briefly.

thank you for the well-wishes, and thank you for thinking of me. it means so much!

things are taking longer than i thought they would, but every day i miss you all, my friends.

happy new year.

spiral.

"Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving."
Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

what? no sweet potatoes?

discussing plans for thanksgiving with my mom recently, i was surprised at some of the dishes on the menu, and shocked at some of the omissions. it didn't even occur to me to inquire about the menu earlier; it was the one i had grown up with, so no need to ask, right?

oh, how wrong i was, and the error wholly one of my memory. all those years on my own, planning and preparing thanksgiving dinner for my husband and i, i felt secure in the knowledge of which dishes were family traditions and which were personal innovations. the reality is that i had conflated several holiday menus, serving forth a mish-mash cobbled together from a child's imperfect recollections.

it's not a crisis. the dishes that end up on the holiday table are immaterial to the true enjoyment of the occasion (we even dabbled with lasagne there for awhile), but it's curious to run headlong into the fraility of one's own memory. how much of what i recall actually happened in that fashion, and how much is the reconstructed story i have told myself all these long years?

we each live in our own fairytale, and see the world around us in terms unique to our own inner languages. we each speak to ourselves in a dialect strange and unusual to others. never assume you understand the other. you may be mistranslating their word for sweater with your word for chicken, or thinking you will be eating cranberry sauce when all that will be on the table is a cranberry jello salad.

but how wonderful to think one can be a tourist without even packing a bag, just by listening closely to the conversation of one's companions, just by comparing memories of shared events. we can each of us be an adventure to the other, and each of us an ambassador.

non sequitur.

did you ever want to start over?

and then maybe everything would finally be good, would finally fit, would finally be the way you always thought it would be.

haunted.

you're scaring me.

don't go.

don't go.

(if there's a path i take every day through blogbelieve it's this: the castle to catch up, then here to see who stopped by, then yours just to see, just to make sure, just because.
i'm sorry if that's too much, but that's how it is.
home, here, you.)

occult.

There are things we don't speak of.
But inside is a landscape,
all the long hollows filled
with a rising restless ocean.
And the satellite
that conducts
its ebb and
tide is
you.

hallow's eve.

it was perfect. i had scouted out the area earlier in the day, and had decided that the back corner of the field was the best spot for me to have my sabbat observance. the ground had a slope that was unnoticeable until you were at the bottom of it. standing there, tucked in against the woods curving behind me and around me to my right, the land rising away from me protectively, i knew this was my spot. it was so cozy.

tonight, in the dark, everything was different. larger. stranger. birds startled by my passage fluttered away, their wings ratcheting and loud against the bare branches. the world was shadow and deep dark, and the only color was the endless eternal liquid of the night sky, and the stars that live there.

but i went to my spot (as best as i could identify it), and sat myself down, and made my arrangements. candle, lady, and an apple for offering. leaves around it, cider to the side. i was a little jittery, but i breathed deep. i wasn't going to be alone for long. i was here to meet my gods and all my beloved dead.

however, it's difficult to ground and center when your adrenaline is making your heart pound behind your sternum. it's very difficult, exceedingly difficult in fact, to focus your thoughts when you are listening to something walking through the autumn leaves in the woods behind you.

walking through the woods towards you, in the dark.

on all hallow's eve.

there are many creatures that live in the woods behind the house. deer, opossum, raccoons, squirrels...

coyotes.

so i listened. impossible to see anything, what with the candle light ruining my night vision. i listened and the footsteps came closer, came around to the side, following the curve of the woods, came to the edge.

well. that's just not right. how can i have a sabbat when i'm unable to breathe, or think? but it's halloween, and i'm a witch. whatever that is that's walking unafraid toward me through the rustling dead leaves is doing it wrong. they ought to be afraid of me, not the other way around.

so i gathered myself, and straightened my spine, and looked directly into the woods, though i could barely see anything from the candle's glare. but i looked directly all the same, i levelled my witch's gaze on the trees and raised my arm stiff and straight and pointed at the unseen offender, pointed with all the force of a stern and disapproving librarian.

"i hear you." i declared, each word with the weight of stone and earth. "i hear you. go away. go away!"

that was that. no more footsteps. and soon enough i had regained my calm, and greeted my gods. i laughed at myself and knew they grinned along with me. i embraced my memories of my departed, and told them what i missed of them, and what i was given by them. i reaffirmed my connection to the forefather of all my family in this country. with love and pride i gave them my offering, and shared it too with my gods, who then shared with me.

maybe it was a shorter, less poetic observance than in the past. maybe my voice singing the closing song was a little louder than usual.

but being afraid, and being under the stars, greeting my gods and greeting my dead, candlelight and night air, all that made it all perfect. the ties are renewed. i am reconnected. i can go into the dark of the year, no matter what rustlings may shadow me.

starlight

"Starlight"
by Muse

Far away
The ship is taking me far away
Far away from the memories
Of the people who care if I live or die

Starlight
I will be chasing the starlight
Until the end of my life
I don't know if it's worth it anymore

Hold you in my arms
I just wanted to hold
You in my arms

My life
You electrify my life
Let's conspire to ignite
All the souls that would die just to feel alive

But I'll never let you go
If you promised not to fade away
Never fade away

Our hopes and expectations
Black holes and revelations
Our hopes and expectations
Black holes and revelations

Hold you in my arms
I just wanted to hold
You in my arms

Far away
The ship is taking me far away
Far away from the memories
Of the people who care if I live or die

And I'll never let you go
If you promise not to fade away
Never fade away

Our hopes and expectations
Black holes and revelations
Our hopes and expectations
Black holes and revelations

Hold you in my arms
I just wanted to hold
You in my arms
I just wanted to hold


i am loving this song so much right now. thank you to ergo for making it available to me.

sunrise.

one of the results of my impromptu morning photoshoot. i'm really quite pleased with the effect of shooting the picture backlit by the rising sun. it was a fun way to start the day. :)

listen.

touch your face. with the most sensitive finger of your receptive hand, reach up and touch your skin at that point mystics call the third eye, that place between and just above your eyebrows. reach up reverently, as if you are not touching yourself, but your lover.

do you feel it? your own skin as gentle as another's?

slide your finger down the line of your face, awaken the nerve endings with the kiss of your own skin against your own skin. close your eyes, make the touch you are giving yourself the only world. follow the rise and curve of your nose, dip into the groove above your mouth, come to a stop on your lower lip.

rest there, where you kiss.

feel your breath push out against your fingertip. feel your pulse in the rhythm of its ebb and tide. feel your life waiting to be tasted.

remember you are body and breath and all of it meant to be shared. remember the miracle of discovering the mysteries of another's body, how it was familiar, how it was strange, how it fit against your own. remember how you were a gift to each other.

we are each of us this miracle.

touch your face.

fragment.

But even though she had learned not to jump when he touched her, still, his hands resting on her shoulders had a warmth all their own, that seeped into her skin and stole half her focus.

pharos beam

XIV
by A.E. Housman

There pass the careless people
That call their souls their own:
Here by the road I loiter,
How idle and alone.

Ah, past the plunge of plummet,
In seas I cannot sound,
My heart and soul and senses,
World without end, are drowned.

His folly has not fellow
Beneath the blue of day
That gives to man or woman
His heart and soul away.

There flowers no balm to sain him
From east of earth to west
That's lost for everlasting
The heart out of his breast.

Here by the labouring highway
With empty hands I stroll:
Sea-deep, till doomsday morning,
Lie lost my heart and soul.

my friend will.

SCENE II. The forest.

Enter ORLANDO, with a paper

ORLANDO
Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love:
And thou, thrice-crowned queen of night, survey
With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere above,
Thy huntress' name that my full life doth sway.
O Rosalind! these trees shall be my books
And in their barks my thoughts I'll character;
That every eye which in this forest looks
Shall see thy virtue witness'd every where.
Run, run, Orlando; carve on every tree
The fair, the chaste and unexpressive she.

Exit

i'm still reading poetry.

Winter: My Secret
by Christina Rossetti

I tell my secret? No indeed, not I:
Perhaps some day, who knows?
But not today; it froze, and blows, and snows,
And you're too curious: fie!
You want to hear it? well:
Only, my secret's mine, and I won't tell.

Or, after all, perhaps there's none:
Suppose there is no secret after all,
But only just my fun.
Today's a nipping day, a biting day;
In which one wants a shawl,
A veil, a cloak, and other wraps:
I cannot ope to every one who taps,
And let the draughts come whistling thro' my hall;
Come bounding and surrounding me,
Come buffeting, astounding me,
Nipping and clipping thro' my wraps and all.
I wear my mask for warmth: who ever shows
His nose to Russian snows
To be pecked at by every wind that blows?
You would not peck? I thank you for good will,
Believe, but leave that truth untested still.

Spring's an expansive time: yet I don't trust
March with its peck of dust,
Nor April with its rainbow-crowned brief showers,
Nor even May, whose flowers
One frost may wither thro' the sunless hours.
Perhaps some languid summer day,
When drowsy birds sing less and less,
And golden fruit is ripening to excess,
If there's not too much sun nor too much cloud,
And the warm wind is neither still nor loud,
Perhaps my secret I may say,
Or you may guess.

fuzzy buzzy

my sister came over for a labor day cookout today. while her husband entertained the folks indoors, we rambled around outdoors.

rambled, that is, until we discovered the bumblebees enjoying their own backyard feast in the flower beds. they were so cute, making their way across the flower heads, *nom nom nom*, but it was the big one that impressed us and halted us in our ramble. he was a massive inch in length, and fat and shiny and fuzzy and very very focussed.



we decided he was so large that he no longer could rightly be called a "bumblebee", that most assuredly he must be a "BOMBLEBEE". our giggling must have irritated the fine fellow, because he lifted off and lumbered through the air to a further flower. the hum of his wings was so deep we decided his first name was "harley".

"harley bomblebee, ma'am, at your service. but just let me finish eating this first."

then i remembered that when i met my former husband back in college, he had sought to impress me by petting bumblebees. could this be attempted? would i have the skill? mr. bomblebee's back was so wide, and so visibly furry, i knew i had to dare it.



success!

but a second attempt seemed to exhaust his patience with us. i had barely brushed his back when, in a sudden pique, he thrashed one black leg up at my finger, "geroff!"

abashed, delighted, and amused, we did, and left him and all his smaller kin to their picnic, while we returned to ours.

sparrow's flight

for the last few months, i have been using a rose-scented lotion. a hand-me-down bottle, a gift my mother didn't care for. i liked it, i used it, i finished it, and i purchased something of my own. vanilla, this time.

last night, sitting at this computer, my scented hands seemed to be the final turn of the key, the tumblers all clicked over and opened me to last winter, when i sat on the blog in the dark evenings, a cup of coffee at my side, music in my ears, and my hands soft from the vanilla-scented lotion that was the only kind i could afford to buy.

dark night around me in those days, my little apartment bare and spare and snug, everything in it mine alone, even if that wasn't much. but no more stacks of things that had nothing to do with me, no more dealing with anything that wasn't directly mine in that little sanctuary. even the pantry only held what i put in it, and i took a perverse pride in its nakedness.

and so the winter evenings were spent sitting around the hearth there, telling stories in the hall we shared, answering my hunger with coffee and the vanilla scent of my hands on the keys.

it was a good start. i was as bare as my walls and cupboards, and all that clean space within me gave me so much hope. the evenings telling stories gave me courage for the days alone. i felt my feet were connected to the earth and there was nowhere that my stride could not carry me.

how did the months pass so quickly? and why does it feel as though they have wasted away everything that was useful in me? why do i feel so crammed full with dross and junk again? somehow, all my bare shelves have cheap bric-a-brac on them.

i don't want to do things the right way.

i don't want a pantry filled with things to eat that i didn't choose for myself.

i want my own path, even if it's crazed and mazed and incomprehensible. i've got the map to it, i know the way it ducks under branches and goes small to slip between brambles. and i want the hearth again, i want the stories shared in the cozy winter hall, not this place opened to the light and the dust and the noise of summer.

(and i know it doesn't matter in the long run, what i want, because the seasons turn. everything will change,and change again. crying about the loss of what was never permanent is childish.)

i have vanilla-scented hands.

give me enough night, and i will clear off my shelves with them.

i can do this without you, but oh, how i enjoyed your company.

faulty wiring.

there always comes a time in every group where i feel as though i have worn out my welcome. suddenly, i have been dismissed, or otherwise shelved, and i never know why, exactly. one day, sitting at the table, the next, watching through the glass.

i don't remember feeling this as a child, but somewhere around the onset of adolescence i began to know what it was to be alone in a crowd. typical, and i suppose i was meant to grow out of it, eventually, but it plagues me to this day.

and so i end up in the back seat again, or on the edge of the chat, smiling and pretending i've been included, or holding my head high and wearing the cold mask that lets you think i have never needed anyone, that i am content this way, that i am complete and entire to myself, self-sufficient.

eventually, no matter how entertaining or ingratiatingly pleasant i may be, i find myself in the corner, wondering why they don't really like me anymore.

best make a virtue of it. best pretend i'm my own best friend. best to be good at pretending.

after all, it's all just in my head, anyway.

orienteering.

sometimes, i like to sing along.

(after the lip-syncing comes the chair-dancing.)

i need to be a better hostess.

The guest house
by Rumi

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.


again, my thanks.

ashes, ashes...

there are so many nevers in my head tonight.
i am weary, even of myself,
and this incessant elation and despair.

nothing is real.
my heart is of no importance.

and if i could, i would, but i lost the trick of it a long time ago. my conscience is too clever; it worms in through the tiniest crack.

never mind.

i am only talking to myself.

dissolution.

i am dying, actually.

after that autumn when everyone was leaving me, i began to look at my life as if it was being stripped down for some reason. it was very painful, but i pulled myself out of the hole time and time again with the nebulous idea that maybe, just maybe, this flaying of my life down to the bones had a purpose. maybe my life was being clear-cut to make room for something better, for my true and best self.

today a new image came to me. i didn't understand it, at first.

my life has been emptied out, and i'm slowly, in fits and starts, refilling it. i was beginning to see my life as a winter garden, bare and waiting for the spring planting. but then, this image.

the stripping down continues. it has moved within. i am dissolving, disintegrating and all on the inside. i am losing parts of myself that i thought crucial and core, and today i realized that they are being stripped away like particles in a sandstorm, components of my being flaking away in an internal cloud, gone away.

what will be left?

who will i be?

will i be anything at all?

because sometimes i forget.

Become the Sky
by Rumi

Inside this new love...die
Your way begins on the other side
Become the sky
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color
Do it now
You're covered with thick cloud
Slide out the side.
Die...and be quiet
Quietness is the surest sign
that you've died.
Your old life was a frantic running
from silence.

The speechless full moon
comes out now.



Thank you.

and sometimes, no one at all.

He would not stay for me, and who can wonder
by A. E. Housman

He would not stay for me, and who can wonder?
He would not stay for me to stand and gaze.
I shook his hand, and tore my heart in sunder,
And went with half my life about my ways.

and sometimes ariadne.

the descent made without passing a gate
standing in a labyrinth of no walls
an open plain
scoured and sere
somewhere, the minotaur awaits
and there is no hero to save myself
save myself
and i left the thread
i lost the thread
i lost myself and if i could only see the path at my feet
i could trace my way in and back out again
i could go to the heart and face the beast
could embrace the beast
turn this way
turn around again
helping voices call
and the path is found, dust kicks up from determined steps
a few
faltering
and again lost
and again the fool stands still
waiting for the thread
waiting for the minotaur
waiting for life
for love
for health

pick up your thread, damn woman!
there is only one path!
thread the labyrinth, make your way through to the heart!
win!
win your life!
win your love!
win your health!
grab your purpose in the beating heart of the minotaur

can't you feel it already within you?

tangled.

alignments.

by Savannah Skye

Earth as Body become Me
Air as Life breathe through Me
Fire as Spirit consume Me
Water as Blood flow through Me
Spirit as Guide lead Me

visiting.

when i open my eyes i am standing barefoot on cold wooden planks, a bridge laid across a coursing glacial stream. it jumps and tumbles down the rocks, a vertical joyous roar cutting down the mountain toward me and under me and away. i am bathed in spray and sound.

to my left, the cedar forest, tall and dark and fragrant, the home of deer and spirits i never glimpsed but believed in all the same.

to my right, the path.

my path, and i step off onto it.

packed dirt under my feet colder than the boards of the bridge, it hugs the waterfall and leads up the slope sharply. i climb it until it curves away from the cascade and stream. twin aspen guard the way, a wild mountain torii. i can smell blackberry leaves, and like a bear i am drawn forward.

i climb the mountain, forest always around me. pine and aspen and cottonwood, but also oak, and birch and hawthorn and hazel and maple. i walk in a pine wood and a rain forest and a farmland copse, and always upward, always my feet padding on the smooth dark earthwork path.

i cross streamlets, i eat blackberries and salmonberries, i kiss trillium and walnut leaf. bird chatter in high branches accompanies me, a mule deer stops and gazes at me, small ones pace me in the undergrowth and leaf litter. i look out into the tree depth and it is barry with golden light and green shade.

but the path leads upward, so i do not stop, do not explore. it has come to my understanding that i have an appointment.

and then, a second torii, two immense trunks flanking the path. large enough to be redwoods, but with silver smooth bark, and a high canopy. beyond them, a wide meadow, an oval wild garden of tall grasses and wildflowers, sunlit and filled with song.

i enter.

it is beautiful, and warm, and sweet -- a safe space, an oasis hidden on the side of the mountain, cloistered by pine arcades. i wander, my soul sipping in contentment. i believe i amble without design, but of course, i am still led, and soon enough, i am within sight of a small green jewel of a knoll. there are figures upon it. a woman and a man, and they are waiting for me.

i know them. silver moon and golden sun, soft embrace and burning kiss, weaver of life and dancer in death: sweet lady and smiling lord. she sits all calm and grace, her dress never quite still and stars in her midnight hair. he is cross-legged and grinning, and the scent of amber and blackberry leaves is his. there is a sparkle and a wink in his eyes which must be responded to, but i am too shy to look so boldly up into her face. i can feel her kind indulgent archaic smile, though, and it is more than enough. it is all my heart needs.

i walk toward them.

i sit at their feet.

and i am in a holy place.

happy birthday, dad.

robert, before we met. *grin*

i learned a bit about him, that man in the picture who would become my father, from my uncle last summer. he and his brothers used to take rambles through the woods behind their home, woods which are now training grounds for the national guard. they had their own camp back in the hills, they would ask their mom for cans of soup and then be gone for a couple of days at a time, roughing it (smoking cigarettes and looking at girly magazines, more likely).

he was a fighter, apparently. an angry teen. he would go down to the local biker bar and take men on, sometimes two at a time. he never lost, according to my uncle. it's amazing to me, this part of my dad, because by the time i knew him, he was a gentle man. still -- embarrassing to admit though it is -- finding out my dad was a tough guy at one point, and a successful brawler...well, i couldn't help but feel a sense of pride.

when i knew him, my dad was a trucker, in full-on burt reynolds smokey and the bear style. as a little girl, i would giggle to hear how he and mom met, how he had been a fuller brush man at her door, how she had bought brushes from him she hadn't needed, but most giggleworthy was the impossible image of my trucker dad in shined shoes and skinny tie. oh gosh!

what i admired about him as a girl was that he could sing in a deep voice that came out of nowhere, that he drove really big trucks and that nothing could hurt him (he was once kicked by a horse when we lived on the farm -- i saw this myself. he flew backwards through the air, landed flat, and after a heartwrenchingly long moment, stood up and slowly made his way back to us on the porch). whenever he wanted to teach me something or had a task for me to do, i would get a little nervous, and try to listen to his instructions as hard as i could. i didn't want him to have to explain something twice, i wanted to be as smart as he was.

what i admired about him as an adult was that no matter what happened to him, divorce, bankruptcy, or whatever, he would just find something new. he was never daunted by the unknown, and was always ready to learn. he had been in the military, had been an insurance salesman, a door-to-door salesman, a truck driver, a farmer, a mobile home salesman (as well as one who could set them up once you bought them), a restaurant owner, a racecar driver, a handyman, a city employee, a web designer -- and those are just the jobs i know about!

he was also always ready to laugh, and be silly. he was always ready to play. he would tease me by standing on my pigtails when i was laying on the floor watching tv, would play with my toys on christmas morning, fly a kite with us kids out in the field on the farm, and make us laugh with funny voices and cb lingo. every time i talked to him on the phone as an adult, we would end up giggling more than talking.

i was just getting to know him as a man in his own right when he was diagnosed with cancer, and he was gone too quickly after that. i have to learn who he was through stories now. the glimpse that i had of him makes me grieve for him all the more, for what i didn't get to know.

but still, i have so much.

and i am so immensely proud to be his daughter. of all my sisters, i am the one who is most like him, and it makes me happy. i'm carrying him with me. he doesn't walk the world anymore, but i do, and through me, he does, too.

happy birthday, dad.

i miss you. i love you.

i close my eyes and hold my arms wide.

i fell asleep this afternoon, all unknowing of how tired i was. sleep took me, and i dreamt. laying curled on the bed in the guest room, my head pillowed on clean warm laundry, i dreamt.

i was at a concert, and there was something i needed to do, someone i needed to find. i searched all over the venue, through the pit and the backstage, and always they were just beyond me. i asked people for help, and though everyone was willing, still, searching. still, looking and only catching a glimpse. i was not frantic, but the search was paramount, my goal imperative.

when i woke, i was warm and muzzy, and the search was still vivid in my mind. the urge to find was all that was within me.



the layered meanings of this dream are obvious to me, it's source patently clear. i don't need to analyse it. but it makes me think a bit further along the path...

here is where it leads me:



i am hungry for the embrace.

i want to be wrapped tightly and held beyond all doubt. i want the search to end. i want to be found. i want to belong again.

this desire...no, need of mine goes far beyond the physical. i gave myself to my gods, put myself in their hands, and emptied my life into their care. everything is utterly different now. they took away all the clutter and left me a creature of wanting. i hear my voice and it whispers of everything good. meals of fulfilling taste, scenes of exquisite ordinary beauty, music that enters every cell, heavy flowers begging to be kissed, rain falling in quiet pattering song on gathering green leaves, striding through a crowd without a missed step, the perfect quip, the bright sassy smile tossed over a shoulder.

i touch my face, i cannot help myself, and i feel the softness of my own skin. so much wanting, bursting with it.

i let go of everything and it's all before me. life and completion and my full ripe self, glimpsed. there, just beyond the curtain. i want it all. i want myself.

and more.

laverne & shirley

just because.

(this is my favorite pic.)

walking the path blindfolded.

i have always had an inner voice. my mother told me about it when i was a child, and i have always heard it. it is my jiminy cricket, my heart's voice, my gods' whisper. in all things, i have walked the path of my life with my inner voice as my primary guide.

turning over my path to the fates is both a departure from that, and a continuation of it. i am willingly allowing the path to unfold at my feet without my direction, and yet, to do so, i must listen closer to my inner voice than ever before. my intuition is crucial now.

i am walking forward, a cloth tied about my face. my hands are outstretched, and my heart open and listening. i am a follower. i am being led.

i am happier than i have ever been.

and my destination is unknown, the outcome of this leap away from the charted world wholly a gift yet to be unwrapped. whatever the fates give me in the end, it will be good. it will be wonderful. it will be the right thing and the best thing for me. i believe this, i trust this, whole-heartedly.

so, lead on.

i will follow.

balefire.

i was standing in a line yesterday, watching the rain fall from under a restaurant awning, and talking with a friend about what my travels mean to me. i know what i am meant to do in this life, i always have, since i was a child. and yet, somehow, i always managed to say to myself: "i will do this thing, i will be this person, someday."

the days went by, and my dreams were always ahead of me, while i focused on the little tasks at hand. little tasks that distracted me from my purpose. little tasks that filled my hands but not my heart.

those little tasks are gone now -- burned away even to the ashes. and i'm free and my days are all in front of me, and my purpose is clear again. everything is a mystery and that is delightful to me. i am walking forward and all that i need to accomplish my purpose in life will be given to me. is already being given to me.

every day is a transformation.

i am blessed by the sun and the moon and the friends i have who smile upon me and encourage me forward. you are all the blanket around my shoulders when i am cold, and the warmth in my heart that makes me smile when i am standing solitary.

because i will never be alone again.

the past has been burnt away and yet i am not empty. i am filled with hopes and dreams, and the love of people who have come to be my heart's family.

no more yesterdays, and no more somedays.

today, forever.



thank you all.

even when you can't breathe.

"There is a vitality, a life-force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open."

-Martha Graham, as quoted in Dance to the Piper, by Agnes De Mille


Postscript: as i wrote over at mayo's, my computer screen has died, and until i can repair it (thank the gods it is repairable), i'll be mostly offline (thank the gods also for public libraries and public library computers). thank you to all who have left comments, and thank you to all who will, and i'll do my best to keep up-to-date with you until i'm able to return. love you all, my dear blogfriends. ♥

misgivings.

i clicked on "publish this post" and immediately the reaction set in, before the screen had even cycled through.

fool. fool. fool.

foolish
stupid
woman.




i'm such an idiot.

bemusingly apt.

With all that chilling mystery of mien,
And seeming gladness to remain unseen:
He had (if 'twere not nature's boon) an art
Of fixing memory on another's heart:
It was not love perchance -- nor hate -- nor aught
That words can image to express the thought;
But they who saw him did not see in vain,
And once beheld, would ask of him again:
And those to whom he spake remembered well,
And on the words, however light, would dwell:
None knew, nor how, nor why, but he entwined
Himself perforce around the hearer's mind;
There he was stamp'd, in liking, or in hate,
If greeted once; however brief the date
That friendship, pity, or aversion knew,
Still there within the inmost thought he grew.
You could not penetrate his soul, but found,
Despite your wonder, to your own he wound;
His presence haunted still; and from the breast
He forced an all unwilling interest;
Vain was the struggle in that mental net,
His spirit seemed to dare you to forget!


Byron, from "Lara"

and sometimes inanna.

He rode far from his friends, a forsaken man,
Scaling many cliffs in country unknown.
At every bank or breach where the brave man crossed water,
He found a foe in front of him, except by a freak of chance,
And so foul and fierce a one that he was forced to fight.
So many marvels did the man meet in the mountains,
It would be too tedious to tell a tenth of them.
He had death-struggles with dragons, did battle with wolves,
Warred with wild men who dwelt among the crags,
Battled with bulls and bears and boars at other times,
And ogres that panted after him on the high fells.
Had he not been doughty in endurance and dutiful to God,
Doubtless he would have been done to death time and again.
Yet the warring little worried him; worse was the winter,
When the cold clear water cascaded from the clouds
And froze before it could fall to the fallow earth.
Half-slain by the sleet, he slept in his armour
Night after night among the naked rocks,
Where the cold streams splashed from the steep crests
Or hung high over his head in hard icicles.
So in peril and pain, in parlous plight,
This knight covered the country till Christmas Eve

Alone;

And he that eventide

To Mary made his moan,

And begged her be his guide

Till some shelter should be shown.

from Gawain and the Green Knight, trans. by Brian Stone, 1959.

storytime.

because i'm tired of writing about how bad everything is.

when i was a little girl, we had a hobby farm in oregon, and some of my best childhood memories come from that place. but not all -- when i was in second grade, we moved to montana, and that's where i grew up.

in montana, there was a campground behind our property. the land dipped abruptly down to a creek, and across the creek this great huge campground, filled with pine trees and places to explore. it had a playground with child-sized buildings to play in, like a little wild west town. the jail even had a secret tunnel escape route.

in the summer we would buy candy at the campground store and play in the creek. i had a friend who lived at the very back of the campground, in a teepee with her hippie parents. her place always smelled so good -- of leather and canvas and woodsmoke.

in the winter we would go sliding or skating on the bumpy frozen creek, and follow it further than we could go when it was running, past people's homes and pastures, until it went under a road in a culvert.

the best thing about the creek, though, and the reason i'm telling this story, is the fact that it had frogs.

i was very good at catching frogs. i could spot them where they hid, floating motionless in pads of algae, just their eyes above the surface. i could move quietly enough to position my hand just behind them, and them swoop down and snatch them up. after they struggled a little bit, they would just sit quietly in my hand. holding a wild animal like that was a magical experience. i never tired of it -- neither the exercise of my guile and skill, nor the wonder of feeling the breath and beating heart of that tiny creature in my hand.

we always let them go. it was neat to watch them swim away, and hide again.

that was my summer, before boys became more interesting than frogs. every summer, walking out to the long driveway of the campground, and down to the creek, and spending the afternoons along the creekside, looking for frogs, watching the other creatures that lived in the water, staying away from the slow-running spots where the leeches lived, inventing games and telling stories.

thank you, dear ss, for bringing that memory back to the fore.

jumbled.

someone's been rummaging around in my head, where i keep all the puzzle pieces that i haven't used yet. they've stirred them up, scooped them together, and tossed them in with the pieces i thought i had already fitted together.

or maybe it's just the aftereffects of a week-end overindulging in bad research. curiosity doesn't really ever kill the cat, you know, it just gives her a nasty hang-over.

in the past, when this place became a ground of shifting sands, i had the settled solidity of life outside to keep me centered, but now...

oh my.

i want to know that i'm helping. i'd like to know that there's a sequence to this. i wish to know eventually that we made a difference. i hope...

well, i have a lot of hopes.

and i hang on to my beliefs about this place because they're the only beliefs i have right now that make me feel worthwhile. everything else is up in the air and i don't know where they will fit when they land.

and i hope this doesn't make me a fool, and i hope that there's reality behind all these words, and i hope that this place where we meet in our heads and hearts isn't something i've made up wholecloth out of my head and heart.

and all that's left is to just keep on as i have been, jumbled or clear, fool or true.

sharper than a knife.

i put my poem up earlier. i had decided yesterday that would be an appropriate entry for this, the first day of spring on my calendar, so i went ahead and typed up the pretty little thing.

i was wrong about it's appropriateness.

no spring, no sweet frolic. no. today is black tar boiling up from the depths of my heart and the day wasted. the threshold crossed drunk on pain, curled on my knees on the floor.

reaching, always reaching, never touching.

and so.

so.

what will this year become? will i really be able to accomplish any thing at all? i doubt i have what it takes.

and all the talk circles around and around, endlessly biting it's own tail in cannibalistic glee. at least he is doing something with his life, at least he is making something with it, even if all the corbies pick at his words and flesh and crow about how fucked up he is. at least he isn't wasting it. there are enough of us still sitting in basements of our making, at least he got out of his.

at least there's that.

welcoming the maiden.

(a poem i wrote several years ago to celebrate the season.)


spring, you are a shy one.
you like to hide behind the cold tree.
you have furtive paths,
like the rabbit does:
when i turn my head to catch you,
you slide out of sight, a grey shadow,
nothing more.

spring, i know how to coax you out.
i will ply my broom, and its yellow bristles
will remind you to toss your hair.
i will wield my dust rag, and its dancing folds
will encourage you to swing your skirts.
i will shake winter out of my house,
i will open every door and window to your song.

then you won't hide.
then you'll become bold.
you'll deck out the trees in green lace,
you'll smile and the flowers will laugh for you.
oh yes, i'll coax you out,
and when you're here
i'll sing you welcome, spring, welcome!

free-fall

tomorrow i would have awakened to my alarm, got out of bed, and stumbled out to the dining room. my priorities would have been to turn on the computer, start the coffee, and feed the cat. i would have grabbed some time on the internet (read: blog) and rushed out the door to make my way as quickly as possible to my bus stop, and so to work.

but i stepped across a threshold again last friday.

and so tomorrow i will sleep too late, and no one will be expecting me anywhere. my time won't be rationed in quarter-hours and minutes. i will be reliant on my own will to give shape to the day. i am unemployed.

sure, big deal, so what, you might say with a shrug of your shoulders. who hasn't been unemployed? and it's true. i'm a late-bloomer. this job i left behind was the first i did so of my own will for no other reason but that i wanted to. i still can't quite believe that i did that. was i allowed to?

i don't know what i'm doing next. i don't know where my next paycheck is coming from.

i'm trying to be scared about it. i can feel a little tremor of anxiety when i think about it. but generally, no. in fact, i'm writing this with a tiny smile pulling at the corner of my mouth.

i jumped off that cliff without a parachute, without a spotter waiting below, without a plan, without research, without even a hastily-scribbled checklist on the back of an envelope.

what the hell am i thinking?

*grin*

no security blankets.

last night was marked by vivid memories of sitting by my dad's bedside in his last days. though it's been over a year, last night i felt the fear again, and the loss, and the desperate clinging wish that it could have been different.

last night was marked by tears.

the traces of them stayed with me throughout the day. without my will, thoughts of dying, of losing loved ones and of my own end rose in my mind. what if something happened to me? no one here would know. i would just disappear.

more death greeted me when i reached home, and saw the news.

and places of comfort were jagged and loud with anger and insults.

the pure light of the full moon shining in my window tonight isn't able to chase away this miasma wrapped around me. i feel like a child who has just woken from a nightmare with no one there to wrap her in strong safe arms and tell her it was just a dream.


more than anything right now, i wish there really was a couch to curl up on with a purloined leather jacket, and be comforted, and be safe.

don't look down.

there's one problem with the fool card from the tarot. it doesn't show you what happens after the fool blithely steps off the cliff.

see, there's this moment where you're hanging in the open air, just like in a loony toon cartoon, and you're come all over with the complete realization that in the next second you are going to be falling very very fast at the ground very very very far below you. and suddenly, you want to heave your body around and scrabble at the dry dirt and dusty grass on the cliffedge, but you can't, can you? you stepped off the cliff of your own free will, didn't you? this is what you chose to do. and so there's nothing for it, you are going to fall, and fall fast and it's all your own doing and you haven't a clue if you'll actually hit the bottom in a big puff of dust like a smoke ring rising or if there will be some branch or ledge or stone that you can snag onto and use to secure yourself, or if maybe you'll be lucky after all and the fall will become an alice in wonderland portal to your new world.

and really it's all irrelevant, because you're suspended, you did it now and it doesn't matter if it was necessary or foolhardy because it's done.

this is the scary moment.

snugged in securely.

i think i was starting to fade.

i could never totally give up this place, but the bonds it lay on me were starting to slacken. i hovered in the shadows, becoming a shadow myself, slipping around the edges of the world we have created here. i was in danger of reverting to the lurker i was when this all started.

and then, he reeled me back in. he yanked on the thread that tethers me to this place and he fixed it fast. i don't know why he did it, and it doesn't really matter why, whether he was motivated by whimsy or kindness, because the effect it has had on me is so welcome, and so solid.

this place has become a part of me. for good or for ill, irregardless that it is largely a society of the mind and heart, this place lives in me. and because of what he did, now i'm a part of it, too. my belief in this place is reinvigorated. my belief in my belonging here is reinvigorated.

he pulled me back in, he gave me back to our world, and gave my friends back to me, and i am wholly embraced by it all.

everyone needs someplace to belong to.

i am reassured that i belong here.

penny embrace.

i saw my dad today.

oh, i knew it wasn't him, of course. but the man standing at the reference desk looked so much like him, it was easy to pretend i was really seeing my father. i glanced at him repeatedly, indulging myself in the notion that dad was visiting my library.

question answered, he went off to a distant corner of the library, and i returned to my shelving. but then i realized, suddenly, sharply -- dad will never see where i work, will never surprise me by showing up unannounced.

i shelved the resulting pang in the depths of my heart, and returned to shelving children's christmas books.

after work, walking through the parking lot on my way to the bus stop, i spotted a bright penny. it was wet from the rain, and sparkled. i knelt to pick it up, and saw that it was heads up. not every penny i pick up reminds me of dad and his habit of picking up heads up pennies -- i pick them all up, after all -- but this one was undeniably a penny from dad. it made me happy, so happy that as i stood up, i mimed a kiss to the penny and smiled at the sky. when i looked down again, a second penny caught my eye. i grinned, knelt, picked it up, and stood -- and saw a third shiny penny, right at my foot!

i couldn't help it, i laughed. "ok, dad!" i thought in his direction, "i get it! i love you, too!"

three bright heads up pennies, surprising me by showing up unannounced at work. i carried them in my hand all the way to the bus stop.

fathers are always full of tricks.

befuddled.

pretend what?

i don't remember. i'll try to remember, but...

pretend what?





ah shit. why do i do this to myself? when will i ever get my imagination under control?

and yet.

i just can't shake the feeling.




i do so wish you could answer.