The hobbit house is built in to the side of Laguna Canyon and for that reason at night with no heat it feels cozy and held by the earth herself. I have a space heater Annie and Tony gave me when I first moved in and that's all it takes to stay warm. With lots of soaking rain the soil is green and smells like life. Even the morning mist-gray feels right in an atmosphere like this, one that sings Allliiiiive!
Damnit even if the Gods themselves gave me a paintbrush I couldn't of hand-created a life more exactly specific to what I love. This I tell Serena to ensure her, this, this our hard fought independence, our always-there choice, to live. What Laguna Beach for us actually means. She has done it every step of the way as I have and I admire her fiercely and devotedly for this. We will always have this. I laugh then and say because they did! I took my brush right from the God's hands! Said gimme that I will choose the life I live! Serena laughs too, this our secret, what we treasure and hold dear in the other.
It has been a long road since she left the treehouse upstairs. Life, which in living gives us what we need. We are so blessed I also tell her, and yes, yes we are I know, she says back to me. I feel a gulp in my heart and for us both feel-say the silent prayer.
I am always so wrought through with home and the ties that bind. Spent two years studying the psyche of this, of these things, and am convinced more than ever of the continuum of earth, of how she uses her people to soul-speak for a place, and in this way keeps sacred the tides of the land. There is so much life outside any door. When I first got to California the best part was how new it was. I vowed never ever to take you for granted Holy California and even though sometimes I start to, in the end I never do. Or still haven't. And that's what life is. To keep waking up. Again.
I consider family, too. Back east, here. Derynne and Cam, the kids. We buried her brother in what for her I know was a long whir of endless sad. Pacifica family and blessing the sacred space for Eve and Kalen to wed. Visiting with Atticus, seeing clients again, waiting on Jasmine to get back for school. Through it all there are tacos at Feast, the hot counter in San Juan with the pounds of chilaquiles, the clerks at the market downtown who tell you they missed seeing you, there is mermaid beach and the other secret spots and burrito joints with surf boys covered in tattoos. It is amazing how our tiny rounds from day to day connect us in, make life, see us through the daily passings of grocery trips and recycling and take-out Chinese food. See us to the big ones. Death, marriage, birth, tears and laughter. The sighs in between where words can not fit.
So it life again. I come back to you. I let you in.
Showing posts with label blessed are us all. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blessed are us all. Show all posts
January 12, 2015
November 30, 2014
The music of gypsy goddess sounds
This place was my first California home. I don't know how to explain this. I suppose that partly means I can't.
The true magic in these hills.
Which feels whole to me, like the heart's releasing ions of clouds.
Blessings are boundless. Endless as tree breath, light as giggle movement, the music of gypsy goddess sounds.
November 15, 2014
The noon church bells
The church bells on Forest in Laguna are my favorite part of Saturday stroll. I am sitting downtown, on a bench in the sun. Thinking about how only a 35 mm could capture the light in the fall
or the spring, or winter. The special summer light of this town. The noon church bells made me stop, sit. The kind of sit that is more a prayer. I slept late so there was only half an hour left when I got to market. The man who sold me sundried peaches for my oatmeal hooked me up with cherries and pluton and apricots too. He charged me $3 which was half the price of what it shoulda been. I left there just now with the biggest grin.
or the spring, or winter. The special summer light of this town. The noon church bells made me stop, sit. The kind of sit that is more a prayer. I slept late so there was only half an hour left when I got to market. The man who sold me sundried peaches for my oatmeal hooked me up with cherries and pluton and apricots too. He charged me $3 which was half the price of what it shoulda been. I left there just now with the biggest grin.It is noon now, in four and a half hours it will be dark. I haven't even had my second cup of coffee yet--stopped to write on my way to refill.
There's so much right now that can slide on by...unseen. It's extra important to me, then, to just pause a while. In the sun.
November 6, 2014
This really happened and I am still awe-struck
I couldn't figure out why the streets were chattering with that low Laguna glee but at Thalia seeing all the foot traffic heading towards PCH it hit me. Art Walk or first Thursday was happening. My glee was elfin and made of sea salt which I suppose is more mermaid then but if you're town bound after the setting of an orange sun you have to go with elf. You need feet, is what I'm saying. Hide the fins. That and also, Kelly J had an Elf the Movie quote on insta this eve so it's in my brain.
And that's my life, salt brain. Sea-eyes. I finally got fins and a mask and didn't even bother with the snorkel literally just ditched my towel and tossed my clothes and ran for the sea. And it feels like I'll blow it now, trying to give words to what that was like, being finally able to see what I could feel for all these years? To really see. Most people it scares them to feel that large body living and breathing and pulling and pushing you all around but me I have nothing but intrigue. It's an honor to dance with her, to be swept up in her moves. And I don't know how to make people understand which means I guess I can't which means I guess I just get to keep the smile of secret glee all to me. Which is that I have a salt water heart. Which means really and secretly I know the truth of the alchemy-romance between the ocean and the sun.
Holy god more than once I had to move my legs hard to get to the top again because I could've stayed down there forever-- but I mean you know, it's just--air. Because when I was far enough out above my head and dove under again and felt it, the pull--the livingness--I turned quick as I could which with fins is still awkward but I was looking for it, what I felt--and there it was and sure as I saw it well it also saw me, too--and this is the part I can't explain and you won't understand. But the shock was enough for me to have to fast remind myself not to breathe in bc I'd a sucked sea. Which I think I would've been happy like sorta it's finding Camelot under there, but also please don't read this the wrong way it's not like I want to drown. What I am trying to say is there where the sunlight went under and was glistening with the water it was real, the livingness, like it was living, had presence. Was more life-full and emanating with the life-ness then the small skate that slid under me or the many many schools of corvinas I swam through. And I knew it was real when I saw it bc I had to squelch my gasp. Like it was animated, where the sun and water met, they made this other, this sacred precious third made out of them together. Just like all great soul mates, that thing, their own third that is her and her or her and him or whatever combo of two together--and the witnessing of the creation of sacred other, the Third. Which is Their's. Of them but not them. Holier than as result of the combination. Startling in its truth.
I have felt and swam and floated inside that presence, its come up and cradled me a million times so it was like for the first time ever truly coming home. To see it. Holy Sacred Third, divine created combo of Sea and Sun. To have it react to and with me. I am not being hyperbolic here or a creative writer. This really happened and I am still awe-struck, in bliss.
It was cold tonight but I stayed out for a half hour or more. I changed on the beach and laid a long time on my towel, watching the sun go down and stunned and still in stoke-awe. I thought I'd cry. Then dude with the blonde ponytail, the one the Coachella boys would call an old loc, he showed up and went out mask and hand boards but he took his piece. To breathe.
And we've never met but always acknowledge each other since we often beach at the same space. But tonight he came right to me when he got out, clearly enchanted too, said Can you even believe it out there eyes clear and wide and green-blue sparkling same as the sea. And I had someone to share it with then, my slack jaw glee, my joy at the livingness unseen now seen. Danny the ol loc who's been in the same spot above Taco Loco for 30 years. Just livin and jammin on the magic out there. We marveled over the sunset so clear you could see San Clemente Island to the left of Catalina.
I drove in circles when it was done confused by the foot traffic and bc I was thinking I'd raised Atlantis with the setting sun. Now I am being creative. The fact is though I had to park and made my way through my little town on its sparkle strung air by foot, greeting other ol locs and finally making my way to St. Anne's. It was $5 enchilada night at Feast. I had a lot to celebrate.
Like the fact that tomorrow I will get to do it again.
Amen. Amen, amen.
And that's my life, salt brain. Sea-eyes. I finally got fins and a mask and didn't even bother with the snorkel literally just ditched my towel and tossed my clothes and ran for the sea. And it feels like I'll blow it now, trying to give words to what that was like, being finally able to see what I could feel for all these years? To really see. Most people it scares them to feel that large body living and breathing and pulling and pushing you all around but me I have nothing but intrigue. It's an honor to dance with her, to be swept up in her moves. And I don't know how to make people understand which means I guess I can't which means I guess I just get to keep the smile of secret glee all to me. Which is that I have a salt water heart. Which means really and secretly I know the truth of the alchemy-romance between the ocean and the sun.
Holy god more than once I had to move my legs hard to get to the top again because I could've stayed down there forever-- but I mean you know, it's just--air. Because when I was far enough out above my head and dove under again and felt it, the pull--the livingness--I turned quick as I could which with fins is still awkward but I was looking for it, what I felt--and there it was and sure as I saw it well it also saw me, too--and this is the part I can't explain and you won't understand. But the shock was enough for me to have to fast remind myself not to breathe in bc I'd a sucked sea. Which I think I would've been happy like sorta it's finding Camelot under there, but also please don't read this the wrong way it's not like I want to drown. What I am trying to say is there where the sunlight went under and was glistening with the water it was real, the livingness, like it was living, had presence. Was more life-full and emanating with the life-ness then the small skate that slid under me or the many many schools of corvinas I swam through. And I knew it was real when I saw it bc I had to squelch my gasp. Like it was animated, where the sun and water met, they made this other, this sacred precious third made out of them together. Just like all great soul mates, that thing, their own third that is her and her or her and him or whatever combo of two together--and the witnessing of the creation of sacred other, the Third. Which is Their's. Of them but not them. Holier than as result of the combination. Startling in its truth.
I have felt and swam and floated inside that presence, its come up and cradled me a million times so it was like for the first time ever truly coming home. To see it. Holy Sacred Third, divine created combo of Sea and Sun. To have it react to and with me. I am not being hyperbolic here or a creative writer. This really happened and I am still awe-struck, in bliss.
It was cold tonight but I stayed out for a half hour or more. I changed on the beach and laid a long time on my towel, watching the sun go down and stunned and still in stoke-awe. I thought I'd cry. Then dude with the blonde ponytail, the one the Coachella boys would call an old loc, he showed up and went out mask and hand boards but he took his piece. To breathe.
And we've never met but always acknowledge each other since we often beach at the same space. But tonight he came right to me when he got out, clearly enchanted too, said Can you even believe it out there eyes clear and wide and green-blue sparkling same as the sea. And I had someone to share it with then, my slack jaw glee, my joy at the livingness unseen now seen. Danny the ol loc who's been in the same spot above Taco Loco for 30 years. Just livin and jammin on the magic out there. We marveled over the sunset so clear you could see San Clemente Island to the left of Catalina.
I drove in circles when it was done confused by the foot traffic and bc I was thinking I'd raised Atlantis with the setting sun. Now I am being creative. The fact is though I had to park and made my way through my little town on its sparkle strung air by foot, greeting other ol locs and finally making my way to St. Anne's. It was $5 enchilada night at Feast. I had a lot to celebrate.
Like the fact that tomorrow I will get to do it again.
Amen. Amen, amen.
December 31, 2012
Love and thank yous
As soon as I saw on Facebook that Igor was sick I knew I was going to make him soup. But it didn't occur to me that I was doing for him what my wise women teachers taught me to do by doing it for me over all these years until later, standing in Derynne's kitchen tonight. Her friend, who I've never met til tonight, said 'that's really the best medicine, the vitamins and minerals cooked in from the whole foods.' Then she took a sip from a plastic red cup of wine that already had her lips joker purple. And she grinned and added 'and all that bright white light~'
It made me raise my brow with my own little grin because indeed as she said that I was adding the last little dash of flavor and also putting blessings of so much love and thank you all over that soup. This was the first thing she'd said to me directly all night. I don't know if she saw my smile. We'd been packing D's house for their move on January 2. They are going back to the dessert where Cam's tattoo shop is. Packing laundry boxing taping labeling drinking wine drinking wine making chicken soup. And dumplings. This gal's either got drunk second-sight or is wild-intuitive. Either one totally natural. One homemade pot was macaroni noodles with broth just like Judy taught me to make way back even before I lived on the farm. To that pot I also added kale and chard-pot like Teena used to make to heal me, when I lived in sabbatical with her those many long days at Chop. Also tons of oregano because Igor's sinus' are sick and for sick sinus', well that's one of the first things I ever learned working with herbs. Also back in the days that I used to salvage Judy's herb garden out on the side of her river house. And cloves and cloves of garlic. And other secret dashes and smiles. The other pot was homemade chicken dumplings, the way grandma taught me all those different times standing behind or beside her or out of her sight but her not out of mine. I didn't make hand-pressed noodles Pennsylvania-Dutch style though, but, with Grandma's recipe and a combo nod to Judy again, little butter dumplings that turned in the broth and before the roux to the warmest, fluffiest balls. That pot I made for Laura another student of mine, or rather as I don't teach them now, for Laura a woman I know who's far away from her mom's countryside home in Romania. My students, I mean my friends, so far away from family, during the holidays.
It is cold and clear the night before the last day of the year. Pon Pon walked me to where I was parked on Adams. He lives with Igor and Gustavo. And Bob, who I've met several times through them, and Leo too. Igor was in bed sniffling and laughing his wonderful Igor laugh. I made all of them take emergenC's and zincs the way Maria did back when I was first learning to teach and got so sick right after Christmas that year. Back when Judy first made me homemade chicken soup and showed me how. And her, and Maria my mentor teacher, how both those good women took turns stopping by to give me care. Pon Pon handed me a bag of Brazilian chocolates at my car and gave me a million kisses on my head. We could see our breath. I live in Southern California, it was almost midnight, I have a sweet artist's studio in the canyon that was calling me home. All these darling Brazilians. My sister D and her dear kids, moving away. I made soup or dumplings for everyone who took care of me this year, for all this precious family here who helped me find my way. My cherished friends. I am eating a bowl now. Thinking about the year that just passed. Sending cosmic soup with thanks to Mike, my dear friend, on vacay in the BVI. Remembering how in February in a panic I called him, then drove the Sonoma coast not sure what would be around the bend. Readying myself to leave and come here, all the way South. The hand-cut life I've glistened up down here since then. Crafted on nothing but pure love. Love and lots of help.
Love and thank yous. Which always work whenever you remember to cook them in.
It made me raise my brow with my own little grin because indeed as she said that I was adding the last little dash of flavor and also putting blessings of so much love and thank you all over that soup. This was the first thing she'd said to me directly all night. I don't know if she saw my smile. We'd been packing D's house for their move on January 2. They are going back to the dessert where Cam's tattoo shop is. Packing laundry boxing taping labeling drinking wine drinking wine making chicken soup. And dumplings. This gal's either got drunk second-sight or is wild-intuitive. Either one totally natural. One homemade pot was macaroni noodles with broth just like Judy taught me to make way back even before I lived on the farm. To that pot I also added kale and chard-pot like Teena used to make to heal me, when I lived in sabbatical with her those many long days at Chop. Also tons of oregano because Igor's sinus' are sick and for sick sinus', well that's one of the first things I ever learned working with herbs. Also back in the days that I used to salvage Judy's herb garden out on the side of her river house. And cloves and cloves of garlic. And other secret dashes and smiles. The other pot was homemade chicken dumplings, the way grandma taught me all those different times standing behind or beside her or out of her sight but her not out of mine. I didn't make hand-pressed noodles Pennsylvania-Dutch style though, but, with Grandma's recipe and a combo nod to Judy again, little butter dumplings that turned in the broth and before the roux to the warmest, fluffiest balls. That pot I made for Laura another student of mine, or rather as I don't teach them now, for Laura a woman I know who's far away from her mom's countryside home in Romania. My students, I mean my friends, so far away from family, during the holidays.
It is cold and clear the night before the last day of the year. Pon Pon walked me to where I was parked on Adams. He lives with Igor and Gustavo. And Bob, who I've met several times through them, and Leo too. Igor was in bed sniffling and laughing his wonderful Igor laugh. I made all of them take emergenC's and zincs the way Maria did back when I was first learning to teach and got so sick right after Christmas that year. Back when Judy first made me homemade chicken soup and showed me how. And her, and Maria my mentor teacher, how both those good women took turns stopping by to give me care. Pon Pon handed me a bag of Brazilian chocolates at my car and gave me a million kisses on my head. We could see our breath. I live in Southern California, it was almost midnight, I have a sweet artist's studio in the canyon that was calling me home. All these darling Brazilians. My sister D and her dear kids, moving away. I made soup or dumplings for everyone who took care of me this year, for all this precious family here who helped me find my way. My cherished friends. I am eating a bowl now. Thinking about the year that just passed. Sending cosmic soup with thanks to Mike, my dear friend, on vacay in the BVI. Remembering how in February in a panic I called him, then drove the Sonoma coast not sure what would be around the bend. Readying myself to leave and come here, all the way South. The hand-cut life I've glistened up down here since then. Crafted on nothing but pure love. Love and lots of help.
Love and thank yous. Which always work whenever you remember to cook them in.
June 24, 2012
In my swim suit with my wild ocean hair
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.
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.
February 14, 2012
ALL those varied moments
In August I didn't think I liked Newport Beach. Maybe I knew there was more on the path ahead I had yet to see, and if I liked it too much then I wouldn't leave? Who knows. The point is, when I parked my car this morning on 31st street to go to the coffee shop I had to call Beth first to get her to tell me it was all real.
Seriously, it feels surreal to be here. One morning in 1995, it was pink and yellow-glowy on the beach from the first strikes of sun, and this always shirtless guy called Ferucio came walking down to the three or four of us laying there on our backs looking at the sky. What is this, Miami out here? he asked, his red Animal afro, his fierce eyes. I never remember any moment on the beach that felt more alive. That's how visceral today has been for me, that's how much on the verge of my life I feel. It feels like I shouldn't let that much happiness in... That much glee.
I had to remind myself that the bottom doesn't need to drop out, that doesn't have to happen. When I totaled my car in October I was terrified, and went through this whole spiral of emotions including the intense ideas that somehow crashing my car was connected to following my heart to move out here. It's crazy as it sounds, I know, all the same it never fails to amaze me the extent to which we humans go to sabotage ourselves. And I saw my brain trying to set that up--with why bother and poor me thinking when I lost my car. Those last two or so days in NorCal those fears were there again, I saw them, let them pass and linger as needed, and still pushed my way through. It's amazing that right on the other side of this really real feeling right now there still sit my fears, barely veiled. That somehow no, no this isn't real. This wont work out and then what, back with my drooping tail I will run home.
I write my process out here on this blog, I share what it is to feel and live and devote the heart to being truly alive. Experiencing it all. It feels right for me to share this part, too, with you readers. So that you know the heart, its wide and funny many different ins and outs. The hopes and haunts, ALL those varied moments, it's what we all have in common. It's what draws us to each other, to keep sharing, to keep at this wanting to live. It Valentines Day, a day to celebrate the heart. Silly and huge and gleeful and frightened as it is.
I love myself completely, the blessed and brave and authentic, the enthusiastic and reverent, the dirty-mouthed and wild, and even the scary, threatening parts too. I'm whole. And doing this thing.
This is it!
June 21, 2011
Blessings in the Sun, & California-Bound.
Every so often when I'm driving home at 3 am on a Monday or random Wednesday or Thursday I think to myself, is this normal? None of my married or parent friends are doing this right now. And then I laugh and think thank you so much I love my life. So I was a little late coming in to bloom--I haven't touched a drink or a drug in almost 11 years, and that is the central fact of my life--the choice I made to save my spirit. To resuscitate me. In my early twenties when most my friends were doing what I do now I was a sloppy drunk trying to insidiously control my drug use and the fear-clench always in my gut. It was a lazy, dirty time. I had fun, and got down with unquestionably some of the coolest people on earth back then but honestly, I didn't like myself too much.
I didn't know how to like me, like really love me cuz I kept messing things up...I'm thankful for the re-set button in life. For the enduring depth of wild spirit deep and abiding in me that for some reason I committed to learning how to trust.
It's solstice, longest day of the summer was yesterday--the sun peaks at its highest during the day today. And whether or not people realize it, the high light-energy was totally catalyzed over the last couple 24 and for the next few, too: Anyhow for me, last night the high energy out in the dance club was such crazy good fun.
Ha ha and so wild, too.
My sweet, sweet life, hand-whittled by choice. Choice coupled with trust in the high harmony of putting my heart behind exactly what I love, and bit by bit eliminating what I dont. Or learning how to be peaceful and accept. I dance alot, I have such good friends, ohhh & all the all the light of the sun and surfing and salt water sea how I love swimming and to float and to be with the white wave breaking and pushing me, o music and yoga and doing body work and counseling people and being willing to serve. There is so much that is full, as the sun on high illuminates all we love.
O sacred book and poems! A year ago today I was at the Belmont Street Fair in Seattle it was cold and gray and I had just spent a month in the PacNW rejuvenating myself after two years of stressful burn-out at my job. I stepped down and haven't looked back. I am a waitress now! How much has lightened, and changed.
On August 1 me and an old grl from highschool are driving 50 straight across. I want to start under the sign in Ocean City that says Sacramento, CA 3073 miles and then hit the road. We are going to Santa Cruz where she lives and I am staying with her for a month or so to get sort of relaxed and find my feet on the new ground of the West Coast. Then I'll trip around a while, and find a place in the fall to settle down.
I am happy getting happier. Why not? A good meditation for the Solstice: what else could life possibly be about?
I didn't know how to like me, like really love me cuz I kept messing things up...I'm thankful for the re-set button in life. For the enduring depth of wild spirit deep and abiding in me that for some reason I committed to learning how to trust.
It's solstice, longest day of the summer was yesterday--the sun peaks at its highest during the day today. And whether or not people realize it, the high light-energy was totally catalyzed over the last couple 24 and for the next few, too: Anyhow for me, last night the high energy out in the dance club was such crazy good fun.
Ha ha and so wild, too.
My sweet, sweet life, hand-whittled by choice. Choice coupled with trust in the high harmony of putting my heart behind exactly what I love, and bit by bit eliminating what I dont. Or learning how to be peaceful and accept. I dance alot, I have such good friends, ohhh & all the all the light of the sun and surfing and salt water sea how I love swimming and to float and to be with the white wave breaking and pushing me, o music and yoga and doing body work and counseling people and being willing to serve. There is so much that is full, as the sun on high illuminates all we love.
O sacred book and poems! A year ago today I was at the Belmont Street Fair in Seattle it was cold and gray and I had just spent a month in the PacNW rejuvenating myself after two years of stressful burn-out at my job. I stepped down and haven't looked back. I am a waitress now! How much has lightened, and changed.
On August 1 me and an old grl from highschool are driving 50 straight across. I want to start under the sign in Ocean City that says Sacramento, CA 3073 miles and then hit the road. We are going to Santa Cruz where she lives and I am staying with her for a month or so to get sort of relaxed and find my feet on the new ground of the West Coast. Then I'll trip around a while, and find a place in the fall to settle down.
I am happy getting happier. Why not? A good meditation for the Solstice: what else could life possibly be about?
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.
November 10, 2009
Things
Things that relax me:
~the fireplace at Panera, the way the heat feels like a warm gold ball rolling over me like in gym class when we were real young and gave each other massages with the red rubber dodge balls
~jazz, especially Miles and Coletrain; and Old-time, like Count Basie and Billie
~taking a long soak in my own hot bath
~the luxury of a whole hour of morning quiet time now that I am only minutes from work
~hot, homemade soup
~the warm feeling of anticipation that comes from thinking about toasty winter nights with close friends
~the quiet angles of my living room, how simple and appealing, and quiet and right it is
~laughing. a lot. til the muscles of my gut are all crunched up and I have smile wrinkles deep in my face. ("Stardust? Is that you?" "Yes, fair maiden. Lo, I have come from beyond to spread the goodliness of sissyhood...")
Things I forgot about:
~how quickly the grey seeps in to me, the real and dulling effect of how the sudden shrink time of sunlight impacts me
~my certainty of how closely we All are affected by that. I had over half my new students cancel or reschedule on me today. It was so grey today that the color actually seemed to hang on the air like rainforest mist or desert dust.
~what writing does for me. AND HOW HARD it is to force myself in to writing without stopping after I've gone ahead and stopped for a while
Things I'm so grateful for:
~my writing partner, who is all about NaNoWriMo and watching her forge forward and break through her own defenses has made me both so inspired and, at once, given rise to that friendly ol marauder Competition, thereby forcing me to get on my damn game. Which makes me just sooo, soo freakin thankful for Erika and so in awe of how life, after 20 years, circled us back around to each other again. Really, when I get quaked with this much warmth of emotion, I have no words.
~my little apartment. Have I mentioned this lately?
~the unforeseen
~my friends and family. It is November, I am soon to be 9 years clean and sober and the time of month to count thanks is almost here. Amen Amen Amen, there is just so much....
~the fireplace at Panera, the way the heat feels like a warm gold ball rolling over me like in gym class when we were real young and gave each other massages with the red rubber dodge balls
~jazz, especially Miles and Coletrain; and Old-time, like Count Basie and Billie
~taking a long soak in my own hot bath
~the luxury of a whole hour of morning quiet time now that I am only minutes from work
~hot, homemade soup
~the warm feeling of anticipation that comes from thinking about toasty winter nights with close friends
~the quiet angles of my living room, how simple and appealing, and quiet and right it is
~laughing. a lot. til the muscles of my gut are all crunched up and I have smile wrinkles deep in my face. ("Stardust? Is that you?" "Yes, fair maiden. Lo, I have come from beyond to spread the goodliness of sissyhood...")
Things I forgot about:
~how quickly the grey seeps in to me, the real and dulling effect of how the sudden shrink time of sunlight impacts me
~my certainty of how closely we All are affected by that. I had over half my new students cancel or reschedule on me today. It was so grey today that the color actually seemed to hang on the air like rainforest mist or desert dust.
~what writing does for me. AND HOW HARD it is to force myself in to writing without stopping after I've gone ahead and stopped for a while
Things I'm so grateful for:
~my writing partner, who is all about NaNoWriMo and watching her forge forward and break through her own defenses has made me both so inspired and, at once, given rise to that friendly ol marauder Competition, thereby forcing me to get on my damn game. Which makes me just sooo, soo freakin thankful for Erika and so in awe of how life, after 20 years, circled us back around to each other again. Really, when I get quaked with this much warmth of emotion, I have no words.
~my little apartment. Have I mentioned this lately?
~the unforeseen
~my friends and family. It is November, I am soon to be 9 years clean and sober and the time of month to count thanks is almost here. Amen Amen Amen, there is just so much....
September 29, 2009
Bones & Love
Every night when I come home the first thing I see is the river. Or, what I ought to say: every night when I come home, the first thing I see through my windshield is the expanse of black above my head and the crazy mat of stars through the trees in the driveway. And I get out of the car, and the first thing I feel is the river.
No matter what my day's been like, no matter what is otherwise on my mind or bogging up my head. I pull into my driveway, ease the Versa far back near to the old boat that hasn't been used in more than a couple seasons, park and have the door open before I have time to think. And then, on impulse, as a matter of muscle memory and also, of something deeper programmed in me, some part ancient and respondent to firesmoke and the hush of trees, I breathe. I take a deep breath and let it all out and what happens is from inside me I get a soft smile, and I go still. And then, I can feel the river. I can feel her moving, can feel her in that place in my belly and on the back of my neck--same place where you feel when, say, a storm's coming on.
And for that brief moment, all is well. I know peace.
I moved here, to the town of Choptank with it's 20 or so houses, on the Choptank River, last November. I rent a room in an old house two up from the river. This house has modern painted gray-taupe siding but still looks old because it is. It was originally built in the 1830's. At night you can feel the life in its walls, all that it has breathed and seen. In the morning, where I come to the front porch to write, you can see the river out the window to my left.
At the time of my decision to move here to Chop, I lived in a six-bedroom farmhouse on a 400-acre-farm that grew soybeans and feed corn. That's a lot of land, a lot of space, a lot of air to breathe. I basically lived there on a deal with the owners to tend their property and upkeep the old place, the owners were distant inlaws of the magnificent man I was living with and was in love with and enjoying life with since the fall that I got out of college, in 2002. Brandon was my best friend, he was who and how I processed one of those strange times of transition that makes us humans so sketchy and uncertain: time of what-next or in-between. I loved him with every last blood inside my heart, I loved him so it was how my bones moved. A sweet, adoring love that saw nothing other than him, nothing else outside of us. He was all I knew, and all I ever hoped to know.
That same year my dad came back in to my life in a hands-on way because of a sad and serious depression at mid-life. And my mom sold our house, the one that me and my brother and her had always known, the one in the county between Annapolis and B-more. And she moved back in with my dad, first time in 15 years, to the beach.
Last night I was out late in the county. We met Brian, my brother Sean's best friend since they were five, and his little brother Little Sean, and their folks and our folks for dinner at our old favorite spot for crabcakes, Hellas. Their mom, Ms. Louise, helped raise my brother and me. It was her birthday last night, first time all of us have been together seriously since I dont know when. When we were growing up ma would drop Sean and I off at their place 6 in the morning on her way to work in the city. Ms. Lou would get us ready for school, breakfast, uniforms, carpool. Me and the boys would scream and fight or laugh and play. Nintendo and VCR movies on tv for hours. We were lucky, blessed, charmed-life kids. BMX bikes and kickball in the deadend when we'd come home from school. Anymore when I am home, like last night, I am so, so grateful. I am so aware of how good it was, and wistful in the most tender of grateful ways. And I miss it so much.
I was born in Baltimore City. I remember the market at Cross Street when I was only old enough to stand level with people's knees. I remember what Old Bay smells like on the salty Harbour air. I remember imagining how close the big boats were to the sea. I remember what it feels like, to have a river of living move under you, and that river be no more visible than the concrete at your feet.
It is hard to put this in to words. The bones of me, the true substantial life-time blood. I can say only that when the time comes to know you again, when the time comes to reclaim the flesh of who you are, you know it. You know it in a way that you will fight and pray not to recognize. You know it in a way that feels awful, like fear and hate and pain. In the most secret, darkest places in your brain, in the stomach tight breath that draws you awake at night, in the weight that sits just above your neck, you know it. And when you know something as distinct as Time, there is simply nothing else to know.
Choptank, you healed my soul. I am the river of me again. It was a fucking hard and awful fight and I hated how many times I had to let go. But here I am, on the shore again. How can I ever thank you? How can I ever thank you, Life? How can I ever thank you enuff...?
~~~
The song that helped birth this post: Wharf Rat, The Grateful Dead. O, Jerry. I love you. I love your guitar. You touch the myth inside of me.
No matter what my day's been like, no matter what is otherwise on my mind or bogging up my head. I pull into my driveway, ease the Versa far back near to the old boat that hasn't been used in more than a couple seasons, park and have the door open before I have time to think. And then, on impulse, as a matter of muscle memory and also, of something deeper programmed in me, some part ancient and respondent to firesmoke and the hush of trees, I breathe. I take a deep breath and let it all out and what happens is from inside me I get a soft smile, and I go still. And then, I can feel the river. I can feel her moving, can feel her in that place in my belly and on the back of my neck--same place where you feel when, say, a storm's coming on.
And for that brief moment, all is well. I know peace.
I moved here, to the town of Choptank with it's 20 or so houses, on the Choptank River, last November. I rent a room in an old house two up from the river. This house has modern painted gray-taupe siding but still looks old because it is. It was originally built in the 1830's. At night you can feel the life in its walls, all that it has breathed and seen. In the morning, where I come to the front porch to write, you can see the river out the window to my left.
At the time of my decision to move here to Chop, I lived in a six-bedroom farmhouse on a 400-acre-farm that grew soybeans and feed corn. That's a lot of land, a lot of space, a lot of air to breathe. I basically lived there on a deal with the owners to tend their property and upkeep the old place, the owners were distant inlaws of the magnificent man I was living with and was in love with and enjoying life with since the fall that I got out of college, in 2002. Brandon was my best friend, he was who and how I processed one of those strange times of transition that makes us humans so sketchy and uncertain: time of what-next or in-between. I loved him with every last blood inside my heart, I loved him so it was how my bones moved. A sweet, adoring love that saw nothing other than him, nothing else outside of us. He was all I knew, and all I ever hoped to know.
That same year my dad came back in to my life in a hands-on way because of a sad and serious depression at mid-life. And my mom sold our house, the one that me and my brother and her had always known, the one in the county between Annapolis and B-more. And she moved back in with my dad, first time in 15 years, to the beach.
Last night I was out late in the county. We met Brian, my brother Sean's best friend since they were five, and his little brother Little Sean, and their folks and our folks for dinner at our old favorite spot for crabcakes, Hellas. Their mom, Ms. Louise, helped raise my brother and me. It was her birthday last night, first time all of us have been together seriously since I dont know when. When we were growing up ma would drop Sean and I off at their place 6 in the morning on her way to work in the city. Ms. Lou would get us ready for school, breakfast, uniforms, carpool. Me and the boys would scream and fight or laugh and play. Nintendo and VCR movies on tv for hours. We were lucky, blessed, charmed-life kids. BMX bikes and kickball in the deadend when we'd come home from school. Anymore when I am home, like last night, I am so, so grateful. I am so aware of how good it was, and wistful in the most tender of grateful ways. And I miss it so much.
I was born in Baltimore City. I remember the market at Cross Street when I was only old enough to stand level with people's knees. I remember what Old Bay smells like on the salty Harbour air. I remember imagining how close the big boats were to the sea. I remember what it feels like, to have a river of living move under you, and that river be no more visible than the concrete at your feet.
It is hard to put this in to words. The bones of me, the true substantial life-time blood. I can say only that when the time comes to know you again, when the time comes to reclaim the flesh of who you are, you know it. You know it in a way that you will fight and pray not to recognize. You know it in a way that feels awful, like fear and hate and pain. In the most secret, darkest places in your brain, in the stomach tight breath that draws you awake at night, in the weight that sits just above your neck, you know it. And when you know something as distinct as Time, there is simply nothing else to know.
Choptank, you healed my soul. I am the river of me again. It was a fucking hard and awful fight and I hated how many times I had to let go. But here I am, on the shore again. How can I ever thank you? How can I ever thank you, Life? How can I ever thank you enuff...?
~~~
The song that helped birth this post: Wharf Rat, The Grateful Dead. O, Jerry. I love you. I love your guitar. You touch the myth inside of me.
August 19, 2009
Dont read this if you're not up for a little Fire
o my god, i soooo dont get life. i am having this weird thing happen right now and i dont get it. i mean as i speak, or anyhow as i write tap tap tap go the keys here i am trying really hard to flow with it and experience it and not close my self and my full-bodied, full-feelinged life off from it. IT'S HARD. without boring you dear reader, because indeed it is quite detailed, i can only say that i had an experience on sunday that sort of, no, that resolutely made the past not year (which has been the most hectic and full-of-change-and-challenge year that i have EVER, EVER had) but actually 3 YEARS all come together. and that moment of understanding opened up in me like a chasm i've since been readily trying and trying to ignore.
there are two men sitting behind me, directly behind me, at this very moment, in an otherwise empty coffee shop. they are christian. devotedly so. they continue to reference the son and the almighty christ. ok, no prob there, to each his own. but one is talking about the davinci code and how threatening it was to the word of christ. and the other laughs it easily off, reminding his friend it is fiction.
ok, so my digression: sunday started off as normal a day as any. well, that is if you can make room for the fact that my normal at times does mean waking up on a floor where at least seven or eight other people are still passed out, sleeping. it was morning after at my bro's house, day after he and his fiance brought together their wedding party to get to know one another and celebrate. and celebrate we did, until the wee hours, and every late night dancing laughing wild cell of me was fully satiated as result. i went to bed smiling like a worn out but totally satisfied queen of the ball. i awoke with peace and calm and also full of sunday light. i drove my date home. i called two other pals with whom i'd mentioned perhaps having breakfast with, and neither were down to meet so i, noting the gloriously fabulous glow of blue sky day chose instead to drive straight to the beach.
i found parking on 24th, changed in the street, and made my way down the boards and across the hot sand to the waters edge. i took my jewels and adornments off and dove in. i floated and swam a long, long while, washing out the late night no sleep tabacco lunged worn feet and tired legs funk. then i settled down to do what i've spent most of summer doing: staring at, listening to, and breathing the sea.
after a long while of this, when my soul was settled and my spirit at full peace, i picked up the book i recently bought. by an author i like, it's actually a memoir, and i thought i'd read it at erika's suggestion in order to "research" memoirs written by writer's i admire. you know, since i'm writing my own right now. turns out sue monk kidd's memoir, "the dance of the dissident daughter, a woman's journey from christian tradition to the sacred feminine" was all too near to this past three years for me.
i actually had a moment, sitting there feet in the sand slouched way down in my blue beach chair, that i was shaking from the hot tears rolling down my cheeks. it's like i'd forgotten, and indeed i did, how all this, all this: choptank, my job, leaving brandon, all of my Life, got here to what it currently looks like in the first place. see, i'd gotten caught up in the details, the relationships and struggles, the job, the where i live and what i am going to do stuff. and forgot about that day, not last fall, or even the one before, but three whole years ago, when in a moment of absolute desperation i beseeched whatever higher power was out there to put me on the path where i belonged, because i knew i was living the wrong one. one that was flat, without depth or quality of authenticity. and so these years later, this past sunday, sitting there, reading this woman tell my story, i understood in a seamless way how all that's happened since has simply been a deeper and deeper experience of my own grasping for, giving name to, and ultimately claiming my inner-spirit and my own unique humanity insofar as i am a women.
and it is the most vital and true part of my experience, and the hardest thing for which i've ever had to fight, or give words to. and too, it is where i continue to falter when it comes to writing- through in my own memoir. so here i sit today, in the coffee shop, reading monk kidd's memoir again, taking notes and voraciously scribbling my own random confirmations all over the sides of her pages in much the same way an avid researcher would o yes, aha, aha aha...when finally my own juices start to move and twirl and ticktock across my tongue and what do you know in come these two assholes right next to me with their very opinionated ideals. and NOT to say the davinci code was some kind of well written book or that it was even based in fact. no i am not arguing that at all. the symbology of that book to me is what matters, the uncoding so to speak, in our culture of the oppression of, and thus permission for a relevant female mythology is to me the significance of that story. a mythology not to temper or even balance but to complete the dominant male psychological underpinnings of the religous contexts of our society. the tale of patriarchy that exists and how it is only half the experience of this life but one so wholly validated by judeochristian themes.
so here i am, all stoked to get in to my own journey, in to this deep and complex experience of female spirituality and authenticity, and here come these two guys!!!!! as if to manifest my own very real cultural demons. that the value of a very real, very unconscious but powerful feminine archtypal equivalent within our human spirits is FICTION
LIFE
I
DONT
GET
YOU
needless to say, i've gotten no memoir writing done, but at least now i've blown off some clearly pent up steam........which i suppose is what that chasms been all about, anyway.
thanks, assholes
when i'm talking to the great all and giving thanks to Life tonight, i'll be sure to give jesus a big what's up for you~~
there are two men sitting behind me, directly behind me, at this very moment, in an otherwise empty coffee shop. they are christian. devotedly so. they continue to reference the son and the almighty christ. ok, no prob there, to each his own. but one is talking about the davinci code and how threatening it was to the word of christ. and the other laughs it easily off, reminding his friend it is fiction.
ok, so my digression: sunday started off as normal a day as any. well, that is if you can make room for the fact that my normal at times does mean waking up on a floor where at least seven or eight other people are still passed out, sleeping. it was morning after at my bro's house, day after he and his fiance brought together their wedding party to get to know one another and celebrate. and celebrate we did, until the wee hours, and every late night dancing laughing wild cell of me was fully satiated as result. i went to bed smiling like a worn out but totally satisfied queen of the ball. i awoke with peace and calm and also full of sunday light. i drove my date home. i called two other pals with whom i'd mentioned perhaps having breakfast with, and neither were down to meet so i, noting the gloriously fabulous glow of blue sky day chose instead to drive straight to the beach.
i found parking on 24th, changed in the street, and made my way down the boards and across the hot sand to the waters edge. i took my jewels and adornments off and dove in. i floated and swam a long, long while, washing out the late night no sleep tabacco lunged worn feet and tired legs funk. then i settled down to do what i've spent most of summer doing: staring at, listening to, and breathing the sea.
after a long while of this, when my soul was settled and my spirit at full peace, i picked up the book i recently bought. by an author i like, it's actually a memoir, and i thought i'd read it at erika's suggestion in order to "research" memoirs written by writer's i admire. you know, since i'm writing my own right now. turns out sue monk kidd's memoir, "the dance of the dissident daughter, a woman's journey from christian tradition to the sacred feminine" was all too near to this past three years for me.
i actually had a moment, sitting there feet in the sand slouched way down in my blue beach chair, that i was shaking from the hot tears rolling down my cheeks. it's like i'd forgotten, and indeed i did, how all this, all this: choptank, my job, leaving brandon, all of my Life, got here to what it currently looks like in the first place. see, i'd gotten caught up in the details, the relationships and struggles, the job, the where i live and what i am going to do stuff. and forgot about that day, not last fall, or even the one before, but three whole years ago, when in a moment of absolute desperation i beseeched whatever higher power was out there to put me on the path where i belonged, because i knew i was living the wrong one. one that was flat, without depth or quality of authenticity. and so these years later, this past sunday, sitting there, reading this woman tell my story, i understood in a seamless way how all that's happened since has simply been a deeper and deeper experience of my own grasping for, giving name to, and ultimately claiming my inner-spirit and my own unique humanity insofar as i am a women.
and it is the most vital and true part of my experience, and the hardest thing for which i've ever had to fight, or give words to. and too, it is where i continue to falter when it comes to writing- through in my own memoir. so here i sit today, in the coffee shop, reading monk kidd's memoir again, taking notes and voraciously scribbling my own random confirmations all over the sides of her pages in much the same way an avid researcher would o yes, aha, aha aha...when finally my own juices start to move and twirl and ticktock across my tongue and what do you know in come these two assholes right next to me with their very opinionated ideals. and NOT to say the davinci code was some kind of well written book or that it was even based in fact. no i am not arguing that at all. the symbology of that book to me is what matters, the uncoding so to speak, in our culture of the oppression of, and thus permission for a relevant female mythology is to me the significance of that story. a mythology not to temper or even balance but to complete the dominant male psychological underpinnings of the religous contexts of our society. the tale of patriarchy that exists and how it is only half the experience of this life but one so wholly validated by judeochristian themes.
so here i am, all stoked to get in to my own journey, in to this deep and complex experience of female spirituality and authenticity, and here come these two guys!!!!! as if to manifest my own very real cultural demons. that the value of a very real, very unconscious but powerful feminine archtypal equivalent within our human spirits is FICTION
LIFE
I
DONT
GET
YOU
needless to say, i've gotten no memoir writing done, but at least now i've blown off some clearly pent up steam........which i suppose is what that chasms been all about, anyway.
thanks, assholes
when i'm talking to the great all and giving thanks to Life tonight, i'll be sure to give jesus a big what's up for you~~
August 14, 2009
On the shoulders of Giants
Being a human is hard, right? There are no instruction manuals on this thing, this great big boundless craft we're all busy trying to navigate, encompassing-as-all, this engine of Life so raring to go that sometimes it's sweet enough just to feel the wind through our hair, and then others, ooooo the rotten goodness of stagnation or of storm....I love it, right? But it's hard, too.
Relationships are hard, being yourself and then allowing yourself and others room enough for the same. Like how bout when your close with people in that intimate way so that they know you even for your ingnorant parts reserved typically for mom and dad, sis or bro or your kids. And you know the same of them. And not judging anyway. Not having expectations. I wish I could say I was always loving enough. Ah, but human as I am that's just not my case. I get confused, too, youo know all the what's right and what's not, what calls for standing up for yourself, what's the total tao of easing back, being still, or letting go. Gosh for me this is a lifetime of defining work, I walk it and learn through it and drive my craft along in my professional life, with close friends, with casual friends, with family, in my material life, my consumer life, my emotional life, of course with love. I dont know if I'm doing the right thing. At the end of the day I just try to recollect, be thankful, keep my eyes open in review. I used to be a hard ass and an asshead. Today I try to just keep these things in check.
Who knows at any given moment how truly well I do??!
I did dishes today, cleaned out the fridge, my car, did my bills. I made some important calls, did an itty bitty thing for work. It's amazing what taking a little action will do. I caught up with two old friends, too. It's funny how with some people it's so easy for me to be at peace and, even after big chunks of timelapse, contented with take me as I am. And with others how I fall in to certain roles--Voice of Wisdom or of Hope, so god-damned close to know it all? How these relationships always make me question myself. If it's true we're all mirrors of one another, just playing out our scripts of soul and growth through the vantages of these roles--than I am always teaching what I need to learn.
Later today I took a long luxurious swim and reveled over the Mystery of this Life. The blessed simple peace of everyday. I did loads upon loads of laundry. This is something that, during the years that I would use the laundramat in town, used to make me resent the hell out of life. Can you imagine!? A thing simple as cleaning up in a regular way after myself. Being human is so simple, so funny, so strange... I am sitting at the coffee shop in Naptown now, on a date with, in full glorious revel of me, and in all today and as now, I keep being humbled by the repeated experience of this is it, This, this is my Life, no place to get to but here, and I keep smiling in a sweet inner way just to me.
Here is a song in Celebration and Serendipity. For the little things, for Erika's post today quoting the same thing that my morning mediation did--Hemingway's line about writing the truest sentence you know, the meditaiton itself reminding us that artist's are charged with living life in truth, no matter what the truth of the current moment is, challenging ourselves to be brave enough just to live, in order to, by virtue of that Life, have the natural fodder from which to create. And for hearing this week, a week when I really needed it, from not one, not two, not three, but ALL FOUR of the people that I consider to be spiritual giants in my life, whose shoulders I to this day give thanks for the oppurtunity to stand on. I mean, I haven't heard from two of those people in over a year, and the other two in months...and at random each of them on their own just happened to shout out for one reason or another to me this week.
They remind me right now that we never know the greater picture of this tapestry in which we are so blessed to be getting the chance to together weave...Bless them each, bless me...
Relationships are hard, being yourself and then allowing yourself and others room enough for the same. Like how bout when your close with people in that intimate way so that they know you even for your ingnorant parts reserved typically for mom and dad, sis or bro or your kids. And you know the same of them. And not judging anyway. Not having expectations. I wish I could say I was always loving enough. Ah, but human as I am that's just not my case. I get confused, too, youo know all the what's right and what's not, what calls for standing up for yourself, what's the total tao of easing back, being still, or letting go. Gosh for me this is a lifetime of defining work, I walk it and learn through it and drive my craft along in my professional life, with close friends, with casual friends, with family, in my material life, my consumer life, my emotional life, of course with love. I dont know if I'm doing the right thing. At the end of the day I just try to recollect, be thankful, keep my eyes open in review. I used to be a hard ass and an asshead. Today I try to just keep these things in check.
Who knows at any given moment how truly well I do??!
I did dishes today, cleaned out the fridge, my car, did my bills. I made some important calls, did an itty bitty thing for work. It's amazing what taking a little action will do. I caught up with two old friends, too. It's funny how with some people it's so easy for me to be at peace and, even after big chunks of timelapse, contented with take me as I am. And with others how I fall in to certain roles--Voice of Wisdom or of Hope, so god-damned close to know it all? How these relationships always make me question myself. If it's true we're all mirrors of one another, just playing out our scripts of soul and growth through the vantages of these roles--than I am always teaching what I need to learn.
Later today I took a long luxurious swim and reveled over the Mystery of this Life. The blessed simple peace of everyday. I did loads upon loads of laundry. This is something that, during the years that I would use the laundramat in town, used to make me resent the hell out of life. Can you imagine!? A thing simple as cleaning up in a regular way after myself. Being human is so simple, so funny, so strange... I am sitting at the coffee shop in Naptown now, on a date with, in full glorious revel of me, and in all today and as now, I keep being humbled by the repeated experience of this is it, This, this is my Life, no place to get to but here, and I keep smiling in a sweet inner way just to me.
Here is a song in Celebration and Serendipity. For the little things, for Erika's post today quoting the same thing that my morning mediation did--Hemingway's line about writing the truest sentence you know, the meditaiton itself reminding us that artist's are charged with living life in truth, no matter what the truth of the current moment is, challenging ourselves to be brave enough just to live, in order to, by virtue of that Life, have the natural fodder from which to create. And for hearing this week, a week when I really needed it, from not one, not two, not three, but ALL FOUR of the people that I consider to be spiritual giants in my life, whose shoulders I to this day give thanks for the oppurtunity to stand on. I mean, I haven't heard from two of those people in over a year, and the other two in months...and at random each of them on their own just happened to shout out for one reason or another to me this week.
They remind me right now that we never know the greater picture of this tapestry in which we are so blessed to be getting the chance to together weave...Bless them each, bless me...
August 11, 2009
my heart grows bigger
the heart is a good, and plenty, and bountiful thing. i am so blessed with its consistancy, in all things up and down, all things concentric on this spiral path so round and round, for every time it pains me it lightens me equally, what would i do without you o wellspring of life, o precious window-light of me? i bless you kelly and spin gold around everything you have been and all that you so beautifully yet will be, i walk you round this path sure as the river, the earth, that blessed thunder and sun in the morning sky of birth sing well and long to me....
January 20, 2009
The Mightiest Word
Praise Song for the Day
by Elizabeth Alexander
Each day
We go about our business
walking past each other
catching each other’s eyes,
or not,
about to speak or speaking.
All about us is noise,
thorn and din.
Each one of our ancestors on our tongues.
Someone is stitching up a hem,
darning a hole in an uniform,
patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.
Someone is trying to make music somewhere,
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum
with cello,
boombox,
harmonica,
voice.
A woman and her son wait for the bus,
a farmer considers the changing sky
a teacher says, “take out your pencils, begin."
We encounter each other in words,
words spiny or smooth,
words whispered or declaimed,
words to consider,reconsider.
We cross dirt roads and highways
that mark the will of someone
and then others that said,
“I need to see what’s on the other side.
I know there’s something better down the road.”
We need to find a place where we are safe.
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.
Say it plain:
That many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
Who laid the train tracks,
raised the bridges,
picked the cotton and the lettuce
Built brick by brick
the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean
and work inside of.
Praise song for struggle
Praise song for the day
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
the figuring it out at kitchen tables
Some live by “love thy neighbor as thyself."
Others by, "first, do not harm,"
or "take no more than you need."
What if
the mightiest word is
Love.
Love beyond marital, filial, national
Love that casts a widening pool of light
Love with no need to preempt grievance
In today's sharp sparkle,
this winter air,
anything can be made
any sentence begun
On the brink...
On the brim...
On the cusp...
Praise song
for walking forward
in that light.
Amen. Amen amen amen.
by Elizabeth Alexander
Each day
We go about our business
walking past each other
catching each other’s eyes,
or not,
about to speak or speaking.
All about us is noise,
thorn and din.
Each one of our ancestors on our tongues.
Someone is stitching up a hem,
darning a hole in an uniform,
patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.
Someone is trying to make music somewhere,
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum
with cello,
boombox,
harmonica,
voice.
A woman and her son wait for the bus,
a farmer considers the changing sky
a teacher says, “take out your pencils, begin."
We encounter each other in words,
words spiny or smooth,
words whispered or declaimed,
words to consider,reconsider.
We cross dirt roads and highways
that mark the will of someone
and then others that said,
“I need to see what’s on the other side.
I know there’s something better down the road.”
We need to find a place where we are safe.
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.
Say it plain:
That many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
Who laid the train tracks,
raised the bridges,
picked the cotton and the lettuce
Built brick by brick
the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean
and work inside of.
Praise song for struggle
Praise song for the day
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
the figuring it out at kitchen tables
Some live by “love thy neighbor as thyself."
Others by, "first, do not harm,"
or "take no more than you need."
What if
the mightiest word is
Love.
Love beyond marital, filial, national
Love that casts a widening pool of light
Love with no need to preempt grievance
In today's sharp sparkle,
this winter air,
anything can be made
any sentence begun
On the brink...
On the brim...
On the cusp...
Praise song
for walking forward
in that light.
Amen. Amen amen amen.
November 26, 2008
Great Brainwashing EEE Gads it's effective
I had a friend tell me recently of the following story. It was some years ago, she was at a big concert, one of those dusty arena-style festivals with several bands lots of sun dirt and expensive beer. The kind that makes you want to almost believe that you are free and can go go go in this eternal moment and that indeed, this eternal moment is one of which you do not have to let go….Or maybe it was all the acid, which by the way was an essential part of her story….so anyhow here she was, tripping, and they—her and her guests in tow—had just settled down into their spot to start to indulge when the giant tower of sound in the middle of the arena before them suddenly cast on in a dismantled if not harrowing glow. A cartoon was being broadcasted on a screen that was part of the soundwall’s several-storied side. What astounded my friend, as she watched in glued seduction, was the way the crowd simultaneously reacted: heightened in senses as she was, she and her buddies slackjawed in awe watched as the entire mass of thousands in the field below literally all turned slow-motion style and as one, as if inextricably linked to the television sound, surrendered for just a moment all consciousness and motion and ability to let go.
It was a South Park episode on the screen, one of the first, and Jesus was standing there in his million-pixilated animated glory. The crowd was aghast and as One….worshipping that which brought them all surrendered, to a Pause, just for a moment. So powerfull was that great giant wall of sound.
It gets me to thinking. I don’t have TV of any kind, and haven’t for some time(ok at Anngar we did have three channels). It’s always funny to me to see the subtle reality-manipulation people willingly and daily submit themselves to when for example, like today, I end up in a place that’s under the influence of the giant dancing blue screen. I am writing right now from the car dealership where CNN is on go go go.
“Nothing that has been substantiated,” says this woman all grimfaced and poor-souled. She is talking about reports that a terrorist threat had come to NY’s subway in September of this year. Nothing has been substantiated. Nothing except a great giant dose of subconscious fear now, thanks Lady to you! And on the busiest travel day of the year!
Seriously!?!? Seriously do people give their power away to a freaking metal mechanism like this? To these pitiful spirit hungry talking heads? Awwww people, don’t you get it? What you focus on you create. And what you resist, especially, persists.
Awww, so be it than, Poor Americans. Poor poor consumers. No wonder we are so, in these moments, down-trodden. So be it then, I say. Maybe looking at the floor, looking so grim, will be what it takes to get you all to finally look within.
I shake my head.
Then say, Amen. If this is life, so be it. I, on the other hand, shall choose great-full exception.
Or, if done as choice, it's not exception, is it? Awareness, maybe. Or just luckiness I suppose?
Great List of Things to Be Grateful for cont.
23. My health, my perspective... Hands up outstretched heart open at the sun Thank you so much for the fine health of my spirit, for my creative health, my creative heart, my emotional health, my emotional peace, my mental health, my mental joy, my physical health, my physical blessings, my spirit full of clarity and all the gifts in this moment.....
24. The World which by virtue of its very existence (infinity people, remember infinity? so long as there's infinity there's absolute unlimited potential...your choice, how's it gonna be) is a world of gifts and miracles to me...Thank you so much for the gifts of this day, the gifts in this world, the many gifts and blessings of joy I experience this and everyday. Thank you so much for my harmony, my safety, my guidance, clarity and security. For my blessings and my worth and my heart and my soul I give thanks, I am thank-full-ness walking.....
It was a South Park episode on the screen, one of the first, and Jesus was standing there in his million-pixilated animated glory. The crowd was aghast and as One….worshipping that which brought them all surrendered, to a Pause, just for a moment. So powerfull was that great giant wall of sound.
It gets me to thinking. I don’t have TV of any kind, and haven’t for some time(ok at Anngar we did have three channels). It’s always funny to me to see the subtle reality-manipulation people willingly and daily submit themselves to when for example, like today, I end up in a place that’s under the influence of the giant dancing blue screen. I am writing right now from the car dealership where CNN is on go go go.
“Nothing that has been substantiated,” says this woman all grimfaced and poor-souled. She is talking about reports that a terrorist threat had come to NY’s subway in September of this year. Nothing has been substantiated. Nothing except a great giant dose of subconscious fear now, thanks Lady to you! And on the busiest travel day of the year!
Seriously!?!? Seriously do people give their power away to a freaking metal mechanism like this? To these pitiful spirit hungry talking heads? Awwww people, don’t you get it? What you focus on you create. And what you resist, especially, persists.
Awww, so be it than, Poor Americans. Poor poor consumers. No wonder we are so, in these moments, down-trodden. So be it then, I say. Maybe looking at the floor, looking so grim, will be what it takes to get you all to finally look within.
I shake my head.
Then say, Amen. If this is life, so be it. I, on the other hand, shall choose great-full exception.
Or, if done as choice, it's not exception, is it? Awareness, maybe. Or just luckiness I suppose?
Great List of Things to Be Grateful for cont.
23. My health, my perspective... Hands up outstretched heart open at the sun Thank you so much for the fine health of my spirit, for my creative health, my creative heart, my emotional health, my emotional peace, my mental health, my mental joy, my physical health, my physical blessings, my spirit full of clarity and all the gifts in this moment.....
24. The World which by virtue of its very existence (infinity people, remember infinity? so long as there's infinity there's absolute unlimited potential...your choice, how's it gonna be) is a world of gifts and miracles to me...Thank you so much for the gifts of this day, the gifts in this world, the many gifts and blessings of joy I experience this and everyday. Thank you so much for my harmony, my safety, my guidance, clarity and security. For my blessings and my worth and my heart and my soul I give thanks, I am thank-full-ness walking.....
November 23, 2008
List 3 or Kelly's Great List of Things to be Grateful for
So, here's the thing. My living circumstances have changed. At least temporarily. And there is no internet service out here in the boonies on the Choptank river in Caroline County aka my new home. And, my computer is frozen on Windows Media after evidently not taking the movie I was watching out correctly or something. Blah blah blah. So I am on my work computer, thank-full thank-full thank-full for it, picking up wireless for the first time here at Choptank--so thank-full for that! And stoked bc I am in touch w so many great old smiles from the past on Facebook and the likes. I wanted to, have for several weeks now, post pics on here of various friends. But as said my computer is on the fritz sos no pics...
Instead, I am thinking...The timing is right...
I am going to start a list of things that I have gratitude for in my life right now. And i dont just mean areas that i am aware of my blessings. I mean, these are the things that move me to light and a warmth and overflow feeling of joy in my chest when I bow my head, reflect a moment, and give thanks with a smiling heart.
And, for you dear reader, a challenge--
Make your own list this week. Live them. LIve the light in your chest. Learn about it's reflexiveness, how it grows when you share it, how it automatically comes back at you, too, to double. Comment to me some of your gratitude list. Let me know about your warm heart full of joy, too...
Kelly's Great List of Things to be Grateful for:
1. Cuzin slumber parties! woooooo hooooo for my cousins, who define and delight me, who are always there for me, who keep me crazy and keep me sane, who remind me about love--the unconditional kind--and who will no doubt keep me up with dumb movies and whispers and stories all nite on Friday.
2. Teena! Who fed me and listened to me that first awful week. Who got home from work last night and rode a stuffed animal horse in to my bedroom whinnying and naying all the while. Really! Who then told me since a guy laughed at her for dancing in middle school she hasn't danced in public in 45 years. How is that possible? If you are open enough to ride a stuffed horse around then dancing like no one is watching's got to be the next plunge!
3. The River. How she breathes and sooths me.
4. Amy my baby, Madonna in concert, and growing so closely with someone that 7 years feels like no time at all. that sort of says it all
5. Fresh food. so you can still taste the light in it
6. Artists friends making new records and finding life again. Ldubb that means you.
Sisters.
7. Eddie's Place reunions. hell freaking yeah can you believe it, the man the myth the legend, my old dad Ed may he rest in peace and the motley crew of family he gathered in the kitchen of (and out back!) his pizza joint back in the early nineties are all coming together to re-unite. Holy holy 6 degrees to insanity, anybody?
8. Brandon who is warmth, and light
9. Katie who is a goddess angel and keeps reminding me to be the same. and who can make out my words through lots of sobs and tears now, who's had lots of practice at it...
10. Gretchen who i trust beyond all
11. My Quiet Space. my sacred sacred quiet spot in my new room and how lucky i am to know that, day after day, it is something that works again and again
12. Tim and the other people i dont know but do through their words who read and comment on my blog. it makes me feel so good. and that is what we are here on earth to help each other do...
13. Mom dad and Sean. god i love you and love you and love you
14. Grandma, Papaw, the Englars and McMullens Amen for tribes and again, i love you i love you i love you
15. Facebook and all the old heads....
16. Josh who knows me. And helps me know me better
17. The Eastern Shore of Maryland which is my home. wow it feels so good to be connected to a place
18. My poet instincts
19. Being clean and sober for 8 whole years.
20. My job, for getting to touch people the way i do
21. Grandma's cooking woooo hooo here i come!
and the list goes on and on....and if i am able, i will this week, in the spirit of Thanks-Giving, add more and more
May you be moved to do the same.....
Instead, I am thinking...The timing is right...
I am going to start a list of things that I have gratitude for in my life right now. And i dont just mean areas that i am aware of my blessings. I mean, these are the things that move me to light and a warmth and overflow feeling of joy in my chest when I bow my head, reflect a moment, and give thanks with a smiling heart.
And, for you dear reader, a challenge--
Make your own list this week. Live them. LIve the light in your chest. Learn about it's reflexiveness, how it grows when you share it, how it automatically comes back at you, too, to double. Comment to me some of your gratitude list. Let me know about your warm heart full of joy, too...
Kelly's Great List of Things to be Grateful for:
1. Cuzin slumber parties! woooooo hooooo for my cousins, who define and delight me, who are always there for me, who keep me crazy and keep me sane, who remind me about love--the unconditional kind--and who will no doubt keep me up with dumb movies and whispers and stories all nite on Friday.
2. Teena! Who fed me and listened to me that first awful week. Who got home from work last night and rode a stuffed animal horse in to my bedroom whinnying and naying all the while. Really! Who then told me since a guy laughed at her for dancing in middle school she hasn't danced in public in 45 years. How is that possible? If you are open enough to ride a stuffed horse around then dancing like no one is watching's got to be the next plunge!
3. The River. How she breathes and sooths me.
4. Amy my baby, Madonna in concert, and growing so closely with someone that 7 years feels like no time at all. that sort of says it all
5. Fresh food. so you can still taste the light in it
6. Artists friends making new records and finding life again. Ldubb that means you.
Sisters.
7. Eddie's Place reunions. hell freaking yeah can you believe it, the man the myth the legend, my old dad Ed may he rest in peace and the motley crew of family he gathered in the kitchen of (and out back!) his pizza joint back in the early nineties are all coming together to re-unite. Holy holy 6 degrees to insanity, anybody?
8. Brandon who is warmth, and light
9. Katie who is a goddess angel and keeps reminding me to be the same. and who can make out my words through lots of sobs and tears now, who's had lots of practice at it...
10. Gretchen who i trust beyond all
11. My Quiet Space. my sacred sacred quiet spot in my new room and how lucky i am to know that, day after day, it is something that works again and again
12. Tim and the other people i dont know but do through their words who read and comment on my blog. it makes me feel so good. and that is what we are here on earth to help each other do...
13. Mom dad and Sean. god i love you and love you and love you
14. Grandma, Papaw, the Englars and McMullens Amen for tribes and again, i love you i love you i love you
15. Facebook and all the old heads....
16. Josh who knows me. And helps me know me better
17. The Eastern Shore of Maryland which is my home. wow it feels so good to be connected to a place
18. My poet instincts
19. Being clean and sober for 8 whole years.
20. My job, for getting to touch people the way i do
21. Grandma's cooking woooo hooo here i come!
and the list goes on and on....and if i am able, i will this week, in the spirit of Thanks-Giving, add more and more
May you be moved to do the same.....
November 4, 2008
October 13, 2008
love
ZERO
By Diane diPrima
a blessing on your velvet shoes
and on your hair so free
and may the wind that bore you here
soon take you away from me
for you are the Fool, the holy man
who wanders ceaselessly
and the star you follow does not stop
for my door and my company
a blessing on your coat so green
all worked with magic signs
and on the light in your bright eyes
unlike the light in mine
for joy is calling in the wind
and the white sun beats down
and at the end of your long, bright path
Puck polishes your crown
he holds it out on the Ace of Swords
no easy gift gives he
and the Fool becomes the Hanged Man
for that bright company
so may your wallet e’er be full
with goodly bread and meat
and the white dog who follows you
dance lightly at your feet
and may you mate with faerie girls
all in their robes of white
your long hands pluck anemones
late in the purple night
you shall drink wine form the jeweled Cup
and be drunk eternally
and wash your face in the silver foam
thrown by the pale grey sea
and the crown you gather will not fade
though my tears will drop like leaves
and the wine you drink shall keep you warm
while all the northland grieves
for you are the Fool, and the Hanged Man
whose light shines endlessly
and that cruel wind that bore you here
By Diane diPrima
a blessing on your velvet shoes
and on your hair so free
and may the wind that bore you here
soon take you away from me
for you are the Fool, the holy man
who wanders ceaselessly
and the star you follow does not stop
for my door and my company
a blessing on your coat so green
all worked with magic signs
and on the light in your bright eyes
unlike the light in mine
for joy is calling in the wind
and the white sun beats down
and at the end of your long, bright path
Puck polishes your crown
he holds it out on the Ace of Swords
no easy gift gives he
and the Fool becomes the Hanged Man
for that bright company
so may your wallet e’er be full
with goodly bread and meat
and the white dog who follows you
dance lightly at your feet
and may you mate with faerie girls
all in their robes of white
your long hands pluck anemones
late in the purple night
you shall drink wine form the jeweled Cup
and be drunk eternally
and wash your face in the silver foam
thrown by the pale grey sea
and the crown you gather will not fade
though my tears will drop like leaves
and the wine you drink shall keep you warm
while all the northland grieves
for you are the Fool, and the Hanged Man
whose light shines endlessly
and that cruel wind that bore you here
bears you on eternally
"god bless you
real good "
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