Out of the corners of my eyes, I see shadows. Subtle movements. Apparitions that when I turn to see face on -- are not really there. Sometimes, it's just my own hair falling into my line of sight. Or the shadow cast by the sandbox, looking for a moment like a black animal crouched in the yard. Or a piece of furniture in the other room that I saw a second ago as something stepping through the bedroom door.
Even though I am easily spooked, these split second sightings do not raise the hair on my neck. But several times a day I do these double takes, expecting to see something unexpected. It's never anything but it leaves footprints in my mind, murmuring echos of something not here that was. Or not here that will be.
I can't tell which.
***
I'm 23. It's something like 2a.m. The nurse walks in and softly speaks. The baby won't settle so she thinks its time to try feeding again. I sit up. She's changing the baby's diaper and I think maybe that's my job but I'm happy to sit right here and watch, too lightheaded, still, to get up. She gentles the baby into the crook of my arm, an awkward transfer. I'm afraid of that floppy neck. The baby's weight and shape feel foreign to me as I try to position her for a good latch. After much trying and much assistance, I feed her successfully. My feelings of accomplishment are dampened slightly by the dawning realization that this is a process I'll need to repeat. Every two hours. For a year.
A small voice in my heart starts chanting -- oh no oh no. But I ignore it, focusing instead on memorizing the shape of the baby's face, and the curve of her lips, and the impossible small size of her hands.
***
A heart murmur, they tell us lightly the day after her birth. We'll have you get that checked out.
And now she's two weeks old. I'm morphing into something new, cocooned in a microcosm of hours that blend together, days that bleed into nights. I look in the mirror and my own face looks huge -- her tiny features have been burned onto my retinas and I'm shocked by the grotesque size of my nose and lips and forehead.
She sleeps through the heart ultrasound. The tech says little. I watch the blues and reds dance on the screen, wondering what he's seeing, worried only a little.
The doctor declares the murmur benign and it fades into nothing as the months pass. It's only in retrospect that I learn about the gallons and rivers of worry that this could have deserved. That in rare cases where the nothing is really something, babies die.
I had no idea. I could only focus on learning how to feed her.
***
And now she's seven. It's something like 7:30 and I let her know she needs to start getting ready for school. This, somehow, sends her into emotional imbalance. The next twenty minutes are hard for her. I don't take it personally (for once). I'm learning.
When it's time to meet the bus I start to put on my coat. She declares that she wants to walk by herself.
My heart murmurs -- oh -- and a subtle sigh shivers behind my ribs.
She only has to cross one side street to get there and it's not a busy one and I wanted her to start walking on her own soon anyway with the new baby on the way. But she has always responded with because I love you and want to be with you when I've offered the option in the past.
And here it is -- no hug, a short good-bye, and she's walking down the street with cloudy, unsourced anger stuck to the bottoms of her boots. I want to follow her. Take the hug she doesn't want to give. But I just hang up my coat instead.
This is, perhaps, the first of four times forty-four such exits, my heart murmurs.
I know, I sigh. I know.
***
It surprises me that no one is out walking this morning. It's cold but calm. Icy but sunny. I'm enjoying this as much as the dog. I always do. We are both pretty easy to please. Simple.
I cross the bridge and pause to look over the side. The stream beneath flows shallow and swift, only its edges crusted with ice. The dog stops pacing and the breeze stops whispering and the distant traffic lulls for a moment. I expect to hear the water as it sighs over partly submerged rocks and branches, as it tinkles past brittle bits of ice -- but there's nothing. It moves silently, at least from my vantage point.
I watch a small piece of bark taken by the current, turning over itself, end over end, passing over the ripples imprinted on the sandy bottom. Even though my ears can't pick up the sound, my heart hears the soft murmurings that it rides upon, as it comes from wherever its been and moves toward wherever it's going.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Sunday, February 12, 2012
humming
The highway parts the landscape, stretching long in front of me. This kids are quiet, wrapped up in a movie. There's nothing else for me to do but stare straight ahead -- I am sure I will get some thinking done during this drive. The conditions are nearly perfect for netting at least some of the pictures and emotions and story debris that have been floating in my head like dust motes in the sun, the kind that you think you could catch between thumb and forefinger but scatter in the slightest draft. It doesn't matter how slowly you move.
But I keep singing that annoying song in my head and replaying scenes from earlier in the day or week. I think about baby names and how cold my feet feel. Snippets of too-familiar movie lines waft my way. I glance at the kids in the rearview and my mind wanders over the mundane and through the woods, to grandma's house we go.
I drop the kids off and imagine that the drive home will be more productive. There's a story character I've been trying to get to know and I can't quite see her face yet. I'm sure she'll turn and talk to me now that the car is silent and I'm alone at last.
But she doesn't.
There's nothing. No voices but my own, telling me things I already know.
Perhaps I've been trying to hard, I think to myself. Watching a pot that's not ready to boil?
So I search around instead for the dimmer switch, the one that settles my mental chatter and dusts a whispering of hush across my inner landscape. It's hard to find at first and I have to fix my attention on it fairly often to keep the volume down this low, but it works.
I never do talk to my character but I watch the orange orb of a sun lower itself inch by inch in the sky until the horizon finally swallows it whole, a piece of butterscotch candy for the night to suck on. It's big enough to last till dawn, when he has to spit it out.
The sky's cheeks blush pink then purple before draining to darkness. And even though I can't really hear it, the earth hums with the realness of the scene before me, a symphony singing just above the highest octave my ears can catch. But I can feel it. The vibrations touch then penetrate the space between my eyes.
***
The bacon sizzles and crackles -- it needs to be flipped. The waffle iron flashes its green light: another two are done. I put the warm cinnamon rolls on the table and declare them ready before remembering to set out plates or put syrup and powdered sugar in neat little bowls. Someone asks for a fork. I realize I forgot to offer cups. This isn't quite as organized as I had envisioned, but no one seems to mind.
One neighbor tells me that she knows she exudes frantic energy in situations like this. But it feels calm in here, she smiles.
I had thought perhaps my head was spinning on my shoulders and that maybe everyone heard the sizzling not as the bacon cooking but as my nerves frying. But maybe I'm humming calm more than I realize, even in the middle of chaos. If I can do it in the kitchen, making my version of our rotating neighbors' brunch, maybe I can do it anytime. When the toddler whines or the preschooler throws a fit or the biggest girl talks back and back and back. Maybe when it's all happening at once. While I'm making dinner. And even when the not-yet-here newborn is crying, too?
Well, we'll see. I'm hanging on to the idea, though. Humming calm. I can do that.
***
A pair of geese rest on top of the frozen stream. One sleeps, head under wing, while the other follows me and the dog with its eyes, wary.
My feet crunch over the uneven ice and snow. My jacket swishes with every movement of my upper body. I am anything but quiet. Sneaking and stealth are impossible today, even if I tried.
Some birds sing but their voices are lost to me, buried under layers of my own noise. But still, I feel the hum all around me. In the sharp staccato of that goose's glare, warning me away. In the low, weak sighs of a forest of trees almost ready to wake up. And in the billion, tinkling notes of the sun glancing off the snow.
The wind numbs my cheeks. My own footfalls mute every other sound. But I walk through a world of music.
Everything is humming. Perhaps never audibly. But it's palpable, if you hold out your palms.
But I keep singing that annoying song in my head and replaying scenes from earlier in the day or week. I think about baby names and how cold my feet feel. Snippets of too-familiar movie lines waft my way. I glance at the kids in the rearview and my mind wanders over the mundane and through the woods, to grandma's house we go.
I drop the kids off and imagine that the drive home will be more productive. There's a story character I've been trying to get to know and I can't quite see her face yet. I'm sure she'll turn and talk to me now that the car is silent and I'm alone at last.
But she doesn't.
There's nothing. No voices but my own, telling me things I already know.
Perhaps I've been trying to hard, I think to myself. Watching a pot that's not ready to boil?
So I search around instead for the dimmer switch, the one that settles my mental chatter and dusts a whispering of hush across my inner landscape. It's hard to find at first and I have to fix my attention on it fairly often to keep the volume down this low, but it works.
I never do talk to my character but I watch the orange orb of a sun lower itself inch by inch in the sky until the horizon finally swallows it whole, a piece of butterscotch candy for the night to suck on. It's big enough to last till dawn, when he has to spit it out.
The sky's cheeks blush pink then purple before draining to darkness. And even though I can't really hear it, the earth hums with the realness of the scene before me, a symphony singing just above the highest octave my ears can catch. But I can feel it. The vibrations touch then penetrate the space between my eyes.
***
The bacon sizzles and crackles -- it needs to be flipped. The waffle iron flashes its green light: another two are done. I put the warm cinnamon rolls on the table and declare them ready before remembering to set out plates or put syrup and powdered sugar in neat little bowls. Someone asks for a fork. I realize I forgot to offer cups. This isn't quite as organized as I had envisioned, but no one seems to mind.
One neighbor tells me that she knows she exudes frantic energy in situations like this. But it feels calm in here, she smiles.
I had thought perhaps my head was spinning on my shoulders and that maybe everyone heard the sizzling not as the bacon cooking but as my nerves frying. But maybe I'm humming calm more than I realize, even in the middle of chaos. If I can do it in the kitchen, making my version of our rotating neighbors' brunch, maybe I can do it anytime. When the toddler whines or the preschooler throws a fit or the biggest girl talks back and back and back. Maybe when it's all happening at once. While I'm making dinner. And even when the not-yet-here newborn is crying, too?
Well, we'll see. I'm hanging on to the idea, though. Humming calm. I can do that.
***
A pair of geese rest on top of the frozen stream. One sleeps, head under wing, while the other follows me and the dog with its eyes, wary.
My feet crunch over the uneven ice and snow. My jacket swishes with every movement of my upper body. I am anything but quiet. Sneaking and stealth are impossible today, even if I tried.
Some birds sing but their voices are lost to me, buried under layers of my own noise. But still, I feel the hum all around me. In the sharp staccato of that goose's glare, warning me away. In the low, weak sighs of a forest of trees almost ready to wake up. And in the billion, tinkling notes of the sun glancing off the snow.
The wind numbs my cheeks. My own footfalls mute every other sound. But I walk through a world of music.
Everything is humming. Perhaps never audibly. But it's palpable, if you hold out your palms.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
gathering
A string of prayer flags hang outside the house across the street. Squares of yellow, blue, white, and red flap and fray in the winter wind, bright against the brown of the house, the gray of the sky. I know these neighbors only a little. They are a far-flung couple, always traveling. He is taller then I ever think possible. She is quiet. Their flags say more, strung from the side of the house like that, extending over to the corner of the carport, supporting the roof in ways it never thought it needed. It's a banner I notice every day.
*
My mother tells me this story -- when I was a small child, she would sometimes go into my room late at night and gather me up, for no other reason than to snuggle. During the day, closeness was not something I craved, or from what it sounds like, tolerated all that much. So she held me while I slept, unaware.
**
I have an edge. I can feel it. A boundary that separates the self from everything else. Me from the ether. It's permeable, though, and when the conditions are right I can spread out, first like a dollop of pancake batter but instead of cooking into something more solid I liquify even more, becoming thinner and even separating until I'm a series of shadowy pools, not shallow but each deeper than the ocean. When it's time for me to collect myself, I inhale with slow suction, gathering everything through my mouth until I am filled back up. Even more than before.
***
They often roll out of bed and right back into whatever they were doing last night, whatever it was that they dreamed about. I greet them with a groggy voice. Make breakfast with sleep seared eyes. Not quite here.
He always hugs them.
I usually don't. I mean, sometimes I do. But not always.
Why not? I don't know. I just don't. I don't know why. I just don't.
****
They're asleep. No one is talking to me. I'm silent and folded inside, gathered up and here, the whole ocean sloshing in my stomach.
My eyes are closed but I can see the cords, the ones that are always there but invisible in the daylight, strung from me to them, them to me, each to the other. A web that stretches with distance. I sit here and fortify those lines, a spinster late in the night, working not with string
but with light.
*
My mother tells me this story -- when I was a small child, she would sometimes go into my room late at night and gather me up, for no other reason than to snuggle. During the day, closeness was not something I craved, or from what it sounds like, tolerated all that much. So she held me while I slept, unaware.
**
I have an edge. I can feel it. A boundary that separates the self from everything else. Me from the ether. It's permeable, though, and when the conditions are right I can spread out, first like a dollop of pancake batter but instead of cooking into something more solid I liquify even more, becoming thinner and even separating until I'm a series of shadowy pools, not shallow but each deeper than the ocean. When it's time for me to collect myself, I inhale with slow suction, gathering everything through my mouth until I am filled back up. Even more than before.
***
They often roll out of bed and right back into whatever they were doing last night, whatever it was that they dreamed about. I greet them with a groggy voice. Make breakfast with sleep seared eyes. Not quite here.
He always hugs them.
I usually don't. I mean, sometimes I do. But not always.
Why not? I don't know. I just don't. I don't know why. I just don't.
****
They're asleep. No one is talking to me. I'm silent and folded inside, gathered up and here, the whole ocean sloshing in my stomach.
My eyes are closed but I can see the cords, the ones that are always there but invisible in the daylight, strung from me to them, them to me, each to the other. A web that stretches with distance. I sit here and fortify those lines, a spinster late in the night, working not with string
but with light.
Friday, January 20, 2012
like this
It's bathtime. I'm downstairs at my computer, working, separated from them by enough vertical space to call this away. The baby monitor is on, though. We keep the base in the upstairs bathroom, a neutral location that allows us to hear post-bedtime stirrings from each of the bedrooms. The listening end is down here, but in the other room.
He herds them into the bathroom and I hear it all, sounds blended together, echoing the way things do in a bathroom. Fed through these wires, amplified and distorted, the decibles rise and fall with a pitch that spikes in screeches and what sounds like some major squall. If I was new to this house, I might put my work on hold to race up there and see what's going on. But I live here. I know. This is earsplitting -- but nothing, really.
I could get up and turn the monitor off. The sound is really invading my space, magnified like this. But I don't. It's not really bothering me.
Which is interesting, because when I'm right there at the center of things, discord sounds like this to me all the time -- turned up, too loud, piped right into my face. It rubs over all my surfaces like sandpaper until everything I try to keep in starts oozing out, drop by drop, collecting in my eyelashes and filling my mouth so I can't see or breathe.
And I can't turn it off.
***
I don't know if I could stay home like that. It a statement but also a question, tangled up with unknown parts respect, disbelief, and determination. I wonder if she means I have a different constitution.
Well, we all do what we do. It's my best response. If I'm feeling more honest than that, I might laugh and admit that I don't know how I do it either, sometimes. But if I'm feeling soulfully honest I might say -- like this --
***
The late morning sun saturates the living room rug and leaks all over the floor. We're sitting up to our chins in it, the two littles and I, and it's splashing in our eyes. I reposition the dollhouse so our backs are to the windows but light still glances blindingly off the shiny plastic surfaces.
They complain a little. I ignore them.
Because I can't move. I'm transfixed. The sun radiates off their heads, highlighting each strand of hair and hurting my eyes. I see them like this:
Illuminated. On fire. Metamorphosing every second. So bright my eyes ache and water. I blink twice and they've both moved out of the direct light and the effect is gone. But the image is burned into my retinas.
Into my heart.
-- like this.
He herds them into the bathroom and I hear it all, sounds blended together, echoing the way things do in a bathroom. Fed through these wires, amplified and distorted, the decibles rise and fall with a pitch that spikes in screeches and what sounds like some major squall. If I was new to this house, I might put my work on hold to race up there and see what's going on. But I live here. I know. This is earsplitting -- but nothing, really.
I could get up and turn the monitor off. The sound is really invading my space, magnified like this. But I don't. It's not really bothering me.
Which is interesting, because when I'm right there at the center of things, discord sounds like this to me all the time -- turned up, too loud, piped right into my face. It rubs over all my surfaces like sandpaper until everything I try to keep in starts oozing out, drop by drop, collecting in my eyelashes and filling my mouth so I can't see or breathe.
And I can't turn it off.
***
I don't know if I could stay home like that. It a statement but also a question, tangled up with unknown parts respect, disbelief, and determination. I wonder if she means I have a different constitution.
Well, we all do what we do. It's my best response. If I'm feeling more honest than that, I might laugh and admit that I don't know how I do it either, sometimes. But if I'm feeling soulfully honest I might say -- like this --
***
The late morning sun saturates the living room rug and leaks all over the floor. We're sitting up to our chins in it, the two littles and I, and it's splashing in our eyes. I reposition the dollhouse so our backs are to the windows but light still glances blindingly off the shiny plastic surfaces.
They complain a little. I ignore them.
Because I can't move. I'm transfixed. The sun radiates off their heads, highlighting each strand of hair and hurting my eyes. I see them like this:
Illuminated. On fire. Metamorphosing every second. So bright my eyes ache and water. I blink twice and they've both moved out of the direct light and the effect is gone. But the image is burned into my retinas.
Into my heart.
-- like this.
Monday, January 16, 2012
marked
Waking up is a web I wade through. Its tendrils stick in my hair. I move slowly.
Black coffee in front of me, gallon of milk in my hand. I pour, too late wondering if the little bit left might mean that its post date. Already gone bad. That would be just my luck.
I hold the gallon up to my face and squint in the dim kitchen light. Nope. The expiration date marked on the outside did not pass. It is not today. Or any day all that close. The number doesn't even register as a list of things to do, not the way tomorrow does.
Good. It's not spoiled. This cup is still mine.
***
I turn the last page. Close the cover. The story is over. That's the end.
But the characters tracked sun spots and mud all over my insides. They left their marks. Glitter drips from my eyes.
I wish I could do that to you.
***
We're outside. The snow is starting to melt but it's enough to stomp through. Footprints mark the backyard with their comings and goings until its more brown than white.
I'm Harry and you're Hermionie.
I'm a bear.
I'm a wolf.
What are you?
Let's be Shell and Dorothy.
Bumblebee. Baby bird.
They can reinvent themselves at will. Imagination is a new snowfall every time.
We go back inside and their boots shed slush on the rug I just shook out. I hang their snowpants downstairs.
***
Veins crisscross my belly, blue on white, marking skin stretched tight and with still more to go. They will shrink and fade very soon. But first I have to cross over.
When are you due?
Mid March. I don't remember the exact date. Maybe I should write it on my forehead.
***
I'm leaning over pulling boots onto her feet when I do a double take. I see my hands. But they're my mother's. The veins stand out just like hers. Good veins.
The pattern speaks all about what's under my skin. A map marked before I was born. Mine.
Black coffee in front of me, gallon of milk in my hand. I pour, too late wondering if the little bit left might mean that its post date. Already gone bad. That would be just my luck.
I hold the gallon up to my face and squint in the dim kitchen light. Nope. The expiration date marked on the outside did not pass. It is not today. Or any day all that close. The number doesn't even register as a list of things to do, not the way tomorrow does.
Good. It's not spoiled. This cup is still mine.
***
I turn the last page. Close the cover. The story is over. That's the end.
But the characters tracked sun spots and mud all over my insides. They left their marks. Glitter drips from my eyes.
I wish I could do that to you.
***
We're outside. The snow is starting to melt but it's enough to stomp through. Footprints mark the backyard with their comings and goings until its more brown than white.
I'm Harry and you're Hermionie.
I'm a bear.
I'm a wolf.
What are you?
Let's be Shell and Dorothy.
Bumblebee. Baby bird.
They can reinvent themselves at will. Imagination is a new snowfall every time.
We go back inside and their boots shed slush on the rug I just shook out. I hang their snowpants downstairs.
***
Veins crisscross my belly, blue on white, marking skin stretched tight and with still more to go. They will shrink and fade very soon. But first I have to cross over.
When are you due?
Mid March. I don't remember the exact date. Maybe I should write it on my forehead.
***
I'm leaning over pulling boots onto her feet when I do a double take. I see my hands. But they're my mother's. The veins stand out just like hers. Good veins.
The pattern speaks all about what's under my skin. A map marked before I was born. Mine.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
space
Before you fold forward, scoot your leg out a bit wider to create space for the baby. As you lengthen upward first, reclaim the space in your spine between each vertebra. Good. Now move forward. forward. forward. and down.
Space. Shift to make more. Lengthen to reclaim.
***
The three bedrooms in our house are cozy, with tiny closets and capacity to hold beds and dressers and that's about it. With another baby on the way, I'm having a very hard time imagining the three big girls and all their stuff sharing one space. Some days, I'm not sure how one more body is going to fit in this house.
But on other days, there's this:
It goes on for a half hour, maybe more. There's the loud, loud counting -- a chorus of two with one lagging, learning echo. There's the pounding of feet as they look in one room, then the next, then the next. There's the squealing and laughter and shouts of found you, found you. There are new hiding places and old ones reused again and again. This game doesn't get old. There is always enough space.You just have to find it.
***
It was one of those nights. The kind that only happen once in awhile these days, but which used to be my day upon day: all those piles and piles of nights interrupted, in the very palpable past. The shadows under my eyes still haven't faded.
So I meet this day with dread stuck in the corners of my eyes, hard bits of solidified sleep that don't want to loosen.
I can't handle a life of nights like that. I'm thinking ahead, of course.
It's not going to be like that. He's pouring his coffee and doesn't look up.
Yes, it will. I want to worry. And I want him to worry, too.
Cup full, he looks at me. You're right. It will. If you think like that.
***
The pool is cold. In this dream, at least, I don't know how to swim. I stand on the edge and take the first step down, then another. Then another. When the water reaches my chin, I stop. I cannot go any further. I'm paralyzed.
But here is how it could be. It will be. It is.
At that same edge I exhale everything. What I inhale is air, not tar, and my lungs lengthen so the breath fills not just my chest but my belly and my sinuses and my feet and my fingernails and the fraying ends of my hair. So when I dive into the water, I touch the bottom with both palms before pushing back to the surface. Bouyant. Afloat. And it doesn't matter anymore if I cross the length of the pool in this moment or not. Right here is very nice.
***
I pull into the driveway after yoga class. The porch light shines in a dim semicircle, highlighting the front door. But before I go in, I stand in the dark and look up at the black space above me. At the small sliver of infinity domed over my head.
And then it caches my eye, like it always does -- the moon. Somewhere near half again tonight, but in a different cycle than last time. The crescent curve angles upward so the thing appears as a cup brimming with blackness, holding onto whatever negative space it can. Tomorrow, it will grow, pushing outward, claiming that space with light, on and on until it's round and full and ready to go back and back and birth a new moon all over again. Shifting phases. Shrinking and growing. Always reclaiming or being reclaimed.
Space.
Space. Shift to make more. Lengthen to reclaim.
***
The three bedrooms in our house are cozy, with tiny closets and capacity to hold beds and dressers and that's about it. With another baby on the way, I'm having a very hard time imagining the three big girls and all their stuff sharing one space. Some days, I'm not sure how one more body is going to fit in this house.
But on other days, there's this:
It goes on for a half hour, maybe more. There's the loud, loud counting -- a chorus of two with one lagging, learning echo. There's the pounding of feet as they look in one room, then the next, then the next. There's the squealing and laughter and shouts of found you, found you. There are new hiding places and old ones reused again and again. This game doesn't get old. There is always enough space.You just have to find it.
***
It was one of those nights. The kind that only happen once in awhile these days, but which used to be my day upon day: all those piles and piles of nights interrupted, in the very palpable past. The shadows under my eyes still haven't faded.
So I meet this day with dread stuck in the corners of my eyes, hard bits of solidified sleep that don't want to loosen.
I can't handle a life of nights like that. I'm thinking ahead, of course.
It's not going to be like that. He's pouring his coffee and doesn't look up.
Yes, it will. I want to worry. And I want him to worry, too.
Cup full, he looks at me. You're right. It will. If you think like that.
***
The pool is cold. In this dream, at least, I don't know how to swim. I stand on the edge and take the first step down, then another. Then another. When the water reaches my chin, I stop. I cannot go any further. I'm paralyzed.
But here is how it could be. It will be. It is.
At that same edge I exhale everything. What I inhale is air, not tar, and my lungs lengthen so the breath fills not just my chest but my belly and my sinuses and my feet and my fingernails and the fraying ends of my hair. So when I dive into the water, I touch the bottom with both palms before pushing back to the surface. Bouyant. Afloat. And it doesn't matter anymore if I cross the length of the pool in this moment or not. Right here is very nice.
***
I pull into the driveway after yoga class. The porch light shines in a dim semicircle, highlighting the front door. But before I go in, I stand in the dark and look up at the black space above me. At the small sliver of infinity domed over my head.
And then it caches my eye, like it always does -- the moon. Somewhere near half again tonight, but in a different cycle than last time. The crescent curve angles upward so the thing appears as a cup brimming with blackness, holding onto whatever negative space it can. Tomorrow, it will grow, pushing outward, claiming that space with light, on and on until it's round and full and ready to go back and back and birth a new moon all over again. Shifting phases. Shrinking and growing. Always reclaiming or being reclaimed.
Space.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
alight
Picture this: my mouth is wide open.
No, I'm not yawning. At least not right now. Though I can try to summon one of those next, if you want to see. There's always one waiting in the wings, but it might not wait for it's cue.
No, I'm not yelling. Though that will swell in my throat later: frustration boils my insides too quickly these days. But I'm getting better at swallowing it back down. I'm trying not to scald anyone.
No, I'm not gape-mouthed in shock. Though all I'd have to do is open one of the bedroom doors and I'm sure my jaw would fall open just like that. Messes multiply overnight, it seems. They breed in the dark. And I'm not sure why but they always take me by surprise.
Picture this: my mouth is wide open and my tongue sticks out.
No, I'm not accepting Holy Communion -- it's been a long while since I tasted bread like that. You're knocking on the right door, though.
Mouth open, tongue out, eyes closed. Face tipped up.
Catching snowflakes? Oh, you're so close now. But no, I'm indoors. Inside my own head, actually. Sitting in the dark. The darkest dark of the year.
What I'm doing is this: imagining the newborn sun stretching over the horizon, its rays reaching for me. When the dawn bathes my tongue, I press it to the roof of my mouth, tasting and then swallowing the light. It fills my gut and enters my blood stream, illuminating my insides from core to fingertip. I am warm. I am the light.
Next time I open my mouth I hope you can see it. I hope I can show it to you. This is my solstice prayer.
No, I'm not yawning. At least not right now. Though I can try to summon one of those next, if you want to see. There's always one waiting in the wings, but it might not wait for it's cue.
No, I'm not yelling. Though that will swell in my throat later: frustration boils my insides too quickly these days. But I'm getting better at swallowing it back down. I'm trying not to scald anyone.
No, I'm not gape-mouthed in shock. Though all I'd have to do is open one of the bedroom doors and I'm sure my jaw would fall open just like that. Messes multiply overnight, it seems. They breed in the dark. And I'm not sure why but they always take me by surprise.
Picture this: my mouth is wide open and my tongue sticks out.
No, I'm not accepting Holy Communion -- it's been a long while since I tasted bread like that. You're knocking on the right door, though.
Mouth open, tongue out, eyes closed. Face tipped up.
Catching snowflakes? Oh, you're so close now. But no, I'm indoors. Inside my own head, actually. Sitting in the dark. The darkest dark of the year.
What I'm doing is this: imagining the newborn sun stretching over the horizon, its rays reaching for me. When the dawn bathes my tongue, I press it to the roof of my mouth, tasting and then swallowing the light. It fills my gut and enters my blood stream, illuminating my insides from core to fingertip. I am warm. I am the light.
Next time I open my mouth I hope you can see it. I hope I can show it to you. This is my solstice prayer.
Monday, December 19, 2011
something solid
Every time I see it, I intend to knock it down. But I only remember it when I'm in the shower: a cobweb strung long ago, slack now, hanging in the corner of the high bathroom window.
The shower's steam circles around my head and fills my sinuses, rising above me, higher than I can reach -- droplets of visible vapor, airborne. The strands of the web could no longer ensnare a struggling insect, but they catch the morning sun and a delicate string of steam, solidifying both.
I long to wear that necklace of light and water. Elemental pearls.
And so the web stays put.
***
It's still dark, but dawn whispers around the edges of the sky-- soft, inaudible predictions about the day to come. I would sit here and watch the sunrise but they are all up and wanting breakfast, already breaking the fast of overnight silence.
I get to glance out the front window, though, and I can see the bare branched trees standing there, sleeping but still sentinels in our front yard. They hold their arms outstretched, dark against the predawn sky, thick and solid. The neighbor's porch light shows me a light dusting of snow over this scene, the first of December. I can't see them yet, but I'm sure flakes have settled on those branches.
I wish they wouldn't melt in the light of day.
***
Fragile. Fleeting. But solid, on occasion.
My thoughts sometimes swirl lighter than air, up and out of me. Sometimes they slough off my skin, falling in flakes, different and intricate. And sometimes, when there's time, they settle or maybe catch on the blue lines of this notebook. The start of something solid on these pages and pages of blank.
And so I close the cover and hope it sticks.
The shower's steam circles around my head and fills my sinuses, rising above me, higher than I can reach -- droplets of visible vapor, airborne. The strands of the web could no longer ensnare a struggling insect, but they catch the morning sun and a delicate string of steam, solidifying both.
I long to wear that necklace of light and water. Elemental pearls.
And so the web stays put.
***
It's still dark, but dawn whispers around the edges of the sky-- soft, inaudible predictions about the day to come. I would sit here and watch the sunrise but they are all up and wanting breakfast, already breaking the fast of overnight silence.
I get to glance out the front window, though, and I can see the bare branched trees standing there, sleeping but still sentinels in our front yard. They hold their arms outstretched, dark against the predawn sky, thick and solid. The neighbor's porch light shows me a light dusting of snow over this scene, the first of December. I can't see them yet, but I'm sure flakes have settled on those branches.
I wish they wouldn't melt in the light of day.
***
Fragile. Fleeting. But solid, on occasion.
My thoughts sometimes swirl lighter than air, up and out of me. Sometimes they slough off my skin, falling in flakes, different and intricate. And sometimes, when there's time, they settle or maybe catch on the blue lines of this notebook. The start of something solid on these pages and pages of blank.
And so I close the cover and hope it sticks.
Friday, December 9, 2011
going back
She is very, very old. The cold bothers her bones but this is her home. She always waits out the winter.
She prefers the rocking chair positioned just so in the living room, where the windows let in the most light. She reads for hours, turning the pages slowly, occasionally. Just when you think she might like to move, when the sun has crept up into her lap and is kissing her face, you see she's fallen asleep. Her eyes are closed, at least. The book drapes open across the armrest. Her hand marks the page.
Is she really sleeping? Is she dreaming?
No. Remembering.
Back and back and back
to today, when the dollhouse sat in a puddle of sun and she stopped doing for just awhile to play pretend with Middlest and Littlest. She laid on her back in that sun but didn't close her eyes and spoke for the doll they determined was hers and looked up through the not-baby's curls as she stepped over her and wondered aloud in the lines fed to her by the older one where has that girl gone. She was warm all over and tucked in up to her chin with contentment. Then the sun was on her cheeks and she closed her eyes for a moment and remembered
back and back
to when the seed germinating inside was her very first and she worked in the evenings after attending the last of her college classes in the mornings. There were occasional empty afternoons. Just right for curling on the couch in that tiny apartment's living room, the one with the windows that were large enough to let in luxury -- long swaths of warm light on those chilly spring days. And she would nap, her feet tucked into the perfect patch of sun. It would move up her legs, across her belly, before finally brushing her face and bringing her back
and back.
She opens her eyes and you see a smile starting. Not at her mouth but the corners of her eyes. Her lips move. You can't hear it but she whispers --
bliss.
She prefers the rocking chair positioned just so in the living room, where the windows let in the most light. She reads for hours, turning the pages slowly, occasionally. Just when you think she might like to move, when the sun has crept up into her lap and is kissing her face, you see she's fallen asleep. Her eyes are closed, at least. The book drapes open across the armrest. Her hand marks the page.
Is she really sleeping? Is she dreaming?
No. Remembering.
Back and back and back
to today, when the dollhouse sat in a puddle of sun and she stopped doing for just awhile to play pretend with Middlest and Littlest. She laid on her back in that sun but didn't close her eyes and spoke for the doll they determined was hers and looked up through the not-baby's curls as she stepped over her and wondered aloud in the lines fed to her by the older one where has that girl gone. She was warm all over and tucked in up to her chin with contentment. Then the sun was on her cheeks and she closed her eyes for a moment and remembered
back and back
to when the seed germinating inside was her very first and she worked in the evenings after attending the last of her college classes in the mornings. There were occasional empty afternoons. Just right for curling on the couch in that tiny apartment's living room, the one with the windows that were large enough to let in luxury -- long swaths of warm light on those chilly spring days. And she would nap, her feet tucked into the perfect patch of sun. It would move up her legs, across her belly, before finally brushing her face and bringing her back
and back.
She opens her eyes and you see a smile starting. Not at her mouth but the corners of her eyes. Her lips move. You can't hear it but she whispers --
bliss.
Friday, December 2, 2011
metaphor
It seems like this should be a metaphor. But it's not. It's real.
I'm settling back into sleep after answering someone's call, different every time -- one of the kids, or the dog, or maybe just my own bladder -- and a muscle cramp rolls beneath the surface of my skin. Only it's not in one of the usual places like a calf or even the abdomen: it starts at my hairline and drips down between my eyes, clenching in the space that holds all my tension. Fruitless furrows that yield nothing. Nothing freeing, anyway.
I press my fingers there, expecting to feel a knot germinating but it's just the same old grooves, there between my eyebrows, rooting deeper. Ingrained.
I wake up with a headache that recedes slowly, the tide going out.
***
I wish this one wasn't a metaphor. I wish it was exactly this easy.
I am a paper crane.
Or at least, that's how I think I hold myself to the world. I've got it all laid out in plain text, in my own handwriting, and then I fold it up with specific intention. Careful creases and deliberate folds until much of it is hidden. You'll see partial phrases and words juxtaposed incongruously. The lines won't fit together. But there will be wings. The bird could fly.
He thinks I wear my heart on my sleeve. But that's not it, really. He's just very good at reading the words that show.
But he's already at work and it is three and me -- and something happens -- and there's that something, again, making me raw and wobbly. No crisp edges here. I'm unfolded, inside out, flat, in front of them. My corners won't come back together. My edges won't line up. Because I'm not, really, a paper crane. That's just a metaphor. I'm full of spit and salt.
Yes, I cry. And I hate it.
***
Here's another metaphor. But it's also real.
The moon hangs there. Waxing or waning, neither of us knows, a bit more than a sliver right now.
But I can see the outline of the rest of it. It's what they call earthshine, I guess.
I don't really care what it is or why it's there. I needed to see it today. Because it suggests the whole, even though less than half is visible. It promises change, more or less to come, but definitely change. It will not always be this way, whatever way that is right now. Another phase is nigh.
As a physical reality, this earthshine takes my breath away. As a metaphor, it gives it back to me.
Either way -- I thank the heavens.
I'm settling back into sleep after answering someone's call, different every time -- one of the kids, or the dog, or maybe just my own bladder -- and a muscle cramp rolls beneath the surface of my skin. Only it's not in one of the usual places like a calf or even the abdomen: it starts at my hairline and drips down between my eyes, clenching in the space that holds all my tension. Fruitless furrows that yield nothing. Nothing freeing, anyway.
I press my fingers there, expecting to feel a knot germinating but it's just the same old grooves, there between my eyebrows, rooting deeper. Ingrained.
I wake up with a headache that recedes slowly, the tide going out.
***
I wish this one wasn't a metaphor. I wish it was exactly this easy.
I am a paper crane.
Or at least, that's how I think I hold myself to the world. I've got it all laid out in plain text, in my own handwriting, and then I fold it up with specific intention. Careful creases and deliberate folds until much of it is hidden. You'll see partial phrases and words juxtaposed incongruously. The lines won't fit together. But there will be wings. The bird could fly.
He thinks I wear my heart on my sleeve. But that's not it, really. He's just very good at reading the words that show.
But he's already at work and it is three and me -- and something happens -- and there's that something, again, making me raw and wobbly. No crisp edges here. I'm unfolded, inside out, flat, in front of them. My corners won't come back together. My edges won't line up. Because I'm not, really, a paper crane. That's just a metaphor. I'm full of spit and salt.
Yes, I cry. And I hate it.
***
Here's another metaphor. But it's also real.
The moon hangs there. Waxing or waning, neither of us knows, a bit more than a sliver right now.
But I can see the outline of the rest of it. It's what they call earthshine, I guess.
I don't really care what it is or why it's there. I needed to see it today. Because it suggests the whole, even though less than half is visible. It promises change, more or less to come, but definitely change. It will not always be this way, whatever way that is right now. Another phase is nigh.
As a physical reality, this earthshine takes my breath away. As a metaphor, it gives it back to me.
Either way -- I thank the heavens.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
clash and crossing
There is a bridge I've gotten to know pretty well. It marks the turn-around on my running route.
It's older than the others in the conservancy, spanning the stream narrowly with slats that run the same direction as my tread. It smells distinct when damp. Like rot. And mothballs.
My footfalls feel uneven and muffled. Hushed, unlike hollow ring of the newer, neater bridges. The ones with the perfect, gradual arch and the uniform spacing. I like this one better.
I cross my bridge alone, mostly. At a run. At a walk. Thinking. Spaced out.
But if I ever have a companion, the vibrations of our steps clash just so and the whole thing bounces in a subtle but slightly unsettling way. Just enough to remind me of my position, suspended above the water. Somewhere between here and there. Vulnerable even though completely supported.
Crossing.
***
Everyone's in bed. Even the refrigerator's hum quiets and silence settles like a snowfall, a soft dusting over everything. I'm stretched out on the couch, holding an unopened book.
I'm staring off into space when I notice it.
The clock.
It talks in ticks and tocks all day but never audible over the tide rushing in and out, high and low, the sounds of a life loudly lived. But it's a mechanical shout right now, not to be ignored, marking every second that's here then gone.
The rhythm nearly matches that of my heart beating -- but not quite. There's a space in between so the thump falls a step behind the tock -- just so -- and the sound and the sensation clash. The reverberations bounce across my belly in a subtle, but slightly disquieting movement from within. Just enough to remind me of her position, suspended over time and vitality. Somewhere between here and there. Vulnerable even though completely supported.
Crossing.
It's older than the others in the conservancy, spanning the stream narrowly with slats that run the same direction as my tread. It smells distinct when damp. Like rot. And mothballs.
My footfalls feel uneven and muffled. Hushed, unlike hollow ring of the newer, neater bridges. The ones with the perfect, gradual arch and the uniform spacing. I like this one better.
I cross my bridge alone, mostly. At a run. At a walk. Thinking. Spaced out.
But if I ever have a companion, the vibrations of our steps clash just so and the whole thing bounces in a subtle but slightly unsettling way. Just enough to remind me of my position, suspended above the water. Somewhere between here and there. Vulnerable even though completely supported.
Crossing.
***
Everyone's in bed. Even the refrigerator's hum quiets and silence settles like a snowfall, a soft dusting over everything. I'm stretched out on the couch, holding an unopened book.
I'm staring off into space when I notice it.
The clock.
It talks in ticks and tocks all day but never audible over the tide rushing in and out, high and low, the sounds of a life loudly lived. But it's a mechanical shout right now, not to be ignored, marking every second that's here then gone.
The rhythm nearly matches that of my heart beating -- but not quite. There's a space in between so the thump falls a step behind the tock -- just so -- and the sound and the sensation clash. The reverberations bounce across my belly in a subtle, but slightly disquieting movement from within. Just enough to remind me of her position, suspended over time and vitality. Somewhere between here and there. Vulnerable even though completely supported.
Crossing.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
receiving
I know I don't have twenty minutes, but maybe ten. Maybe five. Or just one? I know I'll be interrupted. But I'm starting to need this. Every. Day.
So I fold my legs under myself and sit on my feet. I close my eyes and exhale everything.
Still.
When I'm in this space, I rarely think about my hands. They just rest where they want to. But I've heard about the difference -- palms down means grounding. Palms up means receiving.
I seem to always need whatever gifts are floating around me so I make the conscious decision to accept them. Palms up.
The Littles play down the hall, in their castle. {This is day three of it's construction. Blankets off beds, toys and chairs rearranged to prop them up. We take it down at night to clothe the naked beds, but they resurrect it every morning.} They are anything but quiet but their laughter is what lives in my landscape.
And so I sit in the other room. A point on the periphery of so much motion, but still, at the center of things.
It really isn't long before Littlest pads into the room. Her socks are gone.
I almost cringe. I almost tighten. I almost resent. But before that taste even creeps into my mouth, she plunks herself down on my lap. Right onto my upturned hands.
A gift.
I accept it.
So I fold my legs under myself and sit on my feet. I close my eyes and exhale everything.
Still.
When I'm in this space, I rarely think about my hands. They just rest where they want to. But I've heard about the difference -- palms down means grounding. Palms up means receiving.
I seem to always need whatever gifts are floating around me so I make the conscious decision to accept them. Palms up.
The Littles play down the hall, in their castle. {This is day three of it's construction. Blankets off beds, toys and chairs rearranged to prop them up. We take it down at night to clothe the naked beds, but they resurrect it every morning.} They are anything but quiet but their laughter is what lives in my landscape.
And so I sit in the other room. A point on the periphery of so much motion, but still, at the center of things.
It really isn't long before Littlest pads into the room. Her socks are gone.
I almost cringe. I almost tighten. I almost resent. But before that taste even creeps into my mouth, she plunks herself down on my lap. Right onto my upturned hands.
A gift.
I accept it.
Monday, November 21, 2011
coloring my cheeks
The sun is still bright. Too bright, sometimes, and I squint. Shield my eyes.
But what little power it has weakens daily as the earth tilts away and it cannot warm my face. I've grown pale these last months, summer's mark completely faded.
Now would be the logical time to put on a little blush to brighten my face. But I've been applying heat instead.
It starts with my morning shower, water as hot as I can stand it. I scare away the cold with steam and my skin reacts by reddening. I'm not boiling my flesh but I try. It feels so good.
I pour warm foods down my throat. Chicken soup at 9am. Tea all day long. Warmth in my throat, in my belly. I feel it in my face.
I crank the heat in the car, directing the vents right at my face. The temperature soars and my cheeks turn pink and this is exactly what I needed.
I try to hold the warmth in with layers. Tanks tops under long sleeved shirts under sweaters. Socks up to my knees. Slippers. Always. But the heat escapes. The color quickly fades.
And so the best way to feel warm and alive, I find, is to stoke my inner fire.
One way to get the bellows going is to just move. So I go running or practice yoga when there's time. Sweep the floors, clean the bathrooms, when I have to. Wiggle around with the kids when I can. My blood flows faster, circulates better, and I feel lit from the inside.
But even more effective (and often more elusive) is the thing that happens when I'm sitting still.
Maybe I'm tutoring a student and I have to think hard about how to construct the thesis of her essay. We throw ideas back and forth and we really get somewhere. I'm so excited about her essay that I want to write the whole thing myself. I don't, of course. But I leave the session feeling primed. My cheeks are flushed from the mental exercise.
Maybe I'm writing something of my own. For once the ideas run down my arm like water. I don't even have to wring my hands to get them out. I'm lit, head to toe, with the creative spark. My face glows in the firelight and I can't remember ever feeling cold.
But then there's this: I'm sitting with my legs crossed, my spine tall. I imagine the crown of my head to be not a barrier but a portal to my insides. I watch prana -- energy -- trickle in and saturate the grey matter of my brain. It spills into my spine and drips down each vertebra, eventually percolating through all my bones and tissues. It fills me. With energy. With heat. And I am so, so warm. Flushed with life.
Sometimes we use makeup to feel a bit more beautiful. But I've been putting on heat. To feel a bit more--
--possible.
But what little power it has weakens daily as the earth tilts away and it cannot warm my face. I've grown pale these last months, summer's mark completely faded.
Now would be the logical time to put on a little blush to brighten my face. But I've been applying heat instead.
It starts with my morning shower, water as hot as I can stand it. I scare away the cold with steam and my skin reacts by reddening. I'm not boiling my flesh but I try. It feels so good.
I pour warm foods down my throat. Chicken soup at 9am. Tea all day long. Warmth in my throat, in my belly. I feel it in my face.
I crank the heat in the car, directing the vents right at my face. The temperature soars and my cheeks turn pink and this is exactly what I needed.
I try to hold the warmth in with layers. Tanks tops under long sleeved shirts under sweaters. Socks up to my knees. Slippers. Always. But the heat escapes. The color quickly fades.
And so the best way to feel warm and alive, I find, is to stoke my inner fire.
One way to get the bellows going is to just move. So I go running or practice yoga when there's time. Sweep the floors, clean the bathrooms, when I have to. Wiggle around with the kids when I can. My blood flows faster, circulates better, and I feel lit from the inside.
But even more effective (and often more elusive) is the thing that happens when I'm sitting still.
Maybe I'm tutoring a student and I have to think hard about how to construct the thesis of her essay. We throw ideas back and forth and we really get somewhere. I'm so excited about her essay that I want to write the whole thing myself. I don't, of course. But I leave the session feeling primed. My cheeks are flushed from the mental exercise.
Maybe I'm writing something of my own. For once the ideas run down my arm like water. I don't even have to wring my hands to get them out. I'm lit, head to toe, with the creative spark. My face glows in the firelight and I can't remember ever feeling cold.
But then there's this: I'm sitting with my legs crossed, my spine tall. I imagine the crown of my head to be not a barrier but a portal to my insides. I watch prana -- energy -- trickle in and saturate the grey matter of my brain. It spills into my spine and drips down each vertebra, eventually percolating through all my bones and tissues. It fills me. With energy. With heat. And I am so, so warm. Flushed with life.
Sometimes we use makeup to feel a bit more beautiful. But I've been putting on heat. To feel a bit more--
--possible.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
letter to eldest, age seven
Sometimes I forget
that you're not a teenager, when you stomp down the hall
with steps that sound louder than your size one feet.
When you shout not fair or stand
like a statue over some stubborn ground.
Sometimes I forget
that you're not an adult, when you wait
with your tank full of patience, while your sisters
completely lose it.
Or when you speak some bit of wisdom
about kindness or friendship or
not making someone else feel bad,
truths it takes most people
a lifetime
to learn.
Sometimes I forget
that you're a child.
Until I sit completely still for twenty straight minutes
watching your face as you sing with expression
unselfconsciously
through a book of poems, rhymes you learned at school.
Until I feel your mittened had slip into mine
as we walk to the bus. Still small.
Until I watch your bright face through the bus window
as it pulls away
and you're waving
like you mean it.
Then I remember
that you're stepping every day
into bigger and bigger shoes.
And that the sunrise tomorrow will look
mostly the same as the one I saw this morning,
only subtly different because of the tilt of the earth.
And I might not notice until you're coming up
from a completely different direction
that you've changed
into a teenager
and then an adult.
So I'm trying to memorize your face
your voice
the feel of your hand
So I won't ever forget
when you were a Child.
today.
that you're not a teenager, when you stomp down the hall
with steps that sound louder than your size one feet.
When you shout not fair or stand
like a statue over some stubborn ground.
Sometimes I forget
that you're not an adult, when you wait
with your tank full of patience, while your sisters
completely lose it.
Or when you speak some bit of wisdom
about kindness or friendship or
not making someone else feel bad,
truths it takes most people
a lifetime
to learn.
Sometimes I forget
that you're a child.
Until I sit completely still for twenty straight minutes
watching your face as you sing with expression
unselfconsciously
through a book of poems, rhymes you learned at school.
Until I feel your mittened had slip into mine
as we walk to the bus. Still small.
Until I watch your bright face through the bus window
as it pulls away
and you're waving
like you mean it.
Then I remember
that you're stepping every day
into bigger and bigger shoes.
And that the sunrise tomorrow will look
mostly the same as the one I saw this morning,
only subtly different because of the tilt of the earth.
And I might not notice until you're coming up
from a completely different direction
that you've changed
into a teenager
and then an adult.
So I'm trying to memorize your face
your voice
the feel of your hand
So I won't ever forget
when you were a Child.
today.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
draining
Back when Middlest was still the littlest, she was terrified of the open bathtub drain. You couldn't let the water out until she and all her toys had been lifted ashore, safe on dry land. There could be no compromising about this. No hurrying. Though we explained and even showed her that objects and people are much too large to pass through, she remained skeptical. She feared the deep and the darkness and the unidentified, never-ending space that exists on the other side of that shiny drain cover. She could see a tiny bit of it in the crack that let the water out, and Down There must have been so vast in her mind. It had to hold all that water, didn't it?
Eventually, she grew most of the way out of this fear, but she still never lingers in the tub once the drain has been opened. She still doesn't like any of her toys floating unattended while the water goes down. But she isn't nearly as frantic about it. She seems to trust, beyond her fear, that she'll stay here, even after the water is gone.
***
I've been sneaking in tiny yoga practices a couple times a week, 20 minutes in the morning when the kids are playing or maybe watching a little TV. {It's been lovely. Day-altering, really.} I usually conclude with the legs up the wall version of savasana (meaning, I lie on the floor with my legs up the wall, literally).
I was in this place yesterday morning, breathing deep and visualizing the blood flowing out of my legs and saturating my brain. I imagined that my worries and doubts were flowing that direction, too, but not pooling in my head. No, all that stuff would enter the Earth where it supported me and drain drain drain away. Out of me and into something much bigger that could hold all that and not feel heavier. God? Maybe. Sure. I don't know. I can't even call It anything with words but I can say thank you. When I'm sitting upright again, palms together. I press my thumbs into the bony outline of my eyes and say it more than once. Thank you. For absorbing everything I simply cannot carry.
Because I could hold onto all of that, afraid to let it drain, afraid to let it go, afraid of the bigness of Whatever it is that supports me here and keeps me from disappearing through the floor.
And sometimes, I am afraid. Sometimes, I still hold on at least somewhat, watching warily as all the things that bother me and overwhelm me and make me sweat float around in my mental tub.
But I think I think I think I think I may have grown out of that fear, mostly. I've heard about it and seen it and really really really felt it, how light and full of light my whole being can feel when I've let go.
But it takes trust, I think, to release and surrender. Trust that even after the last of the water has drained out, there's still something left. I'm still here.
Eventually, she grew most of the way out of this fear, but she still never lingers in the tub once the drain has been opened. She still doesn't like any of her toys floating unattended while the water goes down. But she isn't nearly as frantic about it. She seems to trust, beyond her fear, that she'll stay here, even after the water is gone.
***
I've been sneaking in tiny yoga practices a couple times a week, 20 minutes in the morning when the kids are playing or maybe watching a little TV. {It's been lovely. Day-altering, really.} I usually conclude with the legs up the wall version of savasana (meaning, I lie on the floor with my legs up the wall, literally).
I was in this place yesterday morning, breathing deep and visualizing the blood flowing out of my legs and saturating my brain. I imagined that my worries and doubts were flowing that direction, too, but not pooling in my head. No, all that stuff would enter the Earth where it supported me and drain drain drain away. Out of me and into something much bigger that could hold all that and not feel heavier. God? Maybe. Sure. I don't know. I can't even call It anything with words but I can say thank you. When I'm sitting upright again, palms together. I press my thumbs into the bony outline of my eyes and say it more than once. Thank you. For absorbing everything I simply cannot carry.
Because I could hold onto all of that, afraid to let it drain, afraid to let it go, afraid of the bigness of Whatever it is that supports me here and keeps me from disappearing through the floor.
And sometimes, I am afraid. Sometimes, I still hold on at least somewhat, watching warily as all the things that bother me and overwhelm me and make me sweat float around in my mental tub.
But I think I think I think I think I may have grown out of that fear, mostly. I've heard about it and seen it and really really really felt it, how light and full of light my whole being can feel when I've let go.
But it takes trust, I think, to release and surrender. Trust that even after the last of the water has drained out, there's still something left. I'm still here.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
with love from my muse
So you're waiting for inspiration? You think stories will just come to you and characters will whisper in your ear? That's very nice. Good luck with that.
I hate to be the one to break it to you, but no one is going to come knocking. There will be no story waiting on your step when you open the door, ready for you to unwrap. It never happens like that. Well, maybe it does. But I'll tell you right now you are on no one's mailing list. So sorry.
Maybe you've heard? Inspiration is a myth. All that you'll find is this: work. What? You don't have time for that? You need to learn more about writing fiction before you can actually write it? You have no ideas? Nothing to write about?
The ink in your pen is all dried up because you never use it. You're not trying.
Consider this. You are surrounded by ideas. Something like 6 billion of them. They walk past you every day. You see them. You hear about them. They talk to you. Listen. Watch. You will find ideas peeking out from under every rock if you just turn them over.
Forget about anything as grand as plot for now. You're not ready for that. You need to learn how to enter someone's head. Breathe life into the dead. And follow their paths and their reasons for being in the light and in the dark with no one noticing you are there.
Do that, and then we'll talk. We'll see.
***
Okay, I heard you. Point taken. No more whining. No more putting it off. No more waiting for the gift that isn't going to come. Time to write. About you. And you. And you. And maybe a little bit of me.
So if you tell me about your day, I'm warning you. You might end up in my notebook.
But don't worry, I'm just practicing.
I hate to be the one to break it to you, but no one is going to come knocking. There will be no story waiting on your step when you open the door, ready for you to unwrap. It never happens like that. Well, maybe it does. But I'll tell you right now you are on no one's mailing list. So sorry.
Maybe you've heard? Inspiration is a myth. All that you'll find is this: work. What? You don't have time for that? You need to learn more about writing fiction before you can actually write it? You have no ideas? Nothing to write about?
The ink in your pen is all dried up because you never use it. You're not trying.
Consider this. You are surrounded by ideas. Something like 6 billion of them. They walk past you every day. You see them. You hear about them. They talk to you. Listen. Watch. You will find ideas peeking out from under every rock if you just turn them over.
Forget about anything as grand as plot for now. You're not ready for that. You need to learn how to enter someone's head. Breathe life into the dead. And follow their paths and their reasons for being in the light and in the dark with no one noticing you are there.
Do that, and then we'll talk. We'll see.
***
Okay, I heard you. Point taken. No more whining. No more putting it off. No more waiting for the gift that isn't going to come. Time to write. About you. And you. And you. And maybe a little bit of me.
So if you tell me about your day, I'm warning you. You might end up in my notebook.
But don't worry, I'm just practicing.
Monday, October 31, 2011
scrapped
Driving home from preschool drop-off, Littlest fell asleep. (She doesn't nap anymore -- this is a general rule she set up for herself). I saw her in the rear-view mirror dozing off in stop-starting stages, until the stairs eventually slid out from under her and she tumbled into the sort of sleep that's complete with gentle snoring. Never in her life has she transferred from carseat to crib and stayed asleep, so I drove to the state park up the street and parked.
I found a scrap of paper -- the back side of a reminder sent home from school -- and a pen buried under old receipts and wrappers. And I wrote. It was silent (except for the snoring). For a full thirty minutes, I sat in a slice of blue sky on a very grey day.
When she woke up, I folded up my scrap and we drove back home. We picked up and dropped off and picked up and dropped off and ate dinner and went trick or treating. And when the day was done, entirely done, I unfolded the paper and sat down to type it up. To finish my last blog post of the NaBloWriMo challenge.
I typed for awhile, squinting at my scrawl and transposing the words from scrap to screen. But then I looked at it. Really looked at it. And I selected all and hit delete. I refolded the paper and slipped it into the recycle bin. It wasn't what I wanted to say at all. It didn't come out right. The words weren't worth re-reading.
But that wasn't a wasted half hour. Not at all. I don't have any words to show for the time I stole for writing while Littlest napped. But the feeling of it -- the unexpected quiet, the pen in my hand, nothing else to do and nowhere else to be but here -- was worth more than a whole month of blog posts.
And that has always been the point of this.
I found a scrap of paper -- the back side of a reminder sent home from school -- and a pen buried under old receipts and wrappers. And I wrote. It was silent (except for the snoring). For a full thirty minutes, I sat in a slice of blue sky on a very grey day.
When she woke up, I folded up my scrap and we drove back home. We picked up and dropped off and picked up and dropped off and ate dinner and went trick or treating. And when the day was done, entirely done, I unfolded the paper and sat down to type it up. To finish my last blog post of the NaBloWriMo challenge.
I typed for awhile, squinting at my scrawl and transposing the words from scrap to screen. But then I looked at it. Really looked at it. And I selected all and hit delete. I refolded the paper and slipped it into the recycle bin. It wasn't what I wanted to say at all. It didn't come out right. The words weren't worth re-reading.
But that wasn't a wasted half hour. Not at all. I don't have any words to show for the time I stole for writing while Littlest napped. But the feeling of it -- the unexpected quiet, the pen in my hand, nothing else to do and nowhere else to be but here -- was worth more than a whole month of blog posts.
And that has always been the point of this.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
something
There's something in my mouth.
It feels like something alive. Squirming at the base of my tongue, right there at the precipice of my throat.
I'm afraid to part my lips at all. To speak. To take a deep breath. Because I am sure the thing will leap out and I'm not sure what it will do. All I know is this: I will be ugly.
So I clench my teeth and swallow and swallow and swallow. But the kids are fighting and no one is listening to me and its too loud and I think I think I think I was a person designed to live alone.
This is the other thing I think I know: I can't do this.
So I lock the door of the bathroom and sit on the floor with my head between my knees and the shaking clawing thing seeps through the cracks of my scrunched up face and drips onto the floor while one child tantrums on and on and is now crying come back, mama.
And I do. I go back. When I'm calm and even and capable after siphoning off some of what sat in my throat all morning. But it's still there. I know it will well up later. And it does.
She crawls into my lap saying web web. She hands me The Very Busy Spider and commands that I read read. And there it is in my throat again for no reason but I have to open my mouth so I shove everything down, packing it into my esophagus. The words come out all wavy anyway and in someone else's voice. I baa and meow in this strange pitch but by the time the owl hoots at the end I'm normal. She's too little to notice that I wasn't. I'm glad about that.
I drink some tea and I think this washes everything down. I can talk for the rest of the day, at least. But I'm a little worried about what's sitting in the pit of my stomach.
Perhaps by tomorrow, it will be digested. Whatever it is. Broken down and assimilated while I sleep so I feel whole when I wake up.
I hope so.
It feels like something alive. Squirming at the base of my tongue, right there at the precipice of my throat.
I'm afraid to part my lips at all. To speak. To take a deep breath. Because I am sure the thing will leap out and I'm not sure what it will do. All I know is this: I will be ugly.
So I clench my teeth and swallow and swallow and swallow. But the kids are fighting and no one is listening to me and its too loud and I think I think I think I was a person designed to live alone.
This is the other thing I think I know: I can't do this.
So I lock the door of the bathroom and sit on the floor with my head between my knees and the shaking clawing thing seeps through the cracks of my scrunched up face and drips onto the floor while one child tantrums on and on and is now crying come back, mama.
And I do. I go back. When I'm calm and even and capable after siphoning off some of what sat in my throat all morning. But it's still there. I know it will well up later. And it does.
She crawls into my lap saying web web. She hands me The Very Busy Spider and commands that I read read. And there it is in my throat again for no reason but I have to open my mouth so I shove everything down, packing it into my esophagus. The words come out all wavy anyway and in someone else's voice. I baa and meow in this strange pitch but by the time the owl hoots at the end I'm normal. She's too little to notice that I wasn't. I'm glad about that.
I drink some tea and I think this washes everything down. I can talk for the rest of the day, at least. But I'm a little worried about what's sitting in the pit of my stomach.
Perhaps by tomorrow, it will be digested. Whatever it is. Broken down and assimilated while I sleep so I feel whole when I wake up.
I hope so.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
learning to get there
Every time, its like this:
You put one foot down and then the other. You go lower, step by step. Slow sometimes. Or maybe you take the stairs two at a time. But eventually -- after a couple meters or maybe it takes a whole mile -- a switch somewhere flips and the stairs go flat and your feet go out from under you and you slide down the rest of the way. Into sleep. Into unconsciousness.
It feels good. It refuels.
But when you meditate, that's not where you want to go. And that's not how you want to get there.
So you stay off those stairs and instead walk in careful, concentric circles. You're trying to spiral toward something still and sacred and solely. solely. solely the self. But before you know it you've gone off course, taken some tangent in a straight line away from your center. Maybe you realize it right away. Or maybe you walk until a blister forms and then you feel it how far you've come.
You could forget it right then. Leave that path behind for good. It's not worth it. It's too hard. But instead you turn slowly, curving inward again, until your path follows a new spiral toward the same center.
And you keep going like this, following tangents and finding the spiral, until finally you're not moving at all.You're still. And then the switch flips but its not the stairs shooting out from under your feet. It's the light. You found it. And it illuminates you.
You put one foot down and then the other. You go lower, step by step. Slow sometimes. Or maybe you take the stairs two at a time. But eventually -- after a couple meters or maybe it takes a whole mile -- a switch somewhere flips and the stairs go flat and your feet go out from under you and you slide down the rest of the way. Into sleep. Into unconsciousness.
It feels good. It refuels.
But when you meditate, that's not where you want to go. And that's not how you want to get there.
So you stay off those stairs and instead walk in careful, concentric circles. You're trying to spiral toward something still and sacred and solely. solely. solely the self. But before you know it you've gone off course, taken some tangent in a straight line away from your center. Maybe you realize it right away. Or maybe you walk until a blister forms and then you feel it how far you've come.
You could forget it right then. Leave that path behind for good. It's not worth it. It's too hard. But instead you turn slowly, curving inward again, until your path follows a new spiral toward the same center.
And you keep going like this, following tangents and finding the spiral, until finally you're not moving at all.You're still. And then the switch flips but its not the stairs shooting out from under your feet. It's the light. You found it. And it illuminates you.
 |
| photo credit: Rosmarie Wirz |
Friday, October 28, 2011
joy pockets
finding joy in the little things...
-- a dishwasher! installed! it works!
-- one-on-one time with Littlest
-- a pile of new-to-me sweaters
-- enough time to watch a movie
-- really lovely neighbors
-- curling up with a great read
-- finally "getting it" in meditation -- letting go of thoughts rather than fighting them
-- a little less running around
share yours with me?
-- a dishwasher! installed! it works!
-- one-on-one time with Littlest
-- a pile of new-to-me sweaters
-- enough time to watch a movie
-- really lovely neighbors
-- curling up with a great read
-- finally "getting it" in meditation -- letting go of thoughts rather than fighting them
-- a little less running around
share yours with me?
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