Rain

Rainy Sunday. Staying inside.

Laundry, grocery list, unpacking, cleaning.
Domestic day.

Content with that because the weather is inside weather. I can see the trees through the window. Rain drips down the glass.

I sent a text to my son who is away at college. Call me, I said.

I look out the window, through rain, grey, out into the trees. I miss him and I wonder what he is looking at now. Maybe he is still in bed, in dreams.

I wonder what he dreams about.

I start to sort the socks.

Free

Hiking this morning with hubby. Feeling so alive out in the woods at the rivers edge, off trail, skirting around rock ledge, on an almost cliff, just enough danger to warm me up from the cold air.

Earth will hold and sustain us, but she also demands presence and respect, attention, when we dare to go out in the wilds, the water, the cliff edge...if we are not respecting her with our full attention she will fuck us up. It isn't personal, it is just her way.

Even if you are fully present and aware, things can happen out there, and they do. That is reality, we are vulnerable, things get destoyed, it is not personal. It is inevitable. We are guaranteed nothing.

Being born, existing, dying, are all we are entitled to in the natural world. And none of that is inherently personal.

Nature is beautiful, nature is brutal. That is honest. We are part of that nature.

The song "Lovesong" from the Disintegration album by The Cure was on the radio today. I listened to that album nearly every night of my freshman year of college. It lulled me to sleep with its deep and earthy tones, sadness and falling felt. Letting go into weighted, heavy, grieving places.

To disintegrate is something I pray for too, it is like death but still breathing. That way of dying in life. A way to freedom.

What I want most is freedom.

Cold

I am not used to the cold anymore. I never have been a cold weather person. The sting of it on my hands this morning made me ache inside for the island I lived on a year ago. Grief shows up in moments unexpectedly. The cold and the grief, an ache and a sting. These things live in the body.

I try to escape feeling. This is one of my things. I am an addict. I find many ways to numb out. I fool myself into thinking I am not an addict. I can't escape myself though.

Being an addict is not the worst thing to be.

I have been taking pictures out in the woods of things that reflect my grief and loneliness back to me. Autumn gets me and where I am right now. Layers of fallen leaves in water, a dried husk of a blossom, mossy decay on a fallen tree.

I think about death a lot, many times during a day. I wonder if this is a rarity, or if we just don't share this, because it is taboo, scary, uncomfortable, forbidden ground. I am ok either way.

Sometimes I wish I was dead, but I love my family so much. They save my life.

I remember being a little girl sent out to play in the snow. I mostly just stood there and told myself, "You will get to go back inside soon." Waiting for the end, relishing the relief from the harsh cold.

When I was a little girl, about 5 years old, I was at my friend's house, her mom was my babysitter. She had a black lab puppy. We went to take it outside and it got away from us. It ran into the street and was hit by a truck. It was completely disemboweled. I remember its body in a snowbank, the blood leeching out turning the snow pink then red, the guts spilled outside its body, its tongue hanging from its mouth. Her father stood over the puppy with a stick, shaking it, and yelling "What did you do?". I remember the images, the words, but I don't remember what I felt, except that it was so cold standing there. I don't remember crying, though I must have. Death put its hand on me that day, out in bright sun shining on a bloody snowbank.

I need to go running, it is vital, a medicine...but I know it is still cold out there, so I am stalling. Avoiding. I will go though, as easy as it would be not to. I do possess strong will, and an undeniable perseverance to take care of myself so I can go on with this messy and magnificent life.

The things we do to keep going. The ways we survive. That is some awe inspiring shit.

I need to backtrack to something I said yesterday. I said I leave people. That is mostly bullshit. I have not left anyone in recent history, quite a few have left me. I hold boundaries, yes, but I am loyal to a fault and forgiving as hell. I don't leave people unless they have shoved me out the door and slammed it in my face.

I do have a tendency to make myself wrong even when that is not accurate. I put myself down, I take the blame. I often do not deserve it. Just setting myself and the record straight, because it matters.

Rambling

No one is here. I have not published anything on this blog in a long time, so I am assuming a readership of zero. But if you are here you most certainly are no more no one than I am.

I am someone. I just have no clear sense of self right now.

I have achieved the yoga mantra of nowhere to go, nothing to do, no one to be.

Monday through Friday from 7:30 am to 3:00 pm that is the actual state of my life. I could lay on the couch all day in my pajamas and no one would know or care. And why am I so very not ok with that concept?? Seriously.

It is so quiet in the house that it is agitating. I go out walking in the woods and I notice
how unquiet it is out there. I am hearing more and more layers of wild sound.

I am lonely. A long distance friend commented to me about this yesterday, she said loneliness is real. A lot of times people don't acknowledge that.

I thought this morning, as I stood in a towel, clean,warm, and fresh...ramble. Just get on your fucking blog that no one will see probably anyway and ramble. Maybe it will be freeing, medicinal, or even if it is just shit...so what.

I went to yoga class this morning. I didn't talk to anyone. I have no friends locally, and I lack the energy to try any more than just physically showing up in a room with other human beings, and I have to force myself to do that.

There was a youngish woman in the class who made various vocal tones and sighs, sometimes I thought she was crying. She did not follow the instructor. She was dressed in clashing colors and prints. I thought, wow, she is weird, maybe she has serious issues, maybe she is a bit unhinged. I thought, she could be my friend. I wanted to hug her so badly, but I didn't.

During yoga class the instructor at one point gave us permission to let out whatever sound was arising naturally, whatever felt right in the moment. I wanted to scream and howl and curse. I let out the softest sigh. No one heard my sound but me.

I am going out in the woods now. It is my daily resuscitation. My church. My home.

Outside is saving my life on the daily. Nature has always stayed. She doesn't bullshit, she doesn't back stab, she takes me as I am with no judgment. She has not once abandoned me, she always stays.

People leave. People have left me and I have left people. I feel bad about being part of that. I am only human. Sad excuse though.

Outside.

On my walk I saw a group of four deer. They paused, looked at me, and bounded off in the most graceful way. I also saw so many leaves dying a beautiful death. Grace.

There is so much beauty and so much grace, in this world, in you, in me, all around.

Gee, I like rambling. Maybe it is my new thing. Maybe it is a way to get honest. To get real.

Tea at Wartime

sitting here silent
sipping tea, birds are singing
while war rages on


my unearned safety
if i possessed the power
would blanket the world


by breath and heartbeat
i commit to remain here
arms held out in love

born to be healers

this is war

razor tongues
strike at every angle
mouths spit
poison darts
virulent
volcanic
scorched earth ruins
black winds 
fill throats
lungs
arteries

so thick
we can't see each other
or ourselves
nor the knives we are holding
to each others throats
ready to rip out voices
ready to rip out hearts
with words we deploy
sharp instruments
cut deep

we are brawlers
mud slingers
rabid and raging
feeding on anger
addicted to our
own venom
we swallow
we dispense
we kill
we are killed

you fight the ones
you call monsters
they are poised to do
the same
to you

we all fight the other

blood and guts
no glory

the coldest war
is the one where we
lose each other

the one that hardens our hearts
and steals peace from our very lips

words once spoken can never be retrieved

here are all the people
living with shrapnel
buried so deep

each heart
there bleeding at your doorstep

touch another wounded one
wash the cut
apply the poultice
put peace back on deserted lips

we all know how

we may be trained as warriors
and battles will be fought

the world may make us monsters

but we were born
to be healers

in the end
let us remember ourselves

Pic and a Poem; Visibility

   we float in uncertain space
   thinking what we see is real

   visibility is low

   impeded by elements
   clouds, wind, rain
   internal fog
   thick shape-shifter

   senses and stories
   built beliefs

   what deficient instruments
   to navigate complex worlds

   sitting on a boat long enough
   we may believe we are on solid land
   long ago having forgotten the water
   that buoys us up
   instead of swallowing us whole