Made manifest

Today the men came to rip out the kitchen, next week the bathrooms, weeks after that the not-original built-ins and flooring. This shit is getting real, for real, now. Minutes after I took this picture, I saw one of my realtors on the street outside. "Come back and see what we are doing!" I called to him. "Oh my, go slow on that remodel, Fran!" he counseled back. "HA! This is go big or go home time, Ralph!" was my gleeful response.

And it was gleeful. All of the anxiety over the enormous amount of money I'm spending, whether I'll be in this home forever, what it all means to this time in my life had been burned away in that minute.

This is my vision, my brain reminded me.

My big, beautiful life, the home I wrote about back in June when I laid out my vision for my future. And that vision encompassed life and home and work and relationships. It is coming true in ways big and small that I haven't focused on, but have become manifest just for the sheer fact that I have articulated them. It's all in motion, big and huge and becoming. I can feel it.

Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is to override the intellect and go with your heart. Sometimes the bravest answer is "yes", or "no" or "not this" or "hmm, let me consider that". Sometimes the decision trees are not enough, that the downward cascade of the worst case scenario is not going to save you from hurt or sadness or tragedy. Sometimes you have to run in front of the good thing to make sure you catch it. Sometimes what you think is a good thing only exists to teach you more about who you are and how gracefully you can let go of things that are not meant for you. And bless them, and say "thank you" for the lesson.

Late night last night, I got some great wisdom from a new friend about creating the life you want to live. He said that he believes that you attract good things by living the good things: to attract depth, you have to be vulnerable to going under; to attract partnership, you have to get past the need to manage the situation; to walk the path with others, you have to be comfortable with the ambiguity; to create a difference in someone's life, you have to know yourself in all of your sticky messy-ness first.

He also said that knowing the difference between suffering through an untenable situation and the life you are destined to have is having a sense of what this big beautiful life would feel like well lived.

What would that big beautiful life look like?
How would that make you feel?
Who and what exists with you in that space?
How will you continue to grow?
How will you help to make this life you've envisioned manifest?

And why are you waiting even a moment to begin?

Of Armor and Amulets

For Timothy, who has me thinking about all of these things
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Most days, my hands roam over my jewelry box, seeking the pieces I am drawn to for the interaction of energy and effect. My dad's belt and buckle, my grandmother's amethyst ring, my daughter's handmade bracelet: I used to think of dressing this way as my armor, a way to steel myself to meet something rough.

I remember so clearly the act of dressing for court, the last act of a painful and gut-wrenching divorce that dumped me out onto those hard wooden benches raw and bruised. That day, I dressed in my typical black, fortified by my grandmother's gold bracelet on my wrist, my father's chain a protective amulet underneath. My lawyer leaned over to whisper that my makeup was flawless. It was all intentional, every bit, a way to end things with as much care and attention to how I'd begun.

But today, sitting in church on All-Soul's day, I realize these pieces I wear are less armor than talismans, ways for me to feel connection and strength from those I love. A symbol of authenticity from a dear friend at my neck reminds me everyday to have courage to be true not only to myself, but to all of those I come into contact with, my grandmother's amethyst reminds me of her gentle nature, of her kindness, her empathy, her compassion.

I've been thinking about kindness and compassion a lot lately, about the fragility of openness and intimacy, and the difference between intimacy and vulnerability and that warm space in between. A couple of months ago, my lovely therapist Marilyn and I were talking about what it feels like to be open to giving of yourself, only to be hurt in the process. "You don't get to have it both ways, Fran," she admonished me. "You can either be free with the deep intimacy that you are able to offer people --which is one of the greatest gifts you have--but you can't be hurt when people take what they need and go. You either offer yourself freely, without expectation, or you build expectation in and limit who you share yourself with. You can't have it both ways." Her words have struck with me, playing over and back in my mind in the past few days as I'm pondering that blending of intimacy and vulnerability that sits atop my personal foundation of authenticity, courage and self-worth that are inked upon my spirit.

It's too easy to wall off, close the vault and shell up, climb back in a the first sign of ouch. But that serves nobody and it certainly doesn't serve my own purpose as the person I am in the world. Most of us are messy, most of us are feeling around in the dark for a light switch, most of us are feeling like we are failing at something important in our lives. So every day we armor up and go out into the world, not sharing our deepest gifts with others in ways that would help to serve and heal not only ourselves, but also those that are treading water just the same.

What if, instead, we turned to our talismans, to our guides, to hold precious things close to us to remind us of who we are, to lean against each other when we stumble in the present, to live it less afraid and more honestly and with truth and trust. There is a vast difference between being defensive and being fortified, between being armored and being available, between keeping ourselves from the real likelihood of disappointment and instead learning to navigate when situations present us with choices on how to meet things head on, to talk them through, to care, to forgive and to heal. And to be so thankful for the choice.  

Love makes space for everyone’s happiness.

This is a piece I wrote during my #lentinseptember days.
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I have struggled immensely over the years to come to terms with my mother’s decision not to marry again after my dad died. She not only didn’t remarry, but also didn’t date anyone. For years when I was a child, I thought this was because she loved my father so much that she couldn’t bring herself to be with someone else, that this was the essence of true and abiding love, a love that I should search for as an adult. As I grew older, I began to understand how complex having your partner die can be. I think my mother was afraid to extend herself again, afraid of losing someone again (as her mother had), afraid of rejection, afraid of what life like might be like on the other side of this immense fear. And, in addition to this incapacitating fear (and this has been true for my two friends who have been widowed), some people would not let my father die. People shared their condolences on an annual basis, remembered the anniversary of his death, sent her cards on his birthday. She was, in their minds, married to my father forever and therefore, in some small way, in her mind she was beholden to that narrative. My best friend brought this home for me when she told me about her own experience of having to leave friendships because all her friends ever wanted to talk about was her husband and how much they missed him and wished he were there. She had ceased to be a young and vibrant spirit in their eyes and was, instead, the memory of husband she’d lost. I think this, in some ways, is because people want to believe in endless love, true love, love that lasts a lifetime and beyond. That they themselves are worthy of that undying love, that they themselves may be loved in that way.

And, in reality, that love may exist and it may never die, but that does not mean that life does not move forward into different narratives. Nothing replaces that love, but beauty and vibrancy and life get added in the form of new love. It is impossible to unlearn anything in our brain, we only add new learning and experiences to it. And so goes our heart.

I remember when my friend and I sat at the coffee shop in those fragile days after her husband’s funeral, discussing what life was like now and what her future may hold. “What if I wanted to be buried with him and I get married to someone else?” she said, her tiny, grief-wasted frame leaning across the table. “What if he was my one true love? How will that next person feel?” I remember telling her that I thought this was a normal part of grief, and that her life and the end of her story were hers to write, and that story included resting with whomever she wanted to rest with, that the next man in her life would understand. People who love you have a wide berth of forgiveness of emotion, nostalgia. They understand love and loss, or they do if you’ve attracted the right human. They take what has happened as part of your living story and love all parts of you. 

From my own experience, I know there is a tremendous weight on a child whose parent does not move forward in her/his life. It creates unrealistic expectations of love and commitment that likely will be unmatched with her/his future partners. It also makes that child feel guilty at the sacrifice that the parent offered, should that child feel less compelled to be so completely self-sacrificing as a parent his or herself. In some ways, it’s a perpetuation of guilt and shame. My mom sacrificed so much by doing X, I should be able to... It’s always felt hard and raw and not reciprocal to me. It feels like too much that’s been given, a sacrifice too great. It’s fear and avoidance and nakedness cloaked in love, but it’s not love alone. Love makes space for everyone’s happiness.

Emerging Fullness, in the Deluge

MR. O'DONOHUE*: Well, I think that the threshold, if you go back to the etymology of the word "threshold," it comes from "threshing," which is to separate the grain from the husk. So the threshold, in a way, is a place where you move into more critical and challenging and worthy fullness. And I think there are huge thresholds in every life. I mean, I think, you know that, for instance, I'd like to give a very simple example of it is, that if you are in the middle of your life in a busy evening, 50 things to do and you get a phone call that somebody you love is suddenly dying. Takes 10 seconds to communicate that information, but when you put the phone down, you are already standing in a different world. Because suddenly everything that seems so important before is all gone and now you are thinking of this. So the given world that we think is there and the solid ground we are on is so tentative. And I think a threshold is a line which separates two territories of spirit, and I think that very often how we cross is the key thing.

MS. TIPPETT: And where is — where is beauty in that?

MR. O'DONOHUE: Where beauty is — I think is beauty — beauty isn't all about just nice, loveliness like. Beauty is about more rounded substantial becoming. And I think when we cross a new threshold that if we cross worthily, what we do is we heal the patterns of repetition that were in us that had us caught somewhere. And in our crossing then we cross on to new ground where we just don't repeat what we've been through in the last place we were. So I think beauty in that sense is about an emerging fullness, a greater sense of grace and elegance, a deeper sense of depth, and also a kind of homecoming for the enriched memory of your unfolding life.
* http://www.onbeing.org/program/inner-landscape-beauty/transcript/1125

Today I walked back through church doors that I hadn't crossed in ten years, my return prompted by something John O'Donohue said about community and christianity and this great understanding of beauty and thresholds and moving into "more critical and challenging and worthy of fullness." The decision to stop attending church was as frivolous as my starting: I began going to the Unitarian church when I was 24, having finally found a spiritual home and I left because we moved to a new city and the feeling of loss was too deep, too disconnected upon return for me to feel comfortable. In short, because I had lost I denied the very thing that would have likely helped me to heal, connect, and grow. I've been journeying around in an array of seeking in the past year, all sorts of hooey and loveliness and unknown that I myself don't know if I believe, but I've been looking for a map, hanging my heart on trying to divine how things will unfold, reaching back to work through hard things and looking forward to predict the future. Who knows if any of it is true, but it's something to think through and that in itself is valuable.

These days, the season of thresholds feels like it's coming to an end, after years of disarray and change and heartbreaking loss and difficulty, it feels like life is settling out. And yet, it's not. We fool ourselves with that thinking of calm, that chaos isn't balling itself up for another go at our lives. It's instructive that way, the call in the wee hours that a friend needs our love or that someone is leaving our life or that we ourselves just find us dragged behind the black dog of depression for even one day, knees skinned and tender, grown unused to the sudden tumble. 

But what I've learned instead is not to fight the chaos and the change and the strife and the difficulty, but to live in the experience of it. When David was about to be born, I took a number of hypno-birthing classes so that I could hopefully remove myself from the pain of his delivery by envisioning a happier place somewhere sacred and beyond (with chocolate babka, but that's another story). But the truth was that I couldn't remove myself from where my body was, that only by reaching into the intensity and depth of that physical pain could I get through it. 

And so I'm beginning to understand that that's what all of this is about, the transitions and waiting for life to calm down and even out and not feel like I'm deflecting lasers with my light saber. The truth is being in it, with whoever needs it, with myself clear about my own needs, with a sense of community that is big and robust and purposeful, with love and gratitude and sadness and the whole gamut of it all, is the beauty of life. Alive and giving, alive and conscious, alive and intentional. But alive and in it and not afraid and not tired and not waiting for life to begin anew, easier and more simple. 

Because we are complex creatures living in a complex world. If you are going to engage, it gets messy. Put your boots on and get to work. Meet these times worthily, so as O'Donohue notes, "what we do is we heal the patterns of repetition that were in us that had us caught somewhere. And in our crossing then we cross on to new ground where we just don't repeat what we've been through in the last place we were. So I think beauty in that sense is about an emerging fullness, a greater sense of grace and elegance, a deeper sense of depth, and also a kind of homecoming for the enriched memory of your unfolding life."

  

Where it sits

My bit of my mother's remains are nestled between a thick stone slab and the outer box of my brother's coffin, slipped there in a smooth wooden box by a persistent funeral director and a kind person at the Archdiocese who knew that spot, one spot down, was meant for her and not her 15 year old son whose life ended too early. Mom had always joked that she wanted to be with Dad and Hunter in the end. "Just sprinkle me around the edges," she said. "Nobody will ever know."

But she's there with a banded plaque that spans the marble, a three-person plot made out of the two. She thought about the options before she died, knowing she would be cremated, noting that our family plot was still an option in her small hometown in Kansas, talking about Africa and the ranch and of Dad and Hunter. So we divided her ashes, each taking a small part of her great legacy, to trail her earthly being back to the places she loved.

It's a curious thing to think about where your physical being will be after you die. Our people have always been buried with family, generations of people in the same acreage in small towns on the plains, still married through early deaths and lost children and all manner of combinations of life that came next. You were with your people, that man you married or the parents you lived with or the generations of people who stayed within the same range of life that makes a family a community. You can trace that lineage through the fading marble, lives made visible and marked and remembered.

I've never given much thought to where I want my remains to be after I've gone, never had that discussion with anyone outside of my then-husband. In those days of early marriage, I'd always assumed that we'd be together somewhere, ashes mixed, such a romantic notion. Cremation offers you that, a pause button, a hilarious pause button in some ways, allowing you to believe that if you are the one and only, there is life ever after together somewhere.

But life circumstances change, and change radically, and a new life requires you to consider these things anew. And the question of permanence keeps coming to me, of marking space and time, of having a sacred spot for your children to visit if they need to. A place they never go but can if they want to. And this notion of dividing suddenly feels weird, like the human form is elastic, stretched to the corners of the earth.

Even as I write this, my body craves the weight of place, one place, consolidated in its being. Permanence. The intimacy of ritual. The process of saying goodbye. The feeling of knowing where someone is. Not having a plan makes me feel unmoored and anxious.

Where will I go? What is special to me? What will be most important to my kids, most of all? Where is my soul most in touch with this earth? When I think about that one question, a few images appear: The sunrise over the fields at headquarters in Oklahoma, the evening sky in Santa Fe, driving into downtown Seattle on a sunny day, the tiles of the Rome train station, the south China sea at sunrise from the deck of a ship...it suddenly feels as easy for my kids to travel to these places and snap pictures as to fling the grainy remains of this body into any space. I'm adding this to the list of things to leave behind, the ideas and thoughts and what it would mean to remain upon this earth long after I'm gone.

1,640 miles away, I can imagine sitting in the cool marble room tracing the name of my sweet brother who came into this life 40 years ago today. That's where this sits.

Make Yourself Yours

As I shuffled boxes around from room to room yesterday, it dawned on me suddenly that everything I own is finally consolidated in one space. The relics of my highschool and college years and those weird years in between owning my own home have been brought from my mother's house, my grandmother's pieces divided, the selection of things that I took from married life sit boxed and wrapped in my new home.

It's all here. All of my history and present in one place.

And as I've rifled through some of these boxes, I've pulled out old letters from friends, pictures of my much younger self, snapshots of periods of my life when I was somewhat lost and somewhat found. There are the chatty "how are things at ..." letters from my mother that wait for me, along with a cache of chosen objects of my father's that will find a place in my home.

The idea of working through these boxes is remarkably unnerving, observing the hard and the good, remembering what came before and what contributed to who I am now. Meeting that girl at 9 and 13 and 18 and 25 and 30 and loving her, all of her. It's messy to uncover a lot of things I've left boxed away for years, but it feels like something that is part of being the girl I love at 44.

Today Parker Palmer wrote a beautiful piece on loving all of ourselves, inspired by this quote by Florida Scott-Maxwell:

You need only claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done...you are fierce with reality.

Then he goes on to add this:

Today, at age 76, I know Scott-Maxwell got it right: there are no short-cuts to wholeness. The only way to become whole is to put our arms lovingly around everything we’ve shown ourselves to be: self-serving and generous, spiteful and compassionate, cowardly and courageous, treacherous and trustworthy. We must be able to say to ourselves and to the world at large, “I am all of the above.” If we can’t embrace the whole of who we are — embrace it with transformative love — we’ll imprison the creative energies hidden in our own shadows and flee from the world’s complex mix of shadow and light.

I'm going to spend some time with this today, thinking about how fierce with reality I can be. I feel like I am a good stretch there in my present life. Maybe digging back into my past a bit will make me even more myself, uniquely mine. 

Parker Palmer's piece is on the OnBeing site. Worth a read: http://www.onbeing.org/blog/fierce-with-reality-living-and-loving-well-to-the-end/7729

Interior: On Writing

I struggle with this idea of writing. There is a part of my heart that loves it, that loves the release that I feel when I put together something that resonates with me, with others, brings others to tears or laughter or whatever it is. I feel like sometimes this will be my mark if everything falls into the shitter and I leave this earth earlier than anticipated, something for my kids and my friends to hold onto. 

And there is another part of my heart that understands the weird precarious nature of writing, the part that doubts that what I do is useful to anyone that doesn’t know me, that pieces are touching because the people that read them are people who already love me, and that for those people it’s like reading a piece torn from a diary from which you can identify parts and pieces that make sense. But I wonder, really, if these things I trace onto the paper make a difference to anyone outside of the circle of my friends who hold me and my experiences close. I’ve had amazing feedback from people that I have loved and I’ve been really wounded by people I have loved not giving me any feedback. It’s an interesting and tender spot that I don’t want to care about, but I do.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, wondering if that is why I have chosen the rapid-blogging format I use (I don’t know if this is such a thing or if I made it up, but this it’s writing all in one shot, less-than-miniscule-to-zero revisions before posting, get it out and get it up style). If I do it quickly, nobody can remark on the quality. If there are no revisions, I can blow off any mistakes or feedback. If I don’t put in the effort and if I only rely on the whim of the moment, I can’t be expected to be serious about this in any real way. In short, I avoid all of the conflict of criticism or the reality of feedback by being 13 again. My mother would laugh out loud at that idea.

So I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I’ve been thinking that I still only really want to write to get things out that I notice, that I love just writing thinking that people I know on Facebook will read it, that I am not a “writer” and I have no aspirations to make this any more than it is. But I need to take this to another level, maybe work in a longer format or build in revisions or begin to take things out of this stream-of-conciousness format that it lives in (as I am typing now) and into something more coherent and cohesive. There is part of me that loves things raw and I have experienced my friends transitioning their gifts from raw talent to tutored and trained talent with mentorship and help and sometimes the transition is rough. I’m not sure what it means to lose your edge and some of the authenticity either. Maybe I’m trying to convince myself already that this is not a good idea, so I’m going to say it before I back away from it completely… I think when I get to Providence, I am going to find a writing coach.

There, I said it.

Now I have to do it. Or come up with a really freaking good reason why not to (which may be, well, I’m not writing coach material).

So wish me luck, friends. I’m peering beyond the edge on this one.

Aloft

For a long time I have had a recurring scene pass in front of my eyes, a flickering black and white clip of a man with artificial wings affixed to his arms, running dead set for the edge of a cliff. He runs, flapping like hell, only to pull up short just feet from the edge, not trusting his homemade contraption to hold him against gravity.
He is Icarus, Daedalus' son, anxious against the bright sunlight, worried about his own weight on the wings, worried moreso about his undescribed and hidden desire to fly to the highest heights with abandon.  What that will mean and what that will make, his desire to fly is thwarted by last minute doubt and worry.

But tonight, Joseph Campbell's recording of ancient wisdom rang true:
“A bit of advice
given to a young Native American
at the time of his initiation:
'As you go the way of life,
you will see a great chasm.
Jump.
It is not as wide as you think.' "
--from A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living

Today I bought a house, cementing my decision to move to a city long considered a future home, under different conditions and for different reasons, but an idea set in motion long ago. And I'm here, now, and happy and excited, this bittersweet taste in my mouth not crowding out my delight at new discoveries, but also not salving pretty profound feelings of loss and change.

It's like coming back to something and knowing it for the first time, like T.S. Eliot talked about, but not really. It's holding the space of what was with the space of what might be. It's being unsure about how to marry what has already happened (the people you love(d), things you've experience(d)) with an unchartered course.

My girl, Bridget (who is truly a gifted spiritual advisor) noted that this is a time to accept & be, explaining that if things could be different, they would be. And so I move forward, buying a house on a familiar street under radically different circumstances, celebrating a new life in environments that hold many memories, stitching together what is new and old without being totally clear on the design that will unfold. More crazy quilt than the careful block pattern that has governed the stitching of my life for so many years. Stepping into it, breath deep in my lungs, stomach tight, arms strengthened and ready to hold these heavy wings aloft, trusting in my own ingenuity, ready to take flight. 

Light as air, it's not as wide as you think.

Impossibly Imposterous

I leave Tuesday for LA and then on to Hawai'i for a writer's workshop with Cheryl Strayed. I'm late on everything in my life right now, the mounting tension of work and an upcoming event and a move coupled with the emotional baggage of cleaning out my old home has kept me from really thinking about where I am off to and why.

In truth, I am petrified. I'm scared because I remember last summer at my workshop with Lynda Barry that I couldn't write, that my brain felt flat and beige, that I was intimidated by the women in the crowd who were professional writers who, in short bursts of time, could write pieces that left me feeling pale.

I also step back in these spaces, not wanting to be a fan girl, not knowing how to be in this world of workshoppiness. I am not a writer, nor do I consider myself to be. I'm a person that uses this tool to share things that I would normally share if I were sitting across from you. There's a heavy load of acceptance that rides along with it, and ego for sure, but it's never been anything more than what it is: a way to record my experiences, mostly for my kids someday, in a format that I hope helps other people process their own shit.

So why does it matter?

It feels like it's a lot about context, which is a space I've been exploring a lot lately in terms of life in general. What it feels like to get positive feedback from people who love you and wonder if it translates more broadly to a wider audience who doesn't know your story or love you or hasn't traveled so many roads with you. It's life outside of your own personal cheering section. It's this question of being confident in what you bring or wondering if you are believing your own bullshit. It's the journey understanding your own magic in the context in which you live. In short, what if you believe what people tell you about your writing, your spirit, your being...and it's not true. Enter these short bursts of nagging Imposter syndrome that make you wonder how it all works.

This may not make much sense, but they are things that are rolling around in my brain today as a friend and I talk about vulnerability, honesty, confidence and being solid in who you are.

This quote used to hang in my office. I need it tattooed on my forearm.

Winnowing

Somehow this is not how you envisioned it, midday grey skies coaxing through the windows that you notice are in need of polishing before the people come to look at what is there. You envisioned bourbon in glasses and smoke and arms fisted up into clenched hands wrestling over who gets what. But it's not that. It's a Monday and you are starting with the bigger things when your partner of so many years lays it out for you. There isn't a lot there, honestly. Extracting the family pieces that you've either dragged with you or recently dragged in, there's not a lot there worth keeping. Old mattress 10 years on that may need replacing (that saw both of your children home), bunk beds the kids no longer want, too many items from IKEA to warrant a move across half of the nation. Save a few pieces of furniture, all of the accumulated knick knacks and a heavy lift in the kitchen, glassware and dishes, there simply is not much there. Easier to pitch it, give it away, parse it out and buy anew than to spend what it would take to bring it along.

You are not ready for the gut-punch that this brings, the sudden thought of this person you've been with for so long starting a life with barely a trace of his old, your history's imprint erased from the smooth arms of the chair, wiped clean off of the glasses, not nuanced in the myriad of future choices he would make about his accommodated life. But it's not the you being erased that is the gut-punch, it's the history, it's the together, the starting over and moving on.

And for the next few hours, you ruminate over what investment means in a marriage. What not having a lot in common to divide up means. You want to lift this metaphor into the narrative of your marriage, to use it as a tool to make your case. It's proof, you think, because the bigger truth is your heart is sore, because accumulating/not accumulating objects feels like it should mean something, because after 14 years you expected more to be there, because you can't quite erase the image of your partner's back entering a home, not your home, to start anew.

You would be foolish to leave your thinking there, so you don't. You remember hours in the garden, great meals in the kitchen, small people at soccer games and school board meetings and graduate school. You remember moving and packing and unpacking and fishing trips and the long stretch of time that this house you are leaving has afforded you during beautiful summer weather and magnificent fall leaves.  Fourteen years, not measured in big things you bought, slippery to hold onto save for the two bright and amazing beings the world will delight to receive someday. Slippery to hold on to save the small objects from faraway places that you hope his future partner won't ask to remove, the pieces that were too beautiful to let go of, the pictures you stack to split up, the wedding invitations you set aside for the kids, the bags and boxes of life moved through that you haul to the curb. It's all there for the viewing, all of the miles and years of hopeful emotions that you relive in each pile, your heart too soft for this work of winnowing what's worth keeping and what's worth leaving behind.

In Ordinary Time

For my lovely sister, Sara, who teaches me these things as she's learning them herself. I love you.

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Earbuds in place, even though there was nobody in the house, my body felt the urge to get outside and walk and listen, my limbs couped up recovering from a nasty stabbing pain in my heel that made me slow to a snail's pace for a week. That pain, the most frustrating thing in a moment where I needed to walk it out, exhale breath, give my brain a chance to consolidate it's drive, said "slow down". It actually said "slow down, motherfucka, or you are going to reap 10x what you are sowing here." Slow down, sit with it, be in it. There is no avoiding it. Sit down. Heal.

Leaves falling, air crisp-to-lovely, I wove my way around my new section of my new old neighborhood, circling close to home lest the heel rebel, returning waves to people I do not know. It's bizarre to be out in the middle of the day, my normal schedule shot through with extra time, my head uncomfortable and loose in the luxury of making my own hours. I don't like this looseness, this working when I want or need to, this feeling of ambiguity. But ambiguity surrounds me everywhere, all of the conventional things in my life having turned 180, my life in the blue sky. Ambiguity, looseness, the lack of structure, the lack of a task list, no horizon or compass is like warm water, not so much like a bath but of floating. I have always been a girl with a vision and a mission to boot. Now is the preparation time for that uncovering, in these next few months. Waiting to sense the clicking in, listening for that tug at the gut, that inner compass.

Slow down, sit with it, be in it. There is no avoiding it. Sit down. Heal.

Leaves falling, air crisp-to-lovely, listening to these words.

The Gate

BY MARIE HOWE

I had no idea that the gate I would step through

to finally enter this world

would be the space my brother's body made. He was

a little taller than me: a young man

but grown, himself by then,

done at twenty-eight, having folded every sheet,

rinsed every glass he would ever rinse under the cold

and running water.

This is what you have been waiting for, he used to say to me.

And I'd say, What?

And he'd say, This—holding up my cheese and mustard sandwich.

And I'd say, What?

And he'd say, This, sort of looking around.

Memory Kit

Gran's mushrooms cooking in butter

Mom's scent
The feel of a cheek on my cheek that lingers after a hug goodbye

My mind has been on this idea that Andy Warhol had about his cabinet of scents. He'd wear a scent for three months, then force himself to stop wearing it and would put it away in a special cabinet so when he smelled it again, he would remember things that happened in that three month period of time.

A little body warm and curled to mine

The view of Seattle coming over I-5 in the breaking light

Hunter waiving goodbye, basketball tucked under his arm

Three months. I can't imagine even being able to pinpoint things in such a short period of time. Another thing I've been pondering is this idea of memory, particularly sensorial memory and how it fades over time and what could be done to keep it. Smells, skinfeels, tastes, visual snapshots. Like the movie "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" but collapsed into a life museum where you could sit and visit. It would be a blessing and a curse, something that would keep you so mired in the past, like an addict almost. This may be why memory fades, because our heart and mind cannot bear the rawness of the feelings that we experience in those moments. Or, perhaps, constant access to those moments would tend to erode the impact of the feeling of these experiences when they come upon us suddenly. On one end, it's a soft blanket. On the other, it's a meth addiction. You could have your own little kit of memories, a set up that would put you under, just for a minute.

The smell of scotch and water

The feel of Ava's warm, newly born body on my chest

Dew-kissed sunrise over rust-colored earth

And then there's the difference between the memory as it was and the memory as you remember it. Which would you want, if there was a difference? Would you include shitty memories like the vomity smell of saline that they used to clear your port or the smell of incense that made you nauseous at your brother's funeral? 

I think you would have to lock these away too, happen upon them from time to time like the disgusting buttered popcorn jelly bellies that sneak into your handful of yumminess. Then the kit becomes real, a record that reminds you that life is not meant to be lived in perfection, that you survive and make it through. Triggers, these are all triggers and for some it would be a nightmare while others it would help them heal and thrive. 

What memories would I put in my kit if I only had 25 spaces to fill? 10? 5? What experiences would I carry with me? What is essential to what has made me? What is worth remembering and what is worth letting go?