I'm leaving tomorrow night; somewhere in it is the threshold between the grief of endings and the happiness of a new chapter. Poetry helps.

One Art 
by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day.  Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel.  None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch.  And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones.  And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

-Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied.  It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (write it!) like disaster.

Oración Para Un Mundo Cambiante

Por favor, ayudme con mi gramatica. Muchas gracias.

Le ofrezco la cancion en mi carazon.

Empiezo el circulo de mi cancion en alabanza de cortinas amarillas, felizmente expresando la voluntad de algria en el mundo.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Me honra a todos, es decir el abrazo extatico de luz y sombra.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Escucho la cancion de nuestra sangre! Leventan y hacen un ruido alegre!

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Me alegro por amigos maravillosos. Estamos felices juntos.

Me alegro por grandes gatitos naranja. Shelley, te amo.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Me honra Al Norte; el lugar de mi nacimiento; La Tierra. Pido a Dios por la sanacion del suelo.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Me honra el brillo en los ojos de mi madre, de la que nunca se separaron.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Rezo por la paz en El Barrio.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Te amo, Joshua.

Me honra El Este; Haegl Magnificado. Pido a Dios por la sanacion del aire.

Te amo, Justin. Te amo, Miranda.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Me honra la abeja y la matriz de toda la vida. Usted susurra la historia de amor asombrosa.

Te amo, Brandy.  Te amo, Savannah.

JayBee, maestro y amigo mas amable, gracias por todo. Te amo.

Aprecio el Coro del Amanecer.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Me honra las estrella gemelas de mi dia: Cocer al Horno y Cocinar.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Gracias por desconocidos en las paradas de autobus.

Gracias por las cintas de mezcla sin listas de reproduccion.

Gracias por las camas recien hechas.

Gracias por desnudo jardinerias y cantantes desafinados.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Me honra a sagrado acuerdos con Los Reinos Animal.

Me honra Buho. Me honra Ciervo.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Me honra la mesa de la concina, querido amigo. Gracias.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Escucho la cancion de nuestro sangre! Leventan y hacen un ruido alegre!

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Te amo, Girard.

No le temo a las mas oscura desconocida.

Honro la marga.

Me honra las semillas y las piedras y las celulas.

Heather, hermana y amiga, gracias por todo. Te amo.

Me honra el Sur; las familias de Los Desaparecidos.
Pido a Dios por la sanación de la Humanidad.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Me encanta levantamiento vientre.
Me encanta la bobino de mi sexo.
Me encanta levantamiento vientre.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Me honra el pantano y pereza cerebral.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Aprecio Los Faros, Los Narradores y Los Posaderos. Gracias.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Me honra Al Oeste.  Pido a Dios por la sanacion de las aguas.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Me honra La Historia de La Creacion.

Me encanta que el Lago Superior.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Me honra Los Maestros y Guias, el monje y la mariposa, Joy Harjo y El Dalai Lama.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Me honra nuestra Amorosa Antepasados.

 Me honra La Maria, que se manifestan en el mundo hoy.
Me honra El Buddha, que se manifestan en el mundo hoy.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Honro la rueda del cielo y el eje del tiempo. Puedo aprender a hacer lo que esta escondido como un regalo para los demas.

Me honra La Estrella de La Noche y la gran carcajada de la magia de curacion profunda.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Dios nos depierta y despertar dentro de nos otros. Hermanos y hermanas reconstruir sus vidas.

Que no haya extranos aqui.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,

or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

Mary Oliver

Gang Of Five. I spent so much time with these kids that it's difficult to grasp that I barely know them at all now.

from left: Edith, me, Shannon, Larry, Misie. 1982?

I called mom this morning.  I'm going home.

Figuratively speaking, I ran away from home when I was 19. I was a kid when I came here, my cousins and my brothers too.  Each of has taken a different route into our (mostly) adult lives and many of us have lived all over somewhere away from home base Illinois.  But, as fate will have it, in two weeks, we'll all be in the same state again.

If I am honest about why I'm moving home I will say that it is to help my mom with a few things but it is also a hope that I can get to know these kids again.  I have no idea what makes them tick.  If they are like me then that which made them tick as an adolescent has changed a bit. Maybe we didn't know each other so well as kids, maybe it's more a familiarity that I hope to regain. I don't know.

It has been a slower realization with my extended family but the more I think about moving home the more I realize how much I've missed and how much I miss them. 

Two Boxes

by Shel SIlverstein

Two boxes met upon the road.

Said one unto the other,

"If you're a box,

And I'm a box,

Then you must be my brother.

Our sides are thin,

We're cavin' in,

We must get no thinner."

And so two boxes, hand in hand,

Went home to have their dinner.

I love the life I live. My laughter and my tears I don't know where it's going but I like it like it tis.

April 14, 2010

I listened to Brother Ali's song Fresh Air today and I would like to share this with you now: I honor and give thanks for the words, work and spirit of Brother Ali and the music he makes.

When I listen to some of his songs I feel light in me. Today as I listened and danced I was able to give up a little of my grief. It's not lost on me that great joy is an enormous depth of feeling, a gray area where joy overlaps grief in such a strange way; after all, they live in the same house. It is a fine and subtle mystery.

Today I tried to give up a little, live up to my desire, let go of my desire, to breath freely and clearly, to let the music in me, let myself out clearly, up and up and out, if even for a moment... like swift wind on the shoreline in a moment of sure integrity.

The beauty of the Epicurean life is that there is nothing to figure out, nothing to understand, nothing to subject to painful analysis. The work, rather, is one of educating the senses, giving them their due in abundance, finding the soul in them, and loving with such consistency as to appear foolish and imprudent. The ultimate Epicurean is the holy fool, whose wisdom is judged by a standard made in heaven. Thomas Moore

The passage of time, so organic and so arbitrary, gave me a surprise... I looked at my tatoos and was shocked to see them. How long have those been there??

It's been seven months to the day since my last post, how funny.  Time is so funny.  Heh. I didn't plan this.  

I woke up to the second exquisite rainy morning this week, feeling as I did yesterday, that I was waking up in a cabin somewhere on the North Shore.  Languishing in bed for about five seconds I turned to the book I was nearly done reading at page 816.  I knew what was coming. I've read this book so many times that the thing is nearly in tatters which is strange because until the last few years it was a rule of mine never to read a book more than once; there are so many why waste time re-reading?  Then I got out of bed, made coffee and french toast and finished watching the travesty of translation from book into film, The Time Traveler's Wife.


Apparently I have a bone to pick.  Or something.


Both of these stories culminate in the death of a husband, each at 40ish years of age.  Death has been a strong theme this year, giving me much to consider. Being a semi-social person and not in fact a recluse who never sees other living souls, I have heard a handful of stories over the years about a person awash in a tide of deaths.  I think you have known these folks too, perhaps you are one of them, who have spoken of numerous deaths in the span of a year or less.

I have always feared this time and in the back of my mind wondered when it would be my turn.  

In my childhood there was only one, my stepfather Bill.  In my twenties it was Edyth Ann, Heather and my big orange kitty, Shelley... each death was devastating in its own unique way. Ten years later, this February, it was JayBee, though his death would show me something, maybe even a million things that just mean one thing.  I'm weary of the statements in my head that want to be said and written; if I have learned anything at all it's that I know so little.

side note: Strangers in Paradise is coming to mind, another story whose final arch involves the death of a male partner... a scene just before a plane crash when David says to Katchoo, "You must confess!" to which Katchoo replies, "I confess I love you. I confess I love the clouds in summer. I confess I love this ocean... and so many things beneath it. But all I'll miss is you... Francine."

I know, in the next couple of months that I will be taking the next fork in the road and leaving this state to go home to Illinois, back to my family.  However much I know that Minnesota remains I also know there isn't any coming back, even though I'm sure to visit.  It's not so much the place as the time I must say good bye to now.  It's the proverbial river I can't stick my foot into twice.

I came here in 1995 having aimed for Seattle, fell in love and fell in love and fell in love and became entangled and lost and lost... thank you all for that.  When I found my apartment on Grand I found a deeply needed refuge and another great love that would help me get even more lost, lost enough and sick enough to really find myself.  What seems so impossible to commit to text is a bold enough statement that perhaps it looks like I'm asking for a challenge (I'm not).

Having searched and dug in and wept and struggled and rejoiced and... there are so many threads I wish I could describe right here but I'll settle for telling you this: I was repaired, made whole again and thankful for the revelations brought by the terrible tearing.  I feel equipped with the gifts of perspective and a clear open heart.  I believe the truth about myself and I know this requires constant reflection and unerring honesty.  I have worked hard for the stripes that enable me to say this and I feel that I can say it in large part because of my teacher and friend, JayBee:

I do not fear death.  All that we are, all that we will ever be, is who we are in this moment and what we carry within us and engender between us.

I understand, for the moment, that I do not miss you because you are not gone.  I still here your giggle, still feel your breath, still see you with your pants down wiggling and laughing in the sunshine.

fooooooooood!

almond-coconut granola w/ brown sugar, cinnamon & sunflower seeds

nut crusted chicken breast w/ lemon cream angel hair pasta
buttermilk pancakes
local eggs w/ organic cream cheese, al's chives, red potato hash w/ pastures' bacon
mrs. knudesens christmas cookies (yum!) w/ passion-coconut glaze (yum!!)
vegetable soup w/ rainbow chard over basmati rice

*

i've made all of these items from scratch in the last three days.

How cool is the universe? Pretty dang.

No sooner did I declare my intentions out loud for all my Loving Partners, Allies & Guides to hear that I received the first of two phone calls answering my requests. Directly.

Thanks! Thanks! Thanks!

waiting for the bus i started to say, am i lost again? then i saw the penny shining in the snow.

I've been reading my favorite comic again. This will be my 6th time through it: my crack and my escape.

Reading something I love so much has a way of holding up a mirror. I admit it now. I've been hiding, trying to fend off a state of panic I've been too ashamed to admit to friends and family. I've been using movies and comics the way some would use over-working, drinking... whatever. Though they have been good and provocative distractions (okay, Gossip Girl does not fall into this category:)) I have nevertheless taken a brambly turn into a wallow-y dead-end.

Almost four weeks ago I quit what I thought was my dream job. I had solid reasons for quitting, even made sure I had a fair replacement, but I let an old shadow get a ring around my rosey's. My old acquaintance, doubt, crept in. Are doubt and fear the same thing? I let my doubt tangle with my commitments. Yesterday I said it out loud, "I wish I had just stayed in hell." That's when it hit me. I quit for a good reason, one more compelling than what I thought would have made me quit a year ago when I nearly sued the company for harassment. I made the choice to stay and work through what happened last year. I am so glad I did. But this last scenario was just too much.

It's always been "easy" for me to choose between what my heart tells me and what my mind tells me. Some people say I'm an impulsive, non-committal, fair weather sort, that I don't know how to follow through with anything. Maybe. Maybe it's more that I know what I need to do and I'm not afraid to do it, no matter the consequences. I even tried to stay and make it work based solely on the fact that the money was useful. I tried. But I am not the person who stays in a bad situation for long. But that's me. I'm not fucking sorry about it either.

In the last two years I have had such amazing, heart rending, mind blowing experiences. I learned so much about temperance, tolerance, patience... procrastination, fear, and the corrosive power of self doubt. Giving myself to this panic-y last few weeks flies in the face of what I say I've learned.

I know I need to work. I know I will pay back my enormous student loans on likely minimum wages for the rest of my natural born life. No matter how I struggle with the cost of existence in a primarily capitalist world I must strike a balance. No matter what. I don't aways know what I want, sometimes I want so much I can't see straight. Sometimes I don't want anything and am lost in my blindness.

However.

My personal happiness and well being are the only gifts I have to offer this world. Without them I'm a useless brain-dead, sourpuss who's not much to be around.

This is going to sound kind of funny, but I know I'm not the only one who finds meaning in little random things.... little is an arbitrary judgement anyway. I read and re-read Strangers In Paradise because it sends me back to square one every time. What's square one? First, it means you need to read Strangers In Paradise;) and second, it's everything that matters... love. I know love doesn't put food on my table or a roof over my head but it sure does send me out into the world to try again and again, no matter what.

...from utterly adrift to land-locked: message in a bottle with love from ben, york and joseph...

a few days ago i found a nickel while i was walking home:
i heard you tell me assistance was on the way, that you'd received my message,
watch the path ahead.

the cow: asking, receiving, abundance, nourishment
the serpent: knowledge, healing
the dragon: strength, power

the bag of silver coins

Thinking Of You.

Who can complain when there's Naked Ladies in The Garden of Disorderly Conduct?

For about a month now I've fairly ignored The Garden of Disorderly Conduct, partly because it's been too darn hot, partly because I've been too busy.

However.

I came home today and found four (four!) naked ladies displaying themselves in a very dry bed of Day Lilies. One is pictured to the left, the other three are in the process of blooming. ('Naked Ladies' is a common name for Amaryllis. Thanks Donald:)) Side note: this is the Mystery Bulb revealed at last. I did not plant these bulbs, the one and only time this flower ever bloomed was at the end of March almost six years ago. I'd never seen such a strange plant - all stalk and a bunch of pretty pink trumpets at the top. When I came home to these girls I actually screamed out loud, jumped up and down and said to Al, "LOOK! LOOK! NAKED LADIES!!! OH MY FUCKING GOD!!! I HAVE NAKED LADIES!!!!" Second side note: After I freaked out (as if I'd never seen a naked woman before;)) I went to get the camera and promptly fell down the stairs. HA HA HA HA HAAAAA!!!

Even though the garden is half-wild and parched bone dry it is still full of delights: tangerine ruffles, palm shaped sprays that twine like a ladder up crisped Dahlia; hay colored Day Lily stalks against soft pink trumpets; periwinkle darts and dark green strawberry leaves; a Medusa sunflower pair hosting a voracious yellow finch; flecked furry mullein stained butter yellow and lime green like pottery. It's a veritable feast out there.

There are so many ways that I have chosen to obligate my mind. Happily undoing this is a life's work.

I have felt less than 'accomplished' as far as the Garden is concerned. Having gotten off to the start I intended to in the spring this section of the summer finds me feeling less than productive. Walking through this gorgeous mess a few days ago with a friend she reminded me that even the wild and unruly gardens possess their own beauty. I love it when an offhand remark sets my mind ablaze. Since my friend said this I have noticed a thousand little beauties... this morning (I'm finishing this post Tuesday 8/3) I found a locust hanging out on the Astilbe. I didn't have my glasses on so at first I thought, oh great, another bug/disease that moved in because I haven't been paying attention. When I got closer I saw the little creature in all it's gray and silver glory.

It's good to have a plan. It's also good to listen when the plan is chucked out the window because a secret will is revealed: the will of disorder.

So my exercise these next few days is to concentrate on what does exist rather than what I think should exist. Not so different from what I was doing with the yard sale, eh? Besides, how can I really call it the Garden of Disorderly Conduct if it doesn't ever get out of hand?

*Third side note: more than half of the amazing plants in the GODC are volunteers or hitchhikers and of a healing/medicinal variety. Many of these plants have only been recognized because I left the GODC to it's own will. That and I'm kinda lazy sometimes. Thank gawd.

FYI: This is a piece of the boulder that's been living in my mouth for far too long.

Thank you JayBee for the tiniest, simplest gesture of your fingers to your lips.

Over a month ago I obligated myself to something I never had any real interest in: I said I had so much to tell you and to watch for me May 31st.

I love this blog. I love that people read what I post here. I love that people both familiar and strange comment and interact with me through this medium but sometimes I feel obligated to write in a manner that pleases and/or addresses "you." I have allowed myself to be swayed by what I think you will think and as a consequence I have chosen silence.

This behavior has choked me and done a disservice to any of you that visit here. Here and now I revoke this action. I have said this not so much for your benefit as for my own edification. I am trying to say I respect this space more than I have shown and we deserve better.

xoxo

It would be silly to think I could summarize or catch you up on all that's been happening since May 31st, let alone January, so I'm not going to try. I have reached the shore of my one year journey. I know what I want from my life. It's tempting to say that I am thoroughly surprised by my desires but this would be false. I knew when I was a teenager - I knew the day I left home at seventeen in my 1980 Chevy Malibu wagon. I have been running from it, denying it or distracting myself from it mainly because I thought I needed something else, something more. How could what I really want be so simple? How does the source of all the heartbreak and bottled grief of the last fifteen years amount to something this uncomplicated? I almost feel foolish. Almost. It's like learning the rules of perfect grammar in order to fully break them.

I realized this year that the apple of my self never fell far from my mother's way of thinking. I absorbed her mindset and got ahead of myself in many ways, made things more complicated or more fantastical than they really needed to be. My notions about starting a business are a perfect example. I thought I needed to have this big multi-million dollar concept and the millions to achieve it. As it turns out I barely need an oven and some mixing bowls.

This idea applies to every area of my life. I no longer require mementos, keepsakes or book markers. All I need, all I want, is to hold the people I love, to feel the experience of this life in my bones, on my skin, in my mind and heart. Food, shelter, love; healing, gardening, art, family.

The best thing I could have done for myself on the brink of last year's depression was to give myself time without pressure, time without obligation and the space to see the space I require. It was so tempting to want to fill this space with commitments and to forget what I set out to learn about myself.

To seal the deal I am having a massive yard sale this weekend; there won't be any panic this time. I will unburden myself of 100's of unnecessary objects that can be turned into cash flow, burn what shouldn't be read ever again and donate what isn't sold. Mostly I'm keeping my bed, sofa and kitchen table.

None of this stuff is my life. I don't have a life with my life, I don't have a relationship with a relationship, a pile of shells or a pile of agates does not replace the beauty that brought it to my palms in the first place. I have held on to absurd amounts of objects to fend off my scarcity fears: fear of being alone, fear of being hungry, fear of death, fear of inaction, fear of failure...

All that I have, all that I am, all that I will ever be is inside me now.

In the garden I met a Dark Queen...

I have SO Much to tell you, watch for me May 31st 2010. In the meantime, a teaser:

Dog Days Are Over
Florence & The Machine
*
Happiness, it hurt like a train on a track
Coming towards her, stuck still no turning back
She hid around corners and she hid under beds
She killed it with kisses and from it she fled
With every bubble she sank with a drink
And washed it away down the kitchen sink

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
The horses are coming so you better run

Run fast for your mother run fast for your father
Run for your children and your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your loving behind you
Can't carry it with you if you want to survive

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
Can't you hear the horses
Cuz here they come

And I never wanted anything from you
Except everything you had
And what was left after that too. oh.

Happiness it hurt like a bullet in the mind
Stuck them up drainpipes
By someone who should know better than that

The dog days are over
The dog days are gone
Can you hear the horses
Cuz here they come

Run fast for your mother and fast for your father
Run for your children for your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your loving behind you
Can't carry it with you if you want to survive

The dog days are over
The dog days are gone
Can you hear the horses because here they come
The dog days are over
The dog days are gone
Can you hear the horses because here they come

beautiful beautifulness

Dosh - "Airlift" from anticon. on Vimeo.

i'm alive, uh huh, so alive...

Musings On A Heart Half Full

...versus a heart half empty speaks to my sincere longing,
the aspect of myself that leaps
and takes chances, the sum of myself that always
says yes (or wants to)! I am a yes girl again. A
heart half full has room enough inside, room enough,
room enough... rumi-enough... a room
of one's own - a space to call my own, a space so big
it's no longer held by space. it's an infinity of
infinites. this phrase/concept touches me in my chest
and belly like a third eye caress. My hands have been
throbbing since my massage last week, so much
is pouring through and out of me. A heart half full
bursts with life and room to grow and imagine and work and live.
I feel a little silly as if I am speaking in cliche or platitudes
but I don't care so much. I love this feeling.
I love walking through the rooms in my life and my
apartment, seeing the sun shining and moving
across here, there; seeing the blue gray shadows covering this, that.
Breathing deeply, feeling fully this gratitude I have for my life,
for clean water and shelter and bleeding hearts and
purple satin-y Iris and little bird skeletons. I could (and will) and will
go on and on like horses over the hills.
I feel wildly free with my half full
heart.