clarity is coming again. it seems to follow suit: frustration, confusion, restlessness, an impulsive leap and loud splash, silent sinking, then awakening, paddling slowly though the waters, riding the waves and relaxing as my body tumbles across rocks...then this, a sandy patch to pull off in, dry off a bit...and breathe. i look back at the waters i had been navigating, grateful for the faithful movements i made from where i was, and then look ahead at the uncertain twists and turns that i must face. i know now that it's best to lasso one of the distant stars that starts twinkling as light fades on my sandy resting spot. i'll hitch myself to it for direction, but leave enough slack in the rope to allow for great movements off the path that leads there. breathing in. and out. remembering not to judge the lack of certainty but to celebrate the power of faith. continuing the surrender. keeping alive the faith.

edging up against fears and wanting to face them, rid myself of them. or simply accept that i have them. and then seek out that which can ease them or comfort me in the face of them. no denial. acceptance. but moving through and beyond. no longer hesitating as a lifestyle.

what i seek deeply is support. witnesses. deep knowing. and i've always thought that would come in the form of one person. but after 32 years and numerous attempts at trying to get circumstances to fit that mold, i see the need to reassess. perhaps i need to learn to acknowledge the multiplicity of people and things that offer to meet those needs and accept those offers. fear keeps me from saying yes. as does stubbornness. but fear and inflexibility have no place in the life of a flowing spirit...

i wish to let go, breathe in and ride...filling up with the love that is being offered and exhaling out disappointments over unmet expectations...clearing room for new, positive vibrations...

grateful for a birthday full of friends, fun, laughter, dancing, music, homemade dinners and cakes and pies, costumes, feathers, meditations and trust games, rose gardens, rain, lake views, fermented foods and connections growing stronger. i am blessed. such love...i can hope only to be a conductive receptor of such gifts...

This is Where We Live

by Pablo Neruda

I am one of those that live
in the middle of the sea and close to the twilight
a little beyond those stones.

When I came
and saw what was happening
I decided on the spot.

The day had spread itself
and everything was light
and the sea was beating
like a salty lion,
many-handed.

All that deserted space was singing
and I, lost and awed,
looking toward the silence,
opened my mouth and said:
"Mother of the foam,
expansive solitude,
here I will begin my own rejoicing,
my particular poetry."

From then on I was never
let down by a single wave.
I always found the flavour of the sky
in the water, in the earth,
and the wood and the sea burned together
through the lonely winters.

I am grateful to the earth
for having waited
for me
when sky and sea came together
like two lips touching;
for that's no small thing, no? -
to have lived
through one solitude to arrive at another,
to feel oneself many things and recover wholeness.

I love all the things there are,
and of all fires
love is the only inexhaustible one;
and that's why I go from life to life,
from guitar to guitar,
and I have no fear
of light or of shade
and almost being earth myself,
I spoon away at infinity.

So no one can ever fail
to find my doorless numberless house -
there between dark stones,
facing the flash
of the violent salt,
there we live, my woman and I,
there we take root,
Grant us help then.
Help us to be more of the earth each day!
Help us to be
more the sacred foam,
more the swish of the wave!

twenty-ten. twenty-ten. it had a nice ring to it. straight and compact, neat and clean. just so.

but twenty-eleven. twenty-eleven. feels a little wild and unpredictable...i like it.


i sit here in my old room, a room i lived out of for eighteen years. a small howard miller clock is ticking comfortingly on the desk next to me. my dad is shuffling through papers in the room next door. my mom is downstairs mixing together an apple cake for tomorrow's new year's eve party. seventeen people! her friends, our family. i hadn't planned to be here tonight; i'd planned to be back in california. but the fates conspired to keep me grounded in chicago this year, and i'm breathing in what is and exhaling expectations. i'm grateful to be here. i can help my mom bake cakes, i can see family friends that i haven't seen in a long time, and i can help to create warm family memories that'll feed us all when we're at a distance again.


as manufactured as it may be to see december 31st as any sort of demarcation line, i do believe in the energy shift that accompanies the birth of a 'new year.' i have a vague internal catalog that's filled in with memories and expectations and feelings, and it opens fully at certain times of the year and spills its contents out. new years eve is one of those times. each new year's eve, i journey through the late december pages of that catalog. 


i am  standing outside on a dark street and the air is moist from melting snow. it's cool, but not cold like it had been. windy. i'm in wheaton, illinois where my grandmother is living...and i'm young. and i'm sad because i'm aware of the transience of the moment...the moment wherein my mom and aunts and grandma and cousins are all together in my grandma's warm little house, laughing and sitting on the skinny metal chairs in her kitchen.  

now i'm sitting on a hotel bed in la quinta inn. i'm in college, i think, one of my earlier years. but i'm home for the holiday. we've got beer in the bathtub and about twenty people in the room. conversations are loud and despite the fact that my good friends are all in the room, i feel alone. the ball drops and everyone kisses someone else while i sit with my hands on my lap, looking down, knowing that i won't always feel so out of place. 

now i'm on navy pier. wearing a handmade crown. my hand is in matt's and we're walking together through the crowds of loud revelers to the end of the dock. i know he feels as out of place in the chaos as i do, and i squeeze his hand, looking forward to getting back to the quiet apartment where we're staying for the night. i don't feel the fleetingness in this memory, i felt at home and safe. the fireworks spark over the lake and we're quiet, calm together. breathing in the cold night air. 

short, fragmented memories of other new years eves. going to bed at 11:00 pm despite my family's protestations. eating terribly expensive and unsatisfying food with kevin at the moustache cafe in...vancouver? then heading straight for the nearest pub and getting french fries and beers to fill our tummies and to cheers the passing year. breaking small ceramic plates at a height and then letting them fall to the ground...releasing the old and welcoming in the new. tossing zircon dust out into the pacific ocean at goat rock, setting intentions to heal and accept. 

the past year has been one of creative growth, building confident strength, engagement with community and the opening of myself up more genuinely to that which surrounds me. this past year, i learned that my love can survive harsh conditions, and that its mechanism for said survival is transformation. we assume a certain result from loving...but sometimes love asks of us what we least expect and deprives us of what we think we need. this past year, love asked me to let go of a comfortable but ill-fitting structure that i'd made into a home and to take a leap into the great unknown. i still can summon the pain of the detachment from that comfort and the fear i felt standing at the ledge, exposed and alone. but then, the leap. it was silent but for the air rushing past my ears. my arms outstretched, i caught a current  like a bird in flight. i had no direction nor destination, just presence and awareness, complete immersion in the moment and the sensations at hand...faithful that i was headed exactly where i needed to be heading...

as i enter this new year, i am still in flight. sometimes going with a flock, oftentimes alone. but in all respects, keeping my wings outstretched and my heart open, following my true north...

my vessel - a conduit, my thoughts - enzymes...richly alchemizing that which flows into me...wishing in futility to hold onto some of that which is always metamorphosing to ease the loneliness...perhaps, instead, i will begin advertising shared work space in my laboratory of the soul...for a companion alchemist to work by my side independently, sharing reactants and heat sources and distillation glassware...creating, together, in solidarity...

this week was an opening. a saying yes. shoulders pressed back, heart to the sky, palms opened upward to receive...yes.

yes, i want to be involved.

yes, that's new to me, but i'll give it a try.

yes, i'm intimidated, but no, i'm not afraid.

yes, you can count on me to be there. and to be fully present.

yes, i am a woman now, a woman with real needs and true feelings.

yes, i'll acknowledge that sense of guidance that's glowing ever more brightly from my core.

yes, i'm manifesting my dream and no, i've no fear that i'll fail.

hesitant to put too much into words at the moment. preferring to let the evolution continue a bit further. but wanting to document this feeling, this sense of self and of purpose and of place that is growing increasingly strong.

a letting go, at last, of that which does not serve me; a growing sense of community, fostered by children and nature; recognition and reflection of an identity i've spent years constructing; circles intersecting and serendipity like firework bursts in the grand finale...

yes. yes. yes.

i am ready. i am here. i am open...







 

accept love.

allow intimacy.

dissolve walls...

synchronicities

serendipitous passings

...slow brewing alchemy...

rebirth

rising

in strength...