heart we therefor live within...
She keeps her own blog, it is snapshot style and concise, which is how she is. Close-fitting and circled-in which is what you get if you dictionary.com the word succinct for other words that mean the same. She frames things the right way with a quick glance, she is accurate each step that she goes and then she puts things together, later, frame by frame. Not like me who is one long spondown wind of abstraction trying to get to the final "right".
This is her blog, READ IT! or experience her snapshots rather, at Courier Knew.
Today is her birthday it turns out, of course it is...
We met in 2007 at Ben's, I guess. There are vague memories of going to his place for spaghetti one night after teaching ESL, me in my work clothes anyway. She was there, she was a blond no make-up ponytail girl which at the time was a tough road to tow around our allnaturalbeyourself (butonlyaslongasyourcool!) kind-of-friends. You know to not have a practiced paticularity about you or whatever. Sam and I danced tossy-style jitterbug together like we always did and also I looked at alot of Banjo magazines that night, if there is such a thing. I remember reading an article about the Clash.
Later, this probably would've been in the fall, we truly met the day I walked in to apply at the Blue Heron Cafe and go to work for Paul. Kirsten was vaccuming the floor.
I think of her every fall now, the way I think of diPrima and Libby, and what secrets are sitting in the trees. The way I think of trees.
That was the season I waited tables and wrote poems to Josh that were actually sign-markers to my self that I was trying to learn how to position, and hold. Poetry is like that, or can be, if you let it talk from your soul. Kir and I used to get over-caffeinated in the Blue Heron kitchen and talk and talk about art and poems and writing plays together and performing and mythic imagination and lying to your self and how this all happened and why did it happen and it did, anyhow, and it also helped the art and poetry to be internally conflicted and most of all, we talked about men. I was on the verge of myself in a new way that I had always wanted to be. In a way that scared me and instigated from me a flight-response that is classic Aries-Kelly of charging blindly ahead. Ramhearted as I am. She was getting her masters and on the verge of what next in career and all those weird creeks and spaces that that can cause. Her passion back then for fault lines and shifting ground. Most of all, also, there was nothing more in life that season than art and darkness and loving the art we were spiraling out of from that darkness within.
As said, I've always always had great love for her. This time last year I sent her an email at random after months of no contact to say hey why dont you come see Brandi Carlile play with me. We both needed Brandi, it turned out, I for coming to terms with moving on and she for the same: yes, always about the men. Brandi played at Rams Head Live and threw a pick in to the crowd and it bounced off Kir's broken heart and landed on the ground. All the lesbians battled for it but Kir just bent down put her hand in to the mass of feet and legs and retrieved the momento easily and handed it to me. A totem now, I keep it in my writing bag with all my USB's.
She is happy, in Canton now, with birds in her hair and our funny man hearts, wink wink Kir my dear friend. I check in on her energy when I quiet and pray or trance or meditate just like I do all my k-nnected friends. But she will always be above most the rest bc of the poetry in her, and memories of starting over in the fall. Starting over, how it comes from reflecting on the bounty of who and how and where and what you been as you root down to take hold and turn over fresh again.
She is friend, who makes me better at me. I am thinking of her today, today birthday today fall today collecting here collecting me collecting her today today today...Today, celebrating You! Gratitude gratefullness grace and space and place for this, poetry and hearts of the matter, Dear Friend...
June 6, 2010
Date Weekend with Me, Ashland
Hey goodlookin, how bout a date weekend with me?
Sounds awesome!
downtown, Ashland I have this ring that Katie surprised me with for my birthday. It is fabulous, strong, gorgeous. I. Love. It. It came from this store we were literally gaga over called Laila Rose, I got woozy and she had to lead me by my elbow out in to the mall. It was nothing but glorious sparkly girrrlie wear all over the place. They played vintage Madonna. They had bright pink knee-high rain boots and matching head-wraps. And the store was sparkle color-coded. Pinks, purples, yellows, light blue. Sections of ribbons and long dangling crystal earrings all the prevailing shade of that part of the store. Hand-painted bags, elbow-length ruffled gloves.The theme of turning 33 this year was The Jesus Year, or better in my friend Paul's words: the year of magical thinking. Truly, I believe I've lived ten lives already, and it's only been 2 months.
Ashland has been unreal. I followed a yearning to pay in advance for three nights here, thinking how great it would be to wake up and not have to go anywhere if I didn't feel like it. What I only sort of anticipated was how great it would be to just wake up, roll over, and decide for the rest of the day to stay in bed...until my evening date at the Shakespeare Festival. At about 3 or so that first day, laying here, writing, reading, watching tv, eating take-out, somewhere in between all of that it occurred to me: I put my resignation in the week before my birthday and then began the planning stages of ending that part of my life. Now I knew all of that as I walked through it, understood even as I was going through the motions that not only was I resigning from Chesapeake College, but too I was closing a chapter that for all basic summation began in 1998 when I moved to Chestertown, on the eastern shore, to go to school. 12 years, in other words, of living on the midshore was coming to an end. Age 21 to 33. 12 years of growing up.
I spent literally two months tying up those loose ends. Finishing what was obligatory at the job and packing. And in all, recognizing in slow pieces, as I recollected and reviewed it all, the woman I have become. I got sober in Chestertown, embraced my intelligence, accepted acadamia even as I stalwartly fought institution, I got a degree, then a profession. I fell in love. I started to grow up, and I started to grow away from myself. I fell out of love. I had to challenge myself to be a big girl and pull up my big girl pants. I moved out on my own. I got my heart broke. I became an adult. I learned that being an adult means being yourself, and learned that really learning to be true to you is a one day at a time loving and nurturing type of thing. A literal deeper and deeper experience of surrender to me, of saying yes to me by accepting how I am feeling and what I need each and every day. It was a hell of a lot to review in two months, and until Saturday, I literally did not have a single day off within that process.
So that yesterday, when I did finally just sit, propped against the pillows writing, reading, sighing, listening, breathing, easing in to me; it was just so simple, and so, so buoyantly sweet. The evening got here and I took my time showering and getting dressed, I listened to funk hop on my Shuga station on Pandora and danced slowly and smilingly all around this little suite, and decorated myself, and celebrated me. I am in Oregon, where I lived for a year with Brandon after we lived out of a truck in the National Forests all over the US for five months. I am here, on the road, on my own. I got seated in the front row of the outdoor theatre for Henry IV within two minutes of curtain. Let me say that again. The theatre, from the outside, looks like a normal theatre, but it has no roof: the ceiling is the sky. Can you even imagine the smile on my face when I discovered this? It was like 70 degrees out 8:30 pm and I could feel the breath coming off the top of the green mountains all around us. The riverwater has lithium in it here. I could here it sing. The sigh in my chest, as I settled in, I believe may have been the most contended moment of my life. I did it!!!!!!
Today I woke up late, called Beth, received a call from Amy. The three of us have been trying to talk since Wednesday. We talked about different things, we talked about the same things. Becoming women. Being ourselves, striving for authenticity, for integrity in this. We talked about sisterhood. They are both married, they are both mom's. I admitted to them each my fear, the one I am allowing to pass away now, that I couldn't be both. That somehow it wasn't possible to be true to myself, to be an independent woman and be in love. I understand now that all I ever really wanted was the faith, and the experience to back it up, of being me. It wasn't about being independant so much as just being given the time, and the room, to grow in to and get to know the true me inside. Sober me, out of school me, me with out man and seperate from job and identity shared with friends. And while I needed to own my Independence to do that, it's not something that I could ever have done alone. Being me is something I have the courage for, and have explored in powerful, feminine ways that I never gave myself permission for before. And as result I will feel the familiarity of knowing how to maintain, in any circumstance, from now on, even if I lose my grasp here and there. But I am redefining now just what "independant" means, maybe getting used to new ideas of it... I was hesitant to say all this until now, I guess because of that one fear of not being able to maintain this way of being and also being able to eventually fall in love again: of having the capacity for both. Being afraid was blocking my acknowledgment of the reality of how simple and peaceful a place I am in today, made it seem to good to be true. But really, there's nothing to have to do or be or try to figure out... I dont even know when or where or how exactly it happened... I am on the verge of my whole life, of anything I want to do when I get back home and recognizing that gave me clear, and almost staggering perspective, on where I just came from...I lived on my own in retreat out in nature for a full year, I lived on my own in a sweet apartment just my size where I could walk to work or to town any time of the day or night. I helped a small handfull of people undertake and innovate a large fantastic program for the community college. I became a strong woman on my own, and the relationships with the other strong women in my life is the number one thing I have likewise grown. I am so, so proud.
I've long said that Sex and the City, the series and subsequent movies, gave permission to women beyond 30 to be more than what convention painted for them. More than just soccer moms or career women or harried modernists stretched between both. That Sex and the City gave value back to the grrrly parts we love the most, and did so specifically by emphasizing our sex. Our sex, as gender~us as women among women and planting that in Western consciousness as a real and valued and tender and important experience~and us as sexual beings, too. Sensuous beings. Not body sex, that colt-like perky curvy thing of giggles and high shrill of the late teens and early twenties, but intuitive, full-bodied, embodied sexuality, alive from within. Sex and the City gave women in common society permission for both. Today I saw a 2 o'clock matinee performance of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and wept. I mean wept. For people, for women and for men, for how twisted we are, how imperfect. Then I went out in the sun and glistened, and remembered, I have this moment, and I am, if I so choose, alive in it. I delighted in my power ring from Katie, one of my fabulous sister and best friends. I meandered around Ahsland, bought myself a gorgeous power necklace and laughed aloud when the woman read to me what kyanite the stone in it was, I smiled a lot at the sun and green mountains, treated myself to a ridiculously delicious dinner at an Italian restaurant reading a new book, then had an evening date with me, my gorgeous aliveness, and Carrie Bradshaw and the girls.
I am here, on my own, just with me~glorious me!!~and loving each and every moment of it!!! It isn't too good to be true at all, it's better than that!
What does a girl do when she gets to the top of Crater Lake? Well that's easy, she goes back down again. What does a girl do when she embraces herself, and then finds herself fabulously in love with the her that she embraced? Well that's easy, she just keeps showing up....No matter where she is, where she goes, no matter what happens. There she still is, in love. And with a cast of fabulous women all around, reflecting that new found love back at her again again and again from every glowing, precious direction. Wow, how cool is this? Who am I to doubt that whatever coming next could be anything less than totally, and wholly, blessed.
May 31, 2010
Picture journal of Pac NorthWest. The only thing better...
...than tall trees
...is tall trees AND the sea!!
I forgot about how much synchronicity prevails over on this side...
Bring the sun they kept telling me, and so the rain stopped for the first time in weeks, the clouds parted and the sky and sea were blue the hour that I got to the coast...
it lasted for most the afternoon, than back to the signature grey...I pocketed an agate or two that were already gathered for me
O blessed, blessed loud crashing sea...
Your thunder's reawakened in me.
But the best gift was Gretchen's presence in my soul
...is tall trees AND the sea!!
I forgot about how much synchronicity prevails over on this side...
Bring the sun they kept telling me, and so the rain stopped for the first time in weeks, the clouds parted and the sky and sea were blue the hour that I got to the coast...
it lasted for most the afternoon, than back to the signature grey...I pocketed an agate or two that were already gathered for me
O blessed, blessed loud crashing sea...
Your thunder's reawakened in me.
But the best gift was Gretchen's presence in my soul
Lincoln Beach and the myth that quick alive again in me
ahhhh Poetry and tall tall trees
how good it feels to sleep in the clean outdoor breeze. to hear and know it's the mama speaking straight and pure to me.
and dear friends. dear friends speak language that is spirit,
At night we climbed in to the mountains up a path, we followed Paul. It was clear enough to see the stars, and at the cabin there was already a fire. His friends showed up slow at first then suddenly charmed and then everyone was smiling and bright and there, and then the drums and rattlers came out, and the songs started one by one.
Tall trees and synchronicity and synchronicity and synchronicity is synchronicity. O whole pure healing and soaks and lying in the grass. I met my favorite blogger, we talked an hour she works with Paul. I didn't know she was here, but these are miracles and they are every breathing moment of life. Of course they are, why shouldn't they be?
Of course I didn't want to leave. But Beth had me go in the labyrinth which thank goodness she did because I was so blissed I had to be prompted in to what to do! It was a long, good and startling, startling true walk which reminded me evermore wherever you go there you are. And that this is ok, is right! Is good and I can trust in me. I can love.
Later, she played music which made me cry.
Good cries tho, good mountains good mountain songs.
On the road home I called mom but cousin Erin answered in spanish hola hola and hello. It confused me at first why does mom's voice sound just like me? I got to talk to Erin and it was so bouyant light and charm. She put mom on and when mom took the phone to dad I heard the voices and could tell she'd stepped on to the back porch at the Pines, aunts and uncles and family friends. About to eat steamed crabs. And dad said your brother just pulled up here let me put him on, and my heart bubbled over to be in touch with all them, my family, 3000 miles away and to know, to so know, I have a home and know who I am, and love, soo so love the place where I am from.
For now, I will love love love the Oregon Coast, all the wet, and the tall sweet trees.
For now, I will revel in the love of this sweet calm peace.
and the healing waters, and mountain breath ahhhhh.
and cleanse, good sweats, and release
how good it feels to sleep in the clean outdoor breeze. to hear and know it's the mama speaking straight and pure to me.
and dear friends. dear friends speak language that is spirit,
and peace
At night we climbed in to the mountains up a path, we followed Paul. It was clear enough to see the stars, and at the cabin there was already a fire. His friends showed up slow at first then suddenly charmed and then everyone was smiling and bright and there, and then the drums and rattlers came out, and the songs started one by one.
I glowed and sung, and sung and we sung, and the songs and the drums were so, so sweet. I put songs that were prayers in to the pine and mountain and river air.
And I am full again of spirit and of peace. I smiled a lot and sat long times in the steam.
There is nothing like sisters, water fairies! Life is vibrant because of the medicine of good friends.
There is nothing like sisters, water fairies! Life is vibrant because of the medicine of good friends.
Tall trees and synchronicity and synchronicity and synchronicity is synchronicity. O whole pure healing and soaks and lying in the grass. I met my favorite blogger, we talked an hour she works with Paul. I didn't know she was here, but these are miracles and they are every breathing moment of life. Of course they are, why shouldn't they be?
Of course I didn't want to leave. But Beth had me go in the labyrinth which thank goodness she did because I was so blissed I had to be prompted in to what to do! It was a long, good and startling, startling true walk which reminded me evermore wherever you go there you are. And that this is ok, is right! Is good and I can trust in me. I can love.
Later, she played music which made me cry.
Good cries tho, good mountains good mountain songs.
On the road home I called mom but cousin Erin answered in spanish hola hola and hello. It confused me at first why does mom's voice sound just like me? I got to talk to Erin and it was so bouyant light and charm. She put mom on and when mom took the phone to dad I heard the voices and could tell she'd stepped on to the back porch at the Pines, aunts and uncles and family friends. About to eat steamed crabs. And dad said your brother just pulled up here let me put him on, and my heart bubbled over to be in touch with all them, my family, 3000 miles away and to know, to so know, I have a home and know who I am, and love, soo so love the place where I am from.
For now, I will love love love the Oregon Coast, all the wet, and the tall sweet trees.
For now, I will revel in the love of this sweet calm peace.
May 17, 2010
Long Letter to my Readers
Sometimes I want to start this blog the way I used to start my litmag Cantalma. Like I'm writing a letter. Dear Friends...Today it came out instinctively to write Hey Pals... so let's pretend that that's what I'm doing. Writing a letter to my readers, anonymous or otherwise, out there in the middle of the everchanging everthesame wide world of blogoland. Wherein I find comfort, and release.
Hey Pals,
It's something like 4:30 am. I woke up around 3 and couldn't get back to sleep, but didn't put the light on til a half hour ago. For a while I laid there, thinking the noises I was hearing are the giant fucking practically baseball sized roaches that have begun to show themselves at least daily since I started filling my apartment with cardboard boxes and all these magnificent little dark spaces for them to hide. God that ills me out blugghgghghghhgghgh but I am thankful for them because it's making it really easy to so want to leave this place. Then I imagined the bumping around was the ghosts of this old house that the across the hall neighbor Rebecca has seen, and often hears. In the end I turned the lights on to get some water and there were no bugs, and no haunts, at least that I could tell.
It was a long, sweet weekend. Friday was 12 hours long, I went in to my office for my last day and then up to the college for my exit interview which the HR person kept referring to in email as my Termination Interview. Which made me laugh but also mildly nervous to walk up there and turn my paperwork in, but wouldn't you know I came in and sat down and she said I hear you're moving home because your husband got transferred, I'm from Baltimore, too, Dunalk, hon. I explained that it actually is because really I have no friends or family here in Easton or on the midshore or a life really other than my job, and that I was originally from a town called Millersville outside Glen Burnie, that I am the exact oppositte of married and that first I am waiting tables at the beach to make money but before that going out to the PacNW for a month and then going to move home, then we got down to talking Hons. It was like talking to an old girlfriend that I didn't realize I missed even though Sue and me, the HR lady, had never really met before.
Later in the office trying to get my last bits of work turned in I finally gave up and just said I'd turn it in Tuesday when I have to return and give my work computer back. I was too excited and Mary's office on campus has too much of a blowing breeze. Soon it was almost five so Jackie the Executive Director of our whole department, and my immediate boss Elaine, and Mary they all drove me up to Kent Island for dinner on the water. Natasha came, and Carolee, and Jan all the way from Chestertown and some other teachers and of course Jason and Kim and Brenda, too. Then Cindy showed up, and she ended up taking me back to my car, where we sat and talked for two more hours while a nice round thunderstorm came through. Cindy is the woman I used to teach English with, nighttimes twice a week, at the elementary school in the country out near the Delaware line. This was 2006 and on. She also is the one who introduced me to Teena and had me do a catering gig for her back then, and Teena's the one who rented me the room on the Choptank River when I finally summoned the courage to leave Brandon and break his heart and move out and away to a place so isolated that even now that fast year I spent there still is surreal to me like a dream. Cindy and I, really, hadn't talked and really caught up since I very first moved out to Chop. We had lots, lots to catch the other one up on.
On Saturday I got up and couldn't get moving. I had to be in Pennsylvania first for a baby shower then a bachelorette party. The radio was danceable though and in moments it was so good and the sky was so blue, and I read this blog a long long while which I hadn't done in a long time. It made me feel good to have this, these archives of me because I, like all people, compelled as I am by my self and also very very deep, need to have a place to catalog and process me.
The drive up 83 especially was good. I listened to Rachel Sage and Ruut, both of whom I met last weekend when Brooks got to open for them. Rachel Sage especially is so deliciously good, and I thought how very much I like to hear the accordian. It makes me feel like a gypsy which probably is just to say it makes me feel more wild and whimsy and mystery like I really am. When I got to York I was proud of myself for knowing my way around even though my GPS got me lost at first, finally I just turned that bitch off and got there on my own instincts in the hot Pennsylvania concrete traffic and sun. I walked in to the basement at Aunt Lori's house almost an hour late and it was a huge commotion of people and when I walked in from the far side of the room I heard cousin Chels yell Wait where's Kelly? Chelsea is pregnant, and psychic like all the women in that family and I saw her in the corner and all the commotion was because she was about to open gifts. And I dont know how to put this part in words--that Chels, who's 19, is bringing our first grandbaby in to this world, or great grandbaby I mean, and my grandparents were both sick last year, but still are so robust. And when we are together, which we do more often now, mom her two sisters my brother and his fiance my grandparents and two cousins, we cry a lot and it is always hot and full in our chest because every breathing moment with them is awareness of life and how much we are blessed. So I walked in and Chels knew in her blood I just got there, and she waited for me to sit at her feet and then the gift opening began. Then a half hour later she goes Wait, where's Sean? and then of course we look up and he, my brother, walks in. We did well, Pap only really cried, which is what makes the rest of us bawl, really hard once and then we all were crying and gasping and laughing and wiping our faces with napkins and the other guests cried and laughed some, too.
Then I left, got out on to the rolling green hills and farmhouse lanes of Rt. 30 to drive to Fairfield right outside Gettysburg. My cousin Sarah on my dad's side, the Mc-clan, is getting married soon so next was to celebrate that. On Route 30 I got reminiscent but before it got overboard this song Lost in Pennsylvania came on and I laughed out loud, like really hardy belly laugh because Rt. 30 and me have history. York to Philly, Philly to York, York to Gettysburg and all that sky and green. I always always have such good reflection on that road and Saturday was no different. I was reflecting on the last time I made that drive and how much has changed since then. The last time it was July and Josh, who is the man that I fell in mad love with some years back and ultimately was the final reason I had courage enough to leave Brandon and follow me towards my own thing, called at the end when I pulled in to my cousin's driveway. I hadn't heard from him in like four months back then because of a hurtful falling out, and the thing about Rt. 30 is that's how I used to get from my grandparents over to his house. We always had that psychic thing too, Josh and I, among other connections, and so I was thinking back a lot on him. Next thing, over the glorious piano Ruut sings Lost in Pennsylvania and I'm like Whaaaaa? Did she just say lost in Pennsylvania because it was the first time hearing that CD. Then at that very moment mom called. Mom is from the PA hills and that was really on my mind, too, backroads and southern Pennsylvania and mom and her country people. She called to ask what I was doing. I told her driving and thinking about you and thinking about Josh and now cracking up becasue this lady is singing about Josh and I same time as me thinking about us. And mom reminded me of a time long ago going to work a bluegrass festival in those very hills and how she used to be in love back then with a well-known Nashville musician. Within moments I was at the very place, 8 miles east of Gettysburg, that the festival she was talking about is held. It was all so timely, and the conversation was good and sweet and I felt whole and clean, and happy to see Sarah the bride-to-be and the other cousins waiting to see me.
Now it is Monday morning, the birds are singing and Crow was just squawking, too. The sky out the window in my meditation room is blue and pink tinged so it's all resonant in that morning purple hue. Yesterday also was a long day and last night I wanted to finish uploading my old pics--late 80's through late 90's--on to my external hard drive so that when I move Wednesday and my couple things go in to storage that huge tupperware with all the old albums can just stay there. But I was tired, went late to Target to get a new swimsuit and that took a long time because for the first time in a long time I felt bad about how I looked which made me uncomfortable, but also grateful, because I almost never ever have to deal with that leftover teenage weirdness anymore. So when I got back home I went right to bed, didn't even keep my eyes open long enough to read my book.
I move Wednesday to Ocean Pines. Kelly Johnson, Sean, Bdubb and Brooks are going to help me. Thursday I'm taking Amy out for a pedicure to celebrate Maddie, her third child, due in July. Friday my cousin Timmy graduates college, Friday night we're all going dancing at Red Maple, Saturday's Eryka Badu. Then back to the Pines til Wednesday of the following week, when I fly to Oregon, and will be boundless, yet tall tree mountain coasts hot springs cities and hippies and Pacific ocean bound.
Yaaaaay!!!! When I get home it will be summer time and all that hotass Marilen mug. I'll be a waitress again, a writer for sure, babys will come, weddings will happen, and I will stare and smile a lot at the sea. I will swim. For now, I am sleepy, pals. Thank you for reading and always journeying along with me. Thank you all for the love and support even when you dont comment thankfully the blog counter tells me you still read. I am contented, awed, and eager because I feel certain the best is yet to be....
My wishes and prayers for the same to all of you xoxo.
Love, kel
Hey Pals,
It's something like 4:30 am. I woke up around 3 and couldn't get back to sleep, but didn't put the light on til a half hour ago. For a while I laid there, thinking the noises I was hearing are the giant fucking practically baseball sized roaches that have begun to show themselves at least daily since I started filling my apartment with cardboard boxes and all these magnificent little dark spaces for them to hide. God that ills me out blugghgghghghhgghgh but I am thankful for them because it's making it really easy to so want to leave this place. Then I imagined the bumping around was the ghosts of this old house that the across the hall neighbor Rebecca has seen, and often hears. In the end I turned the lights on to get some water and there were no bugs, and no haunts, at least that I could tell.
It was a long, sweet weekend. Friday was 12 hours long, I went in to my office for my last day and then up to the college for my exit interview which the HR person kept referring to in email as my Termination Interview. Which made me laugh but also mildly nervous to walk up there and turn my paperwork in, but wouldn't you know I came in and sat down and she said I hear you're moving home because your husband got transferred, I'm from Baltimore, too, Dunalk, hon. I explained that it actually is because really I have no friends or family here in Easton or on the midshore or a life really other than my job, and that I was originally from a town called Millersville outside Glen Burnie, that I am the exact oppositte of married and that first I am waiting tables at the beach to make money but before that going out to the PacNW for a month and then going to move home, then we got down to talking Hons. It was like talking to an old girlfriend that I didn't realize I missed even though Sue and me, the HR lady, had never really met before.
Later in the office trying to get my last bits of work turned in I finally gave up and just said I'd turn it in Tuesday when I have to return and give my work computer back. I was too excited and Mary's office on campus has too much of a blowing breeze. Soon it was almost five so Jackie the Executive Director of our whole department, and my immediate boss Elaine, and Mary they all drove me up to Kent Island for dinner on the water. Natasha came, and Carolee, and Jan all the way from Chestertown and some other teachers and of course Jason and Kim and Brenda, too. Then Cindy showed up, and she ended up taking me back to my car, where we sat and talked for two more hours while a nice round thunderstorm came through. Cindy is the woman I used to teach English with, nighttimes twice a week, at the elementary school in the country out near the Delaware line. This was 2006 and on. She also is the one who introduced me to Teena and had me do a catering gig for her back then, and Teena's the one who rented me the room on the Choptank River when I finally summoned the courage to leave Brandon and break his heart and move out and away to a place so isolated that even now that fast year I spent there still is surreal to me like a dream. Cindy and I, really, hadn't talked and really caught up since I very first moved out to Chop. We had lots, lots to catch the other one up on.
On Saturday I got up and couldn't get moving. I had to be in Pennsylvania first for a baby shower then a bachelorette party. The radio was danceable though and in moments it was so good and the sky was so blue, and I read this blog a long long while which I hadn't done in a long time. It made me feel good to have this, these archives of me because I, like all people, compelled as I am by my self and also very very deep, need to have a place to catalog and process me.
The drive up 83 especially was good. I listened to Rachel Sage and Ruut, both of whom I met last weekend when Brooks got to open for them. Rachel Sage especially is so deliciously good, and I thought how very much I like to hear the accordian. It makes me feel like a gypsy which probably is just to say it makes me feel more wild and whimsy and mystery like I really am. When I got to York I was proud of myself for knowing my way around even though my GPS got me lost at first, finally I just turned that bitch off and got there on my own instincts in the hot Pennsylvania concrete traffic and sun. I walked in to the basement at Aunt Lori's house almost an hour late and it was a huge commotion of people and when I walked in from the far side of the room I heard cousin Chels yell Wait where's Kelly? Chelsea is pregnant, and psychic like all the women in that family and I saw her in the corner and all the commotion was because she was about to open gifts. And I dont know how to put this part in words--that Chels, who's 19, is bringing our first grandbaby in to this world, or great grandbaby I mean, and my grandparents were both sick last year, but still are so robust. And when we are together, which we do more often now, mom her two sisters my brother and his fiance my grandparents and two cousins, we cry a lot and it is always hot and full in our chest because every breathing moment with them is awareness of life and how much we are blessed. So I walked in and Chels knew in her blood I just got there, and she waited for me to sit at her feet and then the gift opening began. Then a half hour later she goes Wait, where's Sean? and then of course we look up and he, my brother, walks in. We did well, Pap only really cried, which is what makes the rest of us bawl, really hard once and then we all were crying and gasping and laughing and wiping our faces with napkins and the other guests cried and laughed some, too.
Then I left, got out on to the rolling green hills and farmhouse lanes of Rt. 30 to drive to Fairfield right outside Gettysburg. My cousin Sarah on my dad's side, the Mc-clan, is getting married soon so next was to celebrate that. On Route 30 I got reminiscent but before it got overboard this song Lost in Pennsylvania came on and I laughed out loud, like really hardy belly laugh because Rt. 30 and me have history. York to Philly, Philly to York, York to Gettysburg and all that sky and green. I always always have such good reflection on that road and Saturday was no different. I was reflecting on the last time I made that drive and how much has changed since then. The last time it was July and Josh, who is the man that I fell in mad love with some years back and ultimately was the final reason I had courage enough to leave Brandon and follow me towards my own thing, called at the end when I pulled in to my cousin's driveway. I hadn't heard from him in like four months back then because of a hurtful falling out, and the thing about Rt. 30 is that's how I used to get from my grandparents over to his house. We always had that psychic thing too, Josh and I, among other connections, and so I was thinking back a lot on him. Next thing, over the glorious piano Ruut sings Lost in Pennsylvania and I'm like Whaaaaa? Did she just say lost in Pennsylvania because it was the first time hearing that CD. Then at that very moment mom called. Mom is from the PA hills and that was really on my mind, too, backroads and southern Pennsylvania and mom and her country people. She called to ask what I was doing. I told her driving and thinking about you and thinking about Josh and now cracking up becasue this lady is singing about Josh and I same time as me thinking about us. And mom reminded me of a time long ago going to work a bluegrass festival in those very hills and how she used to be in love back then with a well-known Nashville musician. Within moments I was at the very place, 8 miles east of Gettysburg, that the festival she was talking about is held. It was all so timely, and the conversation was good and sweet and I felt whole and clean, and happy to see Sarah the bride-to-be and the other cousins waiting to see me.
Now it is Monday morning, the birds are singing and Crow was just squawking, too. The sky out the window in my meditation room is blue and pink tinged so it's all resonant in that morning purple hue. Yesterday also was a long day and last night I wanted to finish uploading my old pics--late 80's through late 90's--on to my external hard drive so that when I move Wednesday and my couple things go in to storage that huge tupperware with all the old albums can just stay there. But I was tired, went late to Target to get a new swimsuit and that took a long time because for the first time in a long time I felt bad about how I looked which made me uncomfortable, but also grateful, because I almost never ever have to deal with that leftover teenage weirdness anymore. So when I got back home I went right to bed, didn't even keep my eyes open long enough to read my book.
I move Wednesday to Ocean Pines. Kelly Johnson, Sean, Bdubb and Brooks are going to help me. Thursday I'm taking Amy out for a pedicure to celebrate Maddie, her third child, due in July. Friday my cousin Timmy graduates college, Friday night we're all going dancing at Red Maple, Saturday's Eryka Badu. Then back to the Pines til Wednesday of the following week, when I fly to Oregon, and will be boundless, yet tall tree mountain coasts hot springs cities and hippies and Pacific ocean bound.
Yaaaaay!!!! When I get home it will be summer time and all that hotass Marilen mug. I'll be a waitress again, a writer for sure, babys will come, weddings will happen, and I will stare and smile a lot at the sea. I will swim. For now, I am sleepy, pals. Thank you for reading and always journeying along with me. Thank you all for the love and support even when you dont comment thankfully the blog counter tells me you still read. I am contented, awed, and eager because I feel certain the best is yet to be....
My wishes and prayers for the same to all of you xoxo.
Love, kel
January 22, 2010
...I will tell about it...
Two days ago the doctor, in less time than it took me to turn off my car in the parking lot of the walk-in clinic and unbuckle my seatbelt, told me I had infected tonsils.
An infected tonsil looks pretty gross.
This morning when I woke up I felt like I'd been holding my breath, my whole body clung frantically to a rock, with gnarly whitecap tumblers breaking over top of me all night long. I couldn't tell: was it my tonsils or had I just slept wrong?
But by the time I was up and out of bed that certain headache that comes, the one that sucks my whole breath from me, was fast on its way. I only get those kind of headaches when I've been clenching my jaw in my sleep.
Then I remembered: I dreamt these funny, peaky-feeling dreams all night long. The half-pulled curtain in my consciousness was throwing fresh images: me, with bruised and bloodied, swollen faces--several, like a series of comic book characters, shots of me--all in varying different proportions of having been beat-up, and each with a doopy grin on my at times toothless face.
On Tuesday night at the funeral for sweet Meggie's father, my buddy Ronnie and I talked forever--Meggie tucked safe the whole time, near the casket, in the corner of our eyes. He told me tales and tales of his family, all based around the coal mines of West Virginia. Two nights before my friend Tom went on about where he's from and the lifestyle that influences society there: the coalmines of North Central PA. Driving home, or to my cousin's home, from South County where the funeral was, a song bittersweet like a sourpatch kid on the tongue caught my attention from the IPOD: Coalminer, by Mia and Jonah.
My grandpop. How'd he come to Baltimore? I dont know. I should know this. His dad, Orlando, came here from Ireland. Had 11 kids. Worked the coal mines in PA til he died.
I got up this morning with this binging headache trying to start. I drank lots of water, ate some cheerios then took some Advil. Then I put two hours of work in from home, and then cancelled all my other plans...
Infected tonsils, according to Louise Hay, indicates creativity stifled or repressed emotions.
Does it really mean that? What if it doesn't?
What if it does?
All I know for sure is that I believe, I believe with out question in the deep life, the deep inner world and those inner lights being made real, and shining my way day to day. After those dreams, and the connections about Pop, and my flightiness over some decisions I've got comping up, what I did for the rest of the day was take some much needed quiet time. I got gentle as I could with me and gave myself, in my sacred space, long uncharted time to just be with me, and listen.
Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it...Our myths are our lives, as magical and myth-filled as we let them be, as we choose to make them, as we choose to believe...I choose to believe in the magic inside, and the signs without. In my We'Moon calendar the forecast for Aries for the year said to take the quiet time to seek the voices of my ancestors.
I am sitting down to write late in to the night on my Memoir.
I hear you, Pop!
An infected tonsil looks pretty gross.
This morning when I woke up I felt like I'd been holding my breath, my whole body clung frantically to a rock, with gnarly whitecap tumblers breaking over top of me all night long. I couldn't tell: was it my tonsils or had I just slept wrong?
But by the time I was up and out of bed that certain headache that comes, the one that sucks my whole breath from me, was fast on its way. I only get those kind of headaches when I've been clenching my jaw in my sleep.
Then I remembered: I dreamt these funny, peaky-feeling dreams all night long. The half-pulled curtain in my consciousness was throwing fresh images: me, with bruised and bloodied, swollen faces--several, like a series of comic book characters, shots of me--all in varying different proportions of having been beat-up, and each with a doopy grin on my at times toothless face.
On Tuesday night at the funeral for sweet Meggie's father, my buddy Ronnie and I talked forever--Meggie tucked safe the whole time, near the casket, in the corner of our eyes. He told me tales and tales of his family, all based around the coal mines of West Virginia. Two nights before my friend Tom went on about where he's from and the lifestyle that influences society there: the coalmines of North Central PA. Driving home, or to my cousin's home, from South County where the funeral was, a song bittersweet like a sourpatch kid on the tongue caught my attention from the IPOD: Coalminer, by Mia and Jonah.
My grandpop. How'd he come to Baltimore? I dont know. I should know this. His dad, Orlando, came here from Ireland. Had 11 kids. Worked the coal mines in PA til he died.
I got up this morning with this binging headache trying to start. I drank lots of water, ate some cheerios then took some Advil. Then I put two hours of work in from home, and then cancelled all my other plans...
Infected tonsils, according to Louise Hay, indicates creativity stifled or repressed emotions.
Does it really mean that? What if it doesn't?
What if it does?
All I know for sure is that I believe, I believe with out question in the deep life, the deep inner world and those inner lights being made real, and shining my way day to day. After those dreams, and the connections about Pop, and my flightiness over some decisions I've got comping up, what I did for the rest of the day was take some much needed quiet time. I got gentle as I could with me and gave myself, in my sacred space, long uncharted time to just be with me, and listen.
Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it...Our myths are our lives, as magical and myth-filled as we let them be, as we choose to make them, as we choose to believe...I choose to believe in the magic inside, and the signs without. In my We'Moon calendar the forecast for Aries for the year said to take the quiet time to seek the voices of my ancestors.
I am sitting down to write late in to the night on my Memoir.
I hear you, Pop!
August 19, 2009
ARTISTS take New Moon note...
By the time you read this new moon in leo-sun will already have apexed and passed~~it is round 3 tonight eastern time, but as you know retrospect is the way i like to go so go here to lisa's page(which NOOOOO it looks as if she is discontinuing a harsh bummer but soon enough there will be a blog to follow, good) and read up on tonights voidofsoulcalling. it's good shit and far as creativity goes, of art and using your soul-light and gifts, it is indeed right on time. like tonight after the lameness of those assmunch's in the coffee shop today with their ages upon ages of lifetime wounds it was me at work hanging out with the guatamalans and el salvadorians at the church of god and laughing like the way i only when i'm with them do, then followed by cigs with kim under the hush of the pinetrees--i was moved to give her reiki, and to make of myself more alight by serving and lifting her up. and then we talked long about cycle five in the life of womyn the identity one important cycle of evolution and being the change and i shared with her my own spiral walk and encouraged her to look on her life with much the same. and prandy tomorrow and the last time i saw him was at his wedding six years ago or in the seventh now anyway and this is a cycle unto itself, as well. it will be fun to see him and like coming home.
new moon tonight, and so much stars. i have redeyes from blogpost reading and a heart as big and full as the sky.
new moon tonight, and so much stars. i have redeyes from blogpost reading and a heart as big and full as the sky.
July 27, 2009
update
i was journaling this morning. it was quiet in my space and sort of grey but everything was still and the outlines of the furniture in my room were strong and solid. it was the kind of morning where i was acutely senstive to my space. my scarves hanging all around, the color they add in the dull light through the shades. the books on my shelves. the flicker of the candle and the shadow on the wall: to and frow. i was quiet, and aware. contented in the peace that comes in recovery after you've worked hard to get to a new inner understanding, we call it having our side of the street clean. it's been a long process.
i noticed the date on the top line of the loose leaf in my journal and felt a tug of familiarity in my heart. july 27. 9 years ago today i woke up in the afternoon in my dark windowless room in ocean pines. i had a mean hangover and had to get to work in town. the phone was ringing: it was cuddy, from crofton. our boy fannon had died. fannon was my lover. he was my friend. he was someone with whom i'd grown up. he had a heart attack and was gone at 23.
fannon and me, all of us, we liked our drugs.
i'd been arrested for the third time just days prior. it too had to do with partying a wee bit too much. burying fannon was a blur. i didn't cry until 2 months later. i mean really cry, like really let it out. but on august 5, cuz they told me a i had to, i took my last drink. some months later, my last drug.
yea, so, 9 years after all of that and i can barely remember, barely connect in to that way of life anymore, or who i used to be that i needed that--those elixers, as a way to live.
this book i just did this wild and deep, deep work out of, read it. read it, read it, allow yourself to unfold through it. actually take the suggestions and do the work. cuz drinking and drugs weren't my problem, they were my solution. my problem was me and my so badly injured heart. and so many of us have that, the badly injured part, in common. and this book got in to those roots and then at once helped me build my own deep character on which to climb out. i am so, so thankful.
here is a poem in celebration. in celebration of what its like to be of dos mundos, or two worlds. the outside, day to day life. and the inner, more powerful and capable of being so fully awakened life of the heart and spirit. of the calling, of the impulse, itself...
For Alva Benson, And For Those
Who Have Learned To Speak
And the ground spoke when she was born.
Her mother heard it. In Navajo she answered
as she squatted down against the earth
to give birth. It was now when it happened,
now giving birth to itself again and again
between the legs of women.
Or maybe it was the Indian Hospital
in Gallup. The ground still spoke beneath
mortar and concrete. She strained against the
metal stirrups, and they tied her hands down
because she still spoke with them, when they
muffled her screams. But her body went on
talking and the child was born into their
hands, and the child learned to speak
both voices.
She grew up talking in Navajo, in English
and watched the earth around her shift and change
with the people in the towns and in the cities
learning not to hear the ground as it spun around
beneath them. She learned to speak for the ground,
the voice coming through her like roots that
have long hungered for water. He own daughter
was born, like she had been, in either place
or all places, so she could leave, leap
into the sound she had always heard,
a voice like water, like the gods weavng
against sundown in a scarlet light.
The child now hears names in her sleep.
They change into other names, and into others.
In is the ground murmuring, and Mt. St. Helens
errupts as the harmonic motion of a child turning
inside her mother's belly waiting to be born
to begin another time.
And we go on, keep giving birth and watch
ourselves die, over and over.
And the ground spinning beneath us
goes on talking.
~Joy Harjo
i noticed the date on the top line of the loose leaf in my journal and felt a tug of familiarity in my heart. july 27. 9 years ago today i woke up in the afternoon in my dark windowless room in ocean pines. i had a mean hangover and had to get to work in town. the phone was ringing: it was cuddy, from crofton. our boy fannon had died. fannon was my lover. he was my friend. he was someone with whom i'd grown up. he had a heart attack and was gone at 23.
fannon and me, all of us, we liked our drugs.
i'd been arrested for the third time just days prior. it too had to do with partying a wee bit too much. burying fannon was a blur. i didn't cry until 2 months later. i mean really cry, like really let it out. but on august 5, cuz they told me a i had to, i took my last drink. some months later, my last drug.
yea, so, 9 years after all of that and i can barely remember, barely connect in to that way of life anymore, or who i used to be that i needed that--those elixers, as a way to live.
this book i just did this wild and deep, deep work out of, read it. read it, read it, allow yourself to unfold through it. actually take the suggestions and do the work. cuz drinking and drugs weren't my problem, they were my solution. my problem was me and my so badly injured heart. and so many of us have that, the badly injured part, in common. and this book got in to those roots and then at once helped me build my own deep character on which to climb out. i am so, so thankful.
here is a poem in celebration. in celebration of what its like to be of dos mundos, or two worlds. the outside, day to day life. and the inner, more powerful and capable of being so fully awakened life of the heart and spirit. of the calling, of the impulse, itself...
For Alva Benson, And For Those
Who Have Learned To Speak
And the ground spoke when she was born.
Her mother heard it. In Navajo she answered
as she squatted down against the earth
to give birth. It was now when it happened,
now giving birth to itself again and again
between the legs of women.
Or maybe it was the Indian Hospital
in Gallup. The ground still spoke beneath
mortar and concrete. She strained against the
metal stirrups, and they tied her hands down
because she still spoke with them, when they
muffled her screams. But her body went on
talking and the child was born into their
hands, and the child learned to speak
both voices.
She grew up talking in Navajo, in English
and watched the earth around her shift and change
with the people in the towns and in the cities
learning not to hear the ground as it spun around
beneath them. She learned to speak for the ground,
the voice coming through her like roots that
have long hungered for water. He own daughter
was born, like she had been, in either place
or all places, so she could leave, leap
into the sound she had always heard,
a voice like water, like the gods weavng
against sundown in a scarlet light.
The child now hears names in her sleep.
They change into other names, and into others.
In is the ground murmuring, and Mt. St. Helens
errupts as the harmonic motion of a child turning
inside her mother's belly waiting to be born
to begin another time.
And we go on, keep giving birth and watch
ourselves die, over and over.
And the ground spinning beneath us
goes on talking.
~Joy Harjo
March 8, 2009
Message in my bottle
There are common concerns I've heard, and usually shared, about moving up the time change and thereby forcing the start of spring. Screwing up our Circadian Cycles and what not. I am born one day after the equinox, and I mean to write it that way: I Am Born, recognizing this time of year always as a time of great rebirth for me. I am one day in to the start of spring, and my whole life, or long as I can consciously remember being aware of "within", I have cycled with the seasons. I am a sunhead, drawn to the light, but born under a Taurus moon, so ruled inwardly by the night. So I flow gently as I can allowing the seasons, and my own deep and personal experiences of them, to inform my soul. I'm born at the Equinox, a baby of perfect union of dark and light. I think these are the marks I came in to this world with, and I seek the balance of allowing them to inform me but only insomuch as trying recognize the "intuitive"-born pathways in to my soul.
Last year at the timechange I remember feeling like Milly the Mole: someone turned the lights on too quick!! I was surrendered to my burrow, in deep hibernation doing an awful lot of resting. I wasn't ready to come out yet from my hole. But this year. Woah. I. Am. So. Ready.
This sickness I am just coming through--and by the way, thank you so much all my well-wishers who commented on this blog or facebook or via email, it meant a ton, truly--it was so much more than just a physical thing. I believe in the oneness of the body: the physical and the chemical and hormonal body, effected fully by the mental or emotional body, the subconscious body and the intuitive, the subtle energy body and the spirit. I believe in the full picture of all of these, and I can tell you for sure that my illness was symptomatic of far deeper imbalances than merely fluid in my ears. I was forced during that time of sickness (and time of snow-hostage!) (oh, and during all that, in case the message WASN'T LOUD ENOUGH, my phone got wet and stopped working!) to surrender and to fully hear me. And what I was saying was what I, my deep quiet voice within, has been saying for so, so long. 
I moved on to Anngar Farm with Brandon over a year and half ago, in fact in June it will be two years. And strangely, the moment we got all our stuff in to that castillo--or castle--which is what my Mexican friend Santiago called the six-bedroom farmhouse that Brandon and I were literally given in exchange for caretaking the several acres of landscaped lawn that came along with it, I began to experience a deep and nagging discontent. I had no words for it, but it kept me up late, woke me up in the dark with blank stares, and caused me endless bouts of un-named melancholy worsened by my own refusal to just listen to what was Within. I kept telling my self just to shut-it, and be grateful for all the gifts you have why don't you?! By October of that year, some four or so months after we'd finally settled in, I had at least allowed myself to hear my inner message: I just want some time to be alone.
It made no sense to me. But intensified monthly. Now, here's the thing you need to know about me. I believe in our own deep Authenticity. That we each are alit with gifts specific to our own souls, unique to our own form of song. And it is our duties to listen and align with them and draw them out, and indeed this is how to evolve in to our best selves and serve this world. I believe in constant change, the power of intention, positive thinking and the law of attraction. And most of all I believe that we all are engaged by the same unifying energy, and that that energy exists in vibrations, and that everything, from a thought or intention to the rising-tide, the full moon the equinox a winter's snow or bad news from your best friend, vibrates at a certain level. And at any given moment my being, my holistic whole-bodied being vibrates according to all these many factors of Oneness. And my job is to stay the Conscious Witness so I can align and offer up those vibrations that are unique to me...I believe that in this way Harmony is possible...if even at times it looks like and feels like Divine Chaos. 
So in this Oneness of things, all movement has it seasons. And finally it came time for me to surrender to that deep yearning: it was all I could do to not scream it at the top of my lungs I just need to be Alone! It logically made no sense but I couldn't fight it anymore, and in fact, I often wonder if fighting that instinct for as long as I did instead of exploring the message of it contributed to the pain that it has greatly caused between me and Brandon. I literally was beginning to fracture inside, to feel depressed and more. And by the time I could take it no more what was left was letting down the person I loved most in the world. And frankly, I had no real reason to give to him.... 
But there is absolutely no denying that when I surrendered to the deep inner calling and said Yes to it--doors opened immediately. First a new job that afforded me enough money to live on my own, then a home in the vicinity of the new job. The first night I was here at Chop I was busybusy moving all my packed bags off my bed when something suddenly shook me and I stilled inside, and in the utter quiet of those surroundings the inner voice said: Do you hear it? This, this deep silence is what you wanted. And my friends, it is so, so quiet here.
I moved on to Anngar Farm with Brandon over a year and half ago, in fact in June it will be two years. And strangely, the moment we got all our stuff in to that castillo--or castle--which is what my Mexican friend Santiago called the six-bedroom farmhouse that Brandon and I were literally given in exchange for caretaking the several acres of landscaped lawn that came along with it, I began to experience a deep and nagging discontent. I had no words for it, but it kept me up late, woke me up in the dark with blank stares, and caused me endless bouts of un-named melancholy worsened by my own refusal to just listen to what was Within. I kept telling my self just to shut-it, and be grateful for all the gifts you have why don't you?! By October of that year, some four or so months after we'd finally settled in, I had at least allowed myself to hear my inner message: I just want some time to be alone.It made no sense to me. But intensified monthly. Now, here's the thing you need to know about me. I believe in our own deep Authenticity. That we each are alit with gifts specific to our own souls, unique to our own form of song. And it is our duties to listen and align with them and draw them out, and indeed this is how to evolve in to our best selves and serve this world. I believe in constant change, the power of intention, positive thinking and the law of attraction. And most of all I believe that we all are engaged by the same unifying energy, and that that energy exists in vibrations, and that everything, from a thought or intention to the rising-tide, the full moon the equinox a winter's snow or bad news from your best friend, vibrates at a certain level. And at any given moment my being, my holistic whole-bodied being vibrates according to all these many factors of Oneness. And my job is to stay the Conscious Witness so I can align and offer up those vibrations that are unique to me...I believe that in this way Harmony is possible...if even at times it looks like and feels like Divine Chaos. So in this Oneness of things, all movement has it seasons. And finally it came time for me to surrender to that deep yearning: it was all I could do to not scream it at the top of my lungs I just need to be Alone! It logically made no sense but I couldn't fight it anymore, and in fact, I often wonder if fighting that instinct for as long as I did instead of exploring the message of it contributed to the pain that it has greatly caused between me and Brandon. I literally was beginning to fracture inside, to feel depressed and more. And by the time I could take it no more what was left was letting down the person I loved most in the world. And frankly, I had no real reason to give to him.... But there is absolutely no denying that when I surrendered to the deep inner calling and said Yes to it--doors opened immediately. First a new job that afforded me enough money to live on my own, then a home in the vicinity of the new job. The first night I was here at Chop I was busybusy moving all my packed bags off my bed when something suddenly shook me and I stilled inside, and in the utter quiet of those surroundings the inner voice said: Do you hear it? This, this deep silence is what you wanted. And my friends, it is so, so quiet here. 
So, I'd love to tell you that I've just honored that quiet since then. And certainly in my own little regular ways I have. But I've also quietly been trying to plot and plan my next move, and then getting frustrated when I can't seem to force those changes. Ping-pong, ping-pong. The more time passes, the more frustrated and full of plans I get. Only to feel exhausted and more confused that ever. I like Louise Hay's term for this--Divine Discontent--and here-in lay the message of my illness: to slow down and just do what I came here, what I quite literally was led here, to do. Be Quiet. Take time to be quiet, in silence, and alone. And trust what will come from within will come in its right time. As all things come as and when they should... Like a foot of snow after you've been home sick for four days. Or the vibrant buds of purple crocus' who so needed some snow melt to grow grow grow... Ahhh, what balance to continually learn and relearn how to strike: balance of the light of knowledge versus faith that in what you can't always see ahead of you in the dark...So it goes so it goes and so it goes..So might it be....
Inside Great MaMa Magnolia, Who Breathes Silence, late-night witching hour with Laura Walsh, Chestertown
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