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.