forgive and forget

I have been thinking of forgiveness. I told a friend lately that I had forgiven my ex-husband for everything he had done, even though I haven't actually told him this personally. As soon as I spoke the words out loud I felt a sense of release, a rush of sorts, that I have this power within me to let it all go. Later I wondered if I really had forgiven him for everything, and if so, what does this actually mean? Could I still allow myself a good silent cry at night at the thought of being single once again? Am I still allowed to be angry with him once in a while when I feel overwhelmed and burdened by single parenthood? Can I forgive AND forget? Not likely, well not without a little self-induced amnesia. I feel like I have the capacity to forgive but without truly forgetting, the emotion stirs just under the surface waiting for the slightest fissure in the foundation of my sanity to tunnel, split and reveal my inner everything. I am not sure I can forget, therefore I am not sure I will forgive. I desire the release of forgiveness, the freedom and the energy it will free up in my body. I want more than anything to feel a sense of relief from this burden I carry around during the day, and the pain I nurse during the night. I long to be rid of this sense of hatred and frustration, I long for peace. There is a quote that inspires me to look further into this forgiveness bit, it goes like this: "Peace does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart". I understand that there will always be people that hurt me, piss me off, inflict damage, but I long for peace, I long to move through it all and forgive. I long for release from these goddamn humanoid inconveniences: jealousy, hurt, rejection, anger. I forgive you for all of it. I forgive but will not forget. I will take these moments and stitch them to my faded jeans. Patches to cover the holes, piece the wreck back together, give rise to a new texture. I will forgive you for tearing my favorite jeans, I will not forget that you borrowed them without asking me first.

Holiday

I wish I could skip right past Christmas this year. Move ahead to March. A benign month, no depressing holidays to negotiate, there are no memories of March that torment me. Of course, the notion that one can just skip Christmas is ridiculous, Christmas is everywhere, it is in my car, in my grocery isle, wrapped around the local coffee kiosk like an absurd, well-lit shawl. My daughter, who is just beginning to collect her own Christmas stories, is forcing me to reconcile mine: the good, the bad and the ugly, all carefully packed like ornaments in boxes. I imagine Christmases to be unwrapped and lined up on the mantle, each one telling a story of a year on its way out.


I have these memories of Christmas that haunt my mind each December as soon as I spy the first string of white lights of the season. He was a Christmas fanatic. Really, he loved the holidays, the tree, lights, he would arrange boughs on our fireplace mantle for days, moving out one, adding another. I would watch in amazement, in awe really, all the while growing more and more frustrated with his wacky technique of stringing the white lights on the bottom of the tree, with the color coming out on top. Some of our biggest fights revolved around Christmas lights, infamous winter storms that trapped us, frozen like monsters beneath a thick sheet of ice and we would sit and wait for the thaw to reunite with our honeymoon selves. It is because of all this that I find Christmas to be utterly worth skipping, year after year. It is more painful this year than last, because he is circling back to the man I once knew, the thoughtful, festive, bough designer. I try to make Christmas something else now, morph it away from the past, snapshots of years when I was happy, full of joy. Last year there was no joy. I was mortified each and every day with the knowledge that my husband was using his creative edge not for decorating fireplaces but for discovering new ways to stay warm during one of the coldest and snowiest winters in recent memory. Last year was my worst Christmas ever. I could not realize joy knowing my husband was hunkered down in a sleeping bag on the porch of an abandoned house, not sleeping, ever. Last year I shifted like sheets of ice between his situation and mine. His: homeless, cold, hungry, reused Starbucks coffee cup, to the point of it nearly falling apart into a pulpy mess. All for a quarter refill. I will never forget the look on each and every barista's face as they shifted their gaze from his pathetic cup, to his dirty, scroungy pile of belongings in the corner, to the two year old girl who proudly held his hand, then finally to me. Me? Hurried, flustered, emotionally spent, beyond judgement, almost. I switched our meeting grounds from yuppie coffee shops to the anonymity of a fast food restaurant. We met at a KFC just before Christmas so he could see his daughter and give her the presents he had collected for her. A few stuffed animals, donated clothes, some strange knickknacks that only a two year old could find magical. For me: a new pair of Columbia tennis shoes, donated. Carefully selected by the husband for the wife who walked out six months earlier with all of her shoes in a plastic garbage bag. Lotions, a scarf, more tokens of his kindness for wife and child. A wife's gift for her estranged husband? Divorce papers, a Starbucks gift card, a plate of pity with a side of rejection. My husband? Marched on with his pride, his dirty sleeping bag, while his past loaded up a car with shame, sadness and depression and drove on. Two poles pulling further apart. Spinning on the same axis, but ending up in different worlds.

dancing

I took my daughter to her first rock concert / dance marathon last night. It was fabulous. I love how much my daughter loves to dance and how she lacks any amount of inhibition. This concert included three bands from Portland and was advertised as a dance marathon, a fundraiser/senior project for my friend's son. The show included performances by The way downs, The quick and easy boys, and Ma Barley. I love dancing, love, love, love it. I do not get the opportunity to dance much these days so I was thrilled with the idea of an all ages concert. Autumn asked the other day if she could dance, and I told her never to ask me that again. If you feel like dancing, dance sweetie, you don't need permission to move your own body. Of all the ideas and dreams I have for my daughter the few that stick hard and fast are these: be comfortable in your own body, be uninhibited and refuse to settle into socialized norms, and dance when you want to dance (she seems to have grasped two out of three so far) I love that my daughter is growing up (nearly 4!) and I look forward to getting to know her as she gets to know herself.

Happily ever after

I equate watching princess movies with my daughter to rubbernecking at the scene of a horrible car accident. I cannot seem to avert my eyes once I reach the intersection even as I vowed to respect the tragedy and not look. I am nearly positive these sorts of fantastical happily ever after stories will bear significant weight in warping her idea of happiness, marriage and everything in life that one expects to work out pleasantly. Despite my feminism and everything I know about gender, sex roles and society, I can't help but watch clear to the end as the girl marries the beast-turned prince and a kingdom is saved, once again. I continue to believe in a sort of magic couplehood that I have yet to experience and on some level realize may not exist, anywhere. This I get, I do. I understand that marriage is nothing like the stories, that if a couple if blissfully happy, they are not telling the whole truth and that life is messy, stinky and runs damn close to insanity at times. I never expected this for myself, just allowed myself the possibility of an attempt. I am trying to free myself up emotionally this week by giving up on a few possibilities. I am giving up on a love that will not ever become magical and real at the same time. I am giving up on the active search for love, or at least for that next romance. I am tired of the games of dating, the rules of engagement. It sucks to live a life tempered with convention and appropriateness, this is something I despise. I am closing the chapter of back and forth e-mail banter that is online dating. My words quickly betray me and I am no longer waiting for a response, for acknowledgement of an interested party. I cannot stand another fake relationship like the one I encountered recently, where the ground appears to be directly beneath my feet but on closer examination I am standing in a black hole.

Fall back

I have never before been as surprised with the daylight saving's nonsense as I was today. I found myself completely broadsided by an unexpected shifting of time. It was nothing o'clock for a brief moment today as I realized my clocks were no longer synchronized. This became my greatest gift of the day as I took my daughter outside to explore the space between the parenthesis of this newly realized moment. The sun was bright and as we walked around the yard we started noticing our shadows. Large willowy things that curved up around the tree trunk as we danced together. She was calling them sun shadows which reminded me of Cat Stevens. After running around in the sun for a while we came inside and listened to Moon shadows about nine times. That is what I did with my extra hour today. I considered it a gift of falling back into what I adore, what I love. I did some more falling back this weekend. I fell back on a pinkie promise with few regrets. I feel back into a town host to a painful wedge of my recent past and managed to squeeze out some emotion and a few cordial frivolities. I am falling back into an adoration that cannot be stopped, cannot be turned back one hour, or two. If I could turn back thirteen years what would I have said differently? If I could move the little hand to the nine and the big hand to the twelve, then what? What would we have left to say? It is hard to walk away from something that spreads over me like a lunar shadow, that fills my sky. Beautiful, unique, loveliness reflecting back into my hair, my neck, my moonlit backside. Tonight I will curl up between these two hands and fall back a little, bracing myself with your nine and my twelve.

Food porn

I want to return to the idea of food as pleasure. To the reality of a slow cooked, well planned meal that is joyful, memorable and lasts longer than two minutes. This goes out the window to some extent when one procreates. I continue to whip up a semi-gourmet meal from time to time. People complain, pick at the green beans and garlic, whine for something much less inferior than what has been offered. For me, the new porn is food. Real food. Food that takes ten times as long to create as it takes consume. Linger in front of the saucepan a little, bend over and feel the steam warm your skin. Julienne the carrots, purree the sauce, press the garlic firm and grind the peppercorns into dust. Butter caresses the warm bread, sinking deep into its thickness. Cream accompanies the sauce like a gentle wisp of a satin strap. Flavor explodes into my mouth like your kisses in the early years. Savory is my lover tonight, sweetness holds the door.

Mirror money

This evening my friend thanked me for my strength and beauty, for loving myself so much. We spoke of mirrors and self and the power to visualize the reflection as nothing less than greatness, beauty and peace. Today was not one of those days, but her words made me think about the currency of those moments. Last night I danced until three o'clock in the morning. I was beautiful, rhythmic, and enormously fun. Last night. Those few hours of feeling amazing should theoretically take me into today, should earn me enough dividends to sustain this current lapse into poverty. Most days I am able to find the strength to talk back and gaze forward beyond the imperfections. I insist on reveling in my uniqueness, my loveliness, my perfect core. I am drawn to your fire, she said, your realness. As you may already know by now, one of my favorite topics is what is real? Today, this is what real is to me: real is knowing you love me, warming myself with the realness of your words. Realness is remembering that you thought of me before you climbed out of bed this morning as I thought of you before I drifted to sleep. Realness is listening to a song over and over again because it reminds me of our beauty. "Once you are real, you can't be ugly, except to people that don't understand". -Velveteen Rabbit. I never thought loving myself this much would be such hard work. It is work. The job requires moments of inordinate strength as I resist the damage, love the imperfections and move forward. Some days I am flat broke, other days my realness sustains me through another meal.

hold fast to the dream

Hold fast to the dream
for when I wake up
you will be gone
the impression from your head
rebounds then disappears.
Everything you did to me
in my sleep
lingers like a smoke plume
until I blow you away.

Walk a mile

Today I walked in someone else's shoes. It was a brief moment. I caught my breath as I stopped to pull the car over to the side of the road and hold the weight in my chest. During this traffic stop I suddenly understood that my poetry was breaking apart the nuts and bolts of something bigger than me, bigger than the weekend plans I had made, bigger than my own needs. I finally understood what my brain had been trying to tell my heart all these months. The lines that connect my desire to my fortitude tangled, tripped my stride and I slowed to a stop. Today. I noticed someone else from the bleachers of this game we have been playing. She looked me straight in the eyes and shook her fist.

Chance meeting

As one relationship wraps up today I am starting to think about another. I am skeptical, yet hopeful. I am tired, yet waking up. I am hurt, but know my body will heal itself. I look for another chance meeting, a glance that might have some meat behind it, a conversation that could lead me in another direction. I am a lukewarm believer in the possibilities of online dating. It could work, it has worked to a degree for me in the past. But it is very strange. It is mass marketing yourself to a geographical swath of people who are also mass marketing themselves to you. What is it I want strangers to know about me? I am brave, but still afraid, I am funny unless I am sad. I am committed unless I find someone else, I am adventurous unless I chicken out at the last minute. I am bold, unless that offends you, I am sexy unless your rejection makes me feel ugly, I am safe unless you make me feel vulnerable. I am alone, unless you give me enough of your love tonight, I am unable to move forward with you, and cannot imagine moving back. I am done.

Breathe

I am trying to remember to breathe. In, out, in again. I am contemplating this space between me and everyone else. Today it feels more like a boat drifting away from a dock while someone's back is turned. One minute the boat is snug on the shoreline, secure, pressing its sturdy shape into the earth. The waves begin to nudge and loosen this old girl from her port out towards the sea. In, out, in again. I am drifting, feeling the saltwater lap repeatedly against my barnacles, my weather worn hull moving outward. I discover the buoyancy of a quiet surrender, drifting away from it all.

I am what I am

A recent shift in my life has carved out a gap, a break in what I had labeled as happiness. This gap or empty space occurred because I am losing someone dear to my heart. He is moving on and the place he has occupied in my recent days will be big and cold and hollow. My mind takes a snapshot of this void and tries to gives it a name. This negativity holds an unfortunate place marker and I am stuck now waiting for the happy to resume. My flow is interrupted and I feel stuck in this quagmire, longing for something else, someone else, or this loved person to reenter. I am determined to mind the gap. My journey is now and these interruptions need not trip me up.

My zen teacher tonight pointed out something very interesting. When a child trips he or she will not turn around to seek out the culprit of his fall. The child simply gets up and keeps moving along. When an adult trips he or she will turn around and find out what it was that caught her foot and caused her fall. By looking for the cause, we end up naming the interruption and these repeated named interruptions inevitably lead to scar tissue making the continuity of mind body flow impossible. I caught myself looking behind me to scrutinize and examine the large slice of pavement that just tripped me up. The scar tissue runs deep, raised purple welts, with silver striae marking my flesh. However, today I refuse the interruption. I will not look to the pavement cracks and I will not feel for the raised reminder of repetition. This stumble will not mark my hide like the past. My flow will resume and my journey will bring me home. Tonight was filled with talk of the journey of subtraction, peeling layers of the construct of self to find out what is real. I understand I am real. "I am what I am" -Popeye

My wedding anniversary would have been this Saturday. While weighing the heavy this day held for me, I found myself tripped up with yet another unexpected relationship shift and began thinking about several ideas, one of them was the concept of self and being real. This incidentally reminded me of my wedding day. During the ceremony, the minister read a passage from one of my favorite books, The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams. This passage touches me deeply and reminds me to look at my self, and to be true to my experiences and how they rub away at my velveteen as I become more real.

"What is REAL?" asked the rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the skin horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
"I suppose you are REAL?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the skin horse might be sensitive. But the skin horse only smiled.
"The boy's uncle made me real", he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It last for always."

morning glory

I feel pretty removed from "poetry" lately, so lets just call this little bit that follows some
random words with various degrees of meaning, lined up like soldiers to be read and understood (or not). Enter. Criticism. Hold. Me.



What do I find so appealing about
this moment that has not yet
evolved beyond breakfast
my spring loaded step quickening
tempered with a glance beyond your head
in order to finish up fast
power push but gently slow down
as if I could possibly dominate
the wildness of this moment

I will promise to hang glide into your field
later to smooth over the imprint of
my body in your autumn grass
nothing bent, everything in order as
footprints escape and fall behind
your
fantasy

Packing produce

Two ideas are running through my head right now, trying to converge, collide and breathe more life into one another. Ideas living like lovers, living tandem lives, wanting to be closer, feeding the other. One idea is this: I was genuinely surprised to find out recently that a friend of a friend packs a concealed weapon nearly everywhere. He is not in law enforcement. He works for the promotion of health and wellness. I understand the right to own, carry and fire a gun. I believe there is more of a stink made about that "right" than needs be. I want freedom of choice. I love options, I am definitely an advocate of possibilities. Don't want to carry a gun? Don't. Don't want to have an abortion? Don't. People get way too involved in these sort of rights. That being said, why must guns exist as possibilities under the shirt of a stranger standing next to me in Safeway or dancing next to me at a concert? We have drug free zones and cell phone free zones, and smoke free zones and alcohol-free towns, but I have never seen a gun free zone. A year ago I dreamt about guns, firing them at a certain and precise target, hitting my mark, feeling the kickback of its power. I was filled with the rising tension of a balloon inflating with fear and hate and anger, and I longed for release. Gunfire struck me as an opportunity to release this pressure. I was angry and unable to express my fear, just knew it was out there in the dark somewhere, and I would just like to feel safe as I fired my gun into its blackness. I would carry my weapon strapped to my leg, just above my ankle. It would be accessible, but not noticeable. Lethal, but with a breeze of forgiveness on a good day. The target in my mind has faded considerably a year later and doubt that target practice would regain the fierceness of my attention. When I inquired as to why this person felt the need to carry a gun everywhere, the response? To feel safer. For protection. What do we need to feel safe? Money in our saving account. Seat belts and helmets. Food in our pantry. Clothes in our closets. Good solid tires on our vehicles. A loaded gun under our shirt? I do not feel safe with loaded weapons wrapped around my next corner. Security check please! Diverging toward airports and public threats I am reminded of the security checks in the Hawaiian airports. Hawaiians are damn serious about agricultural inspection. I was required to have all my bags and my body searched for produce. Papayas and mangoes replace guns as I was ordered to itemize my vegetative contraband before I could enter the island and searched before I was allowed to leave. I was a potential security threat for what? The possibility of concealed produce, strapped to a leg, tucked in a carry on bag. I love Hawaii in part because of their strict "check your shit at the door" policy. There are no snakes on the island for this very reason. The snake-free zone of the islands is something I find comfort in as I visit. It all makes me wonder what should be allowed to enter our own islands. Just because someone has a permit allowing them to carry a gun into a concert, should they be able to march right through my safety zone? What if your fear conflicts with my fear? What then? Can I exist safely knowing the guy next to me has a pistol in his pants? Can I live with myself knowing I managed to conceal an avocado through all three checkpoints? I guess what you don't know won't always hurt you, perhaps it is the audacity of its extreme existence that seems most threatening.

grenades

This was actually written last week, but due to technical difficulties, I am posting it today.

This morning while listening to "Europe Today" I heard the story of a soldier from Turkey who died while holding a grenade. He was caught falling asleep while on duty, so as punishment his commanding officer handed him a grenade, pulled the pin and insisted the soldier hold it as he walked away. The reporters covering the story were asking why this man had not done what most of us would likely do; throw it as far as we could in one direction, and run in the opposite direction. Why had this man obeyed the order to hold on to certain death, awaiting the inevitable moment his palms would become increasingly sweaty and shaky and the grenade would slip through his hands, detonating beneath him. Three other soldiers nearby died as well. Okay, clearly the power dynamics were fucked here for a superior to implement this "teaching moment" or whatever it was, but I also have to wonder what other grenades was this man carrying for him to lack the conviction to save himself? Why was he continually falling asleep at work? Was he holding up this grenade because he was commanded to? For what reasons does someone just accept their situation instead of risking the possible repercussions of launching it across the field? Perhaps he thought he was capable of holding it forever. I began to think about the three soldiers also killed in the explosion. Why were they so close to the grenade? Were they trying to convince him to keep holding the bomb, did anyone even suggest he get rid of it? Perhaps they too were forced into a deadly choice. It is strange to imagine being in such a situation, forced to hold such power and certain death. Heart racing, palms getting sweatier by the minute, concentrating on not moving, thinking or breathing too much, holding this burden of imminent destruction in your hands. I try to imagine the other grenades he might have been carrying, tucked deep into his cargo pant pockets or carefully cradled in his backpack, padded to avoid detonation. I am thinking of all the explosive devices we carry ourselves, the bombs others hand us; the ugliness that sometimes comes out of a lover's mouth, plops into our arms, pin already pulled. We look at it and think it best to pocket it, shove it down deep so we can't see it, but still we can feel its roundness, its power when we brush up against its formidable shape or as it is retrieved occasionally to reexamine and inspect its killing power.

The grenades of our own making, the ugly and negative thoughts that keep us from feeling free, prevent us from launching it westward and running east. We hand ourselves the grenades to be sure, pulling our own pins with choices we make, people we continue to love and addictions we feed. Pretty soon, we can start to feel heavy, burdened with small and large grenades that we carry for ourselves, that we carry for others. Our cargo pockets are bulging, our backpacks heavy and our spirits broken. We are unable to think of the possibility that we could lighten our own load. The pain and criticism of a past does not need to burden us, we can launch our bombs away from our bodies and not let them drop to our feet. The soldiers that surround us should be encouraging, reminding us of our options, our strength, our possibilities. About a year and half ago I began pulling out my own grenades from my cargo pant pockets, grenades handed to me over a lifetime when I felt weak, insecure, and doubtful. I had made the unfortunate decision to hold onto them instead of launching them, tucking them deep within hoping they would just go away, diffuse on their own or corrode and no longer be such a risk. They do not go away and will eventually detonate as you pass over a large bump in the road, or someone trips you up. I hope the tragedy of this soldier becomes bigger than a five minute story on the radio. I believe he will come to mind the next time someone tries to hand me a load of bullshit. I would like to believe that I am capable of refusing his grenade or if I am too late, I will continue to believe in the launch.

underwear on head 3/09

While walking on the beach today I noticed a piece of paper sticking out of the sand. For some reason I reached for it and picked it up. It was a photograph of a young girl probably about 5 or 6. She had bright red hair and had a pair of underpants on her head fashioned like a hat. She had a large smile on her face, most likely because of the underwear on her head. It was a cute picture and something my own daughter has done as she laughs hysterically. I turned the photo over and written on the back in pencil was "underwear on head, 3/09". It seemed laughable to label a photograph like this. It was so obviously a girl with underwear on her head. There did not seem to be any room for misinterpretation. I started thinking about labeling certain memories of my own, scribbling something in pencil on the back of the photo paper, followed by the month and the year. There are memories I struggle to remember as I get older, as well as those moments that are inevitably etched into my brain. It is almost like the good memories fade faster for me than the more traumatic memories. I would love to be able to peel out all the negative memories from my photo album, label the backs of the photo paper with the event and the date, then scatter them across a windy beach. I could release any ownership I still claimed of these moments, leaving them partly sticking out of the sand for someone else to discover, glance at the rawness of a stranger's life only to drop them to the ground and move on. After contemplating a few of the pictures I might collect from my albums, label and then scatter, I came up with these moments; the first moment in public school when I felt insignificant and ugly 5/83. The moment I used someone just to make myself feel better, 9/89. The day I made someone else's day miserable, 7/98. The moment I realized I would have to break my marriage vows, 3/08.

Conversely there are moments that defy labels, when writing on the back of the photo would be laughable, like the underwear on the head moment. The day my daughter was born. The day I realized that the path my life could take was up to me, completely. The day I closed the door on my own slow death and made the choice to live again.

I like to imagine that I can I hear the snap of the shutter and a bright flash of light documenting every day that I wake up and begin to create new moments. At age 36, I now understand that I can have a portfolio of scattered negativity or albums bursting with brilliant points of color lining my shelves.

50/50

I am currently negotiating the fine line between offering myself and losing myself. It probably isn't a very brilliant topic to blog about but seems to be occupying my brain today. Which really is the larger point of this blog. I tend to have things circulate around my head repeatedly and love the opportunity for release. For the three of you that may occasionally read this blog, I thank you for understanding that my blog is merely one more way to help me move through this life with more substantial, meaningful strokes. The title of my blog translates into "where are you taking me?" Well, I really have no clue, but I am certain there is pleasure to be found there.

So back to being torn between giving parts of myself, my time, my love, my stuff and the expectations that come with receiving others. I don't think this is a very unique dilemma, in fact when you trim the leafy greens off our days, scrub, peel and boil it all down, what you end up with, I believe, is often a batch of 50/50. What am I getting out of this experience? If I do this for you, what will you do for me? Where is my share? The collective desire in general seems to be for life to shake out into equitable portions. Every day breathes moments when I am capable of giving more than I am handed back, or conversely, feeling guilt for taking more than my share. I want to love someone because I find them to be an irresistible human; beautiful, humorous, graceful and damn brilliant at times, not how they may love me back. I want to give someone my time because I can and not in turn mapping out the moment their time becomes mine. It seems impossible to expect a fistful of nothing after handing over jewels. It seems equally impossible to exist in a place where deals are constantly being made between lovers, spouses, roommates or family. Life leads toward a sense of division and vapidness when contracts must be re-negotiated for the cleaning of a toilet, scheduled moments of intimacy, grocery store receipts that are inked up and circled with arrows pointing out MY lettuce and YOUR cheese, or child rearing that is up to me today, you tomorrow. What happens to a sense of community when we go 50/50? We seem to be pulled toward opposite ends of the relationship, like during the third phase of mitosis when the daughter chromosomes are pulled toward polar opposite sides, nearly reaching the completion of a cell dividing. In healthy tissue, the rate of cell division needs to match the rate of cell destruction. I am aware that a balance must be struck between giving and saving, with separation as a motivation for growth. I get that, but I am not always able to define that moment when I tip the balance in favor of loss over gain, when more of my cells are dying than dividing. It really comes down to the moment when I should have said no instead of nothing. I am beginning to understand lately that saying no does not necessarily negate the success of your community. I understand I have the option to pocket the jewels and dance alone.

stripping down

I recently booked a weekend getaway to Breitenbush hot springs near Detroit, Oregon. The woman on the phone asked me if I had ever been a guest before, I said no, I had not. I heard her shuffle some papers and imagined she might have shifted in her seat, to make herself more comfortable as she began a ten minute introduction of what to expect when we arrive. I had a pretty good idea of what she was going to tell me, so I sat back and paid casual attention to her words. She spent about one minute on the concept of a swimsuit optional community. "Most people do not wear swimsuits here, but we encourage you to do what makes you most comfortable while you are visiting". She then moved on to the list of what items to bring, what to leave behind, what is available and what is not. There is no cell service within miles and miles of Breitenbush. No wifi, internet, no electrical appliances are permitted. If a coffee pot is plugged in the entire electrical system might be thrown off track. Really? Leave your perfumes, scented lotions, glass containers, camping stoves, booze, cigarettes and drugs behind. It seemed to me that the lack of clothing was not as shocking as perhaps the lack of technology, stimulants, Internet service and cellular capabilities. I started thinking about nakedness. Removing complications from our lives. Stripping down. Someone recently said to me, my life is so complicated. I just want simplicity. What complicates our lives? What hassles and frustrates us? How do we move beyond complications into simplicity? As the woman on the phone kept talking about the hot springs community I pictured a woman, tall, curvy, dressed in a long skirt, black pumps on her feet, tight blouse, billowy scarf hanging over her neck, all much too formal for this place. Her hair is freshly brushed, pinned and fastened on her head. As she gets out of her car, one of her high heels falls off into the dirt. She does not reach for it. The other leg extends out and is planted firmly on the ground. With a quick jerk of her leg the other shoe drops to the ground. One by one, articles of clothing are peeled away, shimmied down thighs, stepped out of, slid over shoulders, then arms, and hands. Layers peeled and discarded on the ground leaving a fabric trail from car to water. She is finished with clothing. Now she unplugs the wires extending from her ears to her music. Drops the whole contraption into the grass. Takes a cell phone from her purse and places it on a rock near the path she walks. Leaves the purse near the stream which runs toward the hot pools. One by one she removes the rings from her fingers tugging, pulling them off. They fall haphazardly into small holes likely dug by rodents. A wrist watch lies face down near a tree trunk. With one last shift, she tilts her head to the right and gently slaps her left as if to remove any water from her ear canal. With a slow shake of her head from side to side, the remainder of the television show she watched last night falls from her ears to the ground like water droplets, both small and large combine to form a small pool beneath her legs. Gone, cleaned out. With a deep satisfying exhale she exhumes the argument she had with her lover that morning and watches as it escapes her body by way of her mouth like a steamy cloud of precipitation. Stripped. Down. She briefly glances back at the trail of clothing, the thin wires of her technology tangled like eagerly removed lingerie and moves ahead.

Stray dog

I met someone today. At first glance I thought he had a place, belonged to someone. But he seemed bored and followed me like I was someone who had direction, knew where she was going. Today I did. I was headed on a vigorous walk to the ocean, exactly one mile from my house. First, a short jog down a busy street, then a left turn to a residential road which leads directly to the ocean. After getting a safe distance from what I thought was his home, I realized he was still following me. I shooed him, told him to go home, thought about throwing a pebble at him so he would get the idea. I didn't. He didn't. We continued along the road to the ocean. I was mildly annoyed to have a hairy, slobbering companion along for my solitary trek. I watched as he ran through the dune grass, smelling, searching. He ran wide side circles around me, then abandoned me for a few minutes only to return as if he knew me intimately, like I had thrown a thousand balls for him in the past, out, retrieve, then out again. As we approached the dunes leading to the ocean, I began to feel like he could belong to me, maybe he had been mine before and we had found each other again. I started to glance over to him, eager now, to keep pace with him.We moved in a sort of random, but methodical synchronization. Clip, rustle, clip. He kept coming back. Once we arrived on the beach he took off. Chased birds, ran into the waves as I walked along the water's edge. I sort of forgot about him for a while, he was out of sight, I was focused on my music, on the roar and pull of the ocean. He seemed relieved to have arrived at our unplanned destination, as if instead of just meeting and following one another, we had woken up together that morning and made plans to walk towards the ocean, knowing we would arrive later that day, as expected. He eventually returned from running in the waves. He was soaking wet and moving past me, eyeing something with interest. I looked to my left and saw what he was after. He began rubbing up against an object, hurling his body against it repeatedly. It was a very large, dead seagull. My first reaction was one of horrified disgust, I gagged and yelled for him to stop, as if he was mine. As if I would be the one to clean up his body, the one to pick out the bones and torn tissue from his fur, as if any of this was my problem. He was acting crazed, excited and obsessed with this dead bird. I had never seen such enthusiasm for death before. He rubbed his body against the dead bird again and again, like he was trying to uncover something familiar, something recognizable in the feathery rotting mass on the sand. I was fascinated to see such passion for something utterly dead. Life and death colliding in a sort of frenzy, a sort of mind blowing moment for him, and for me, a voyeur. I understand it was likely the fetid smells he was revelling in, the rankness of animal decay. I was blown away for a moment at this collision, of life seeking death and life intensifying after his discovery, or so I imagined, honestly how do I know what he has known before today, we just met. To know something intimately, smell beyond what makes another gag and turn their head to the side in disgust, one can walk away with new found energy, perhaps more alive than before. I am walking away now from my own fecundity, moments of spiritual death that I realize have left more than a faint aroma on my body, indeed have lifted me up, made me smell my own fear, gag with nervousness and come out breathing, come out living, laughing. My moments are tangible, body enough to rub against, abrasive and pungent enough to turn heads. Deeply. Movingly. Life for me is hard core, body and rank. It is rubbing up against the raw stink of whatever. Change, risk, fear, passion, whatever is going through my moment, rub it. I want to get as close as I can, get some stink on me. Take it home. The dog was mine now. He followed me home, past the house where we met and straight to my front door. Shoo dog. Go home I said. Instead I put out a bowl of food.