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.