this is happening.

I keep repeating the words, over and over, to myself: this is happening. It is my effort to stay focused on the present, to not get too caught up in the weeping tide that might consume me if I let it. They are words to remind me, too, to look up, to breathe, to close my eyes and turn my face toward the sun that is right now shining.

A little more than a year ago I cut off much of my hair. It was a symbolic gesture meant to mark my grief and what was then, I thought, the beginning of a difficult transition. I had expected the intervening year to look quite different. The particular departure I'd been expecting never materialized, but the grief it represented was quite real, and I've continued to keep my hair the same relative length during this passage of time, in part, because I was still grieving, still, actually, actively being wounded. I decided a while ago that I didn't want the relationship I was symbolically gesturing toward to be marked by grief. There has, it seems, in the last several years, been enough things, lives, relationships, moments, that have been marked by grief.

I am ready for joy.

These past few months, I have been trying to do things differently. I have been trying to let go with love. I have been trying to gain clarity, of purpose, of vision, of intent. I have been trying to be present with my wounds without actively engaging their wounding. I have been trying to live my life from a place that is more open, more loving, more dedicated than ever to what I've discovered in my own heart, not in spite of the grief, but through it, because of it. These losses have been lessons, but so too have been those moments of joy, and I have been trying not to minimize their significance.

Today, my dear friend and lover of the past four years, begins to walk a new path that no longer corresponds with mine. We each take our first steps into this next leg of our journey. I have no idea whether we will ever find our way back to each other, or what it might look like, how that might manifest, even if we do. I think the next nine months or so will involve a lot of internal reflection, a lot of digging deep. I don't know how that will feel or what I will turn up.

What I do know is this: my love has never been stronger. Even knowing that I cannot engage it in the ways I have hoped for in the past, even with the lovely RMH making his exit from the state and from this part of my life, does nothing to diminish it. I wish him more love and sweetness and success, more abundance and possibility and joy, more fiercely than I have ever before. And that's saying quite a lot, because I have always been coming from a place of love when it comes to him.

And so this day has arrived. This is what the end looks like, and the beginning. This is happening. This is really very presently happening.

me and frankie

So, this morning I had yet another odd dream. In this one I'd somehow become slightly unstuck in time (I'm going to chalk that up to the Dr. Who episodes I've been watching recently) and had landed outside some kind of military base. It would have seemed like an outpost for a more active unit, except that there were families and children in close proximity and at least part of the facilities were dedicated to education. More interestingly (to me) was the fact that I'd also become very, very Irish.

Late one night I'd found a small girl wandering the dusty roads, slipping in and out of the shadows, trying to avoid the attention of any of the guards. She carried something small and shiny in her hands, but I wasn't able to make out quite what it was. The girl was quite obviously scared. Her thin, dirty limbs shivered beneath her tattered clothing, though it was hardly cold outside. The stars were bright. I intercepted her and brought her inside my tent. Also beside me in my tent was a handsome young Irishman, who sat with his back facing me, working his way through a book by candlelight. The girl appeared apprehensive.

I asked her, "What have they done to you?"

And she shook her head, glancing up toward my male companion, then sliding her gaze back down toward the ground.

"You don't need to be afraid of him," I told her. She looked skeptical. "I'm going out on a limb, here, but I'm going to assume that the men you are afraid of do not include this here Frankie McCourt."

At the sound of his name, Frankie looked up from his book and turned his face toward the girl. The soft light of the candle made his slight smile all the sweeter. They met eyes.

The girl shook her head again, recognizing that Frankie was not a threat. "Okay. I'll tell you," she said to me in the quietest of voices. She lifted her small hand and gestured for me to lean in close.

As my face neared hers, I could smell the sour scent of ripe child. She placed her hand around my neck and whispered in my ear. I do not remember, now, what it was she said to me, but knew only that her violation would be the last and that Frankie and I were to have a long, difficult night ahead of us.

hello world.

I'm feeling exceptionally stupid with happiness today. It's a nice change of pace, and something I wasn't expecting to feel any time soon. So, this is just a tender little missive to say, "Hello world. Thanks for looking out for me all this time. I know sometimes we grow distant, but in the end, you really do seem to teach me all that I need and provide me with ample opportunity for joy."

This makes me want to post this lovely poem:

My Dead Friends

I have begun,
when I'm weary and can't decide an answer to a bewildering question

to ask my dead friends for their opinion
and the answer is often immediate and clear.

Should I take the job? Move to the city? Should I try to conceive a child
in my middle age?

They stand in unison shaking their heads and smiling—whatever leads
to joy, they always answer,

to more life and less worry. I look into the vase where Billy's ashes were—
it's green in there, a green vase,

and I ask Billy if I should return the difficult phone call, and he says, yes.
Billy's already gone through the frightening door,
whatever he says I'll do.

~Marie Howe

lucky 13

I have found myself surprisingly busy lately, and very much acting like an insomniac. Despite this, I am not getting many of my chores done and my bathroom is not getting any cleaner... Isn't that what one is supposed to do with an astounding lack of sleep?

So many changes coming, so many already underway. Mostly, this is good, perhaps even necessary. Still, in some ways, I am carrying around a sadness. For all intents and purposes, I have lost one of my dearest friends, and this is both surprising and profoundly upsetting, not to mention demanding of some serious adjustment. I truly am a fool for love. And I miss my beautiful friend. I hope he finds his heart; I hope I recover mine.

In other news, "If We Are Kind" will be featured in the upcoming print issue of Dark Sky Magazine and I'm excited to see the new issue (and the print format) and will let y'all know where to get it once I have that sort of information.

Also, I kind of love that today is Friday the 13th. Lucky 13!!

solicitation

I just received my first ever solicitation for two poems for the inaugural print issue of Dark Sky Magazine-- how awesome is that?!? This means I will be one of their premier poets for the first issue (they've been online to date) and will get to go to the release party, which I'm sure will be filled with all sorts of swanky, cool, intellectual men and women of letters. I'm swirling my cocktail in anticipation, even now. Yay!

checked

I'm realizing I have a lot of undirected angry energy that I need to, not necessarily keep in check, but redirect into things more productive. On the surface, I feel like I am not even so very angry. I am sad. I am hurting, for sure. But then, to say I have no anger also feels a little bit dishonest. Perhaps it's more that I have no present anger, but I have the lingering echoes of prior anger that did not get properly voiced or exorcised. I have spent so much energy in recent times dedicated to the art of bending, to show support, to carry another's burden... at times, to another's will, and now I am simply a little spent and need to rise back up to my full height and strength, to demonstrate with body and mind the full force and power it requires to bend and bow so deeply, to assume the posture of supplicant. I do not come to anyone ground down upon my knees. I am not unaware of my own worth. And this anger, all it is telling me is that it is high time I demand what I want and need and accept no less than what I deserve. I am more than willing to give back tenfold what I ask, and it's time I stop giving to those who think so little of my gifts.

learning

...to be selfish enough to take care of myself properly, but not become so self absorbed that I begin to act like, well, you probably wouldn't notice if I were making a comparison to you, now would you?

baby steps

Step One:
Don't falter. When you find yourself wanting to lie in his arms, send him home.

Step Two:
Continue to speak your truth. It is no accident your worlds collided. Make the damage matter.

mouse

To the little grey mouse under the kitchen sink:

I'm sorry that there isn't enough room in the house for all of us, and I'm sorry for what must have been a traumatic evening spent, at least in part, between my cat's teeth. She was only doing what kitties do, and, in truth, it's probably best that she did. I only wish she possessed a full set of teeth so that she could have finished you off more quickly. Finally, I am sorry that I didn't have the heart to finish you off when she eventually tired of toying with you. I know you must have been in pain, but I could neither bring myself to wring your tiny neck, nor scoop you into a plastic bag (where you would have suffocated-- surely a fouler alternative), and instead only turned you out into the tiered bed of flowers in the front yard. I hope you expired quickly and in peace, or that you made a quick snack for a wandering owl, and that you can forgive me.

crossroads

Well, the times, they are a-changin'...

I know that I am on the precipice of something new that is unfolding before me and I know that the decisions I make now, the boundaries I set now, will alter the course I am on and lead me down a different, and hopefully better, path. As is often the case when one is faced with a pattern or path altering decision, it is sometimes difficult to see clearly the right steps to take (and by right, I simply mean, right for me), but I am reasonably confident that I am making the appropriate choice to stand where I am and to let go of those things to which I cling, perhaps too dearly, and embrace the uncertainty, which is, after all, the only thing I can ever truly count on.

baby raccoon

Yesterday, we found a baby raccoon nesting under our porch. He'd come out and was burrowing in the grass by the side of our stairs and was so cute and peaceful looking... And then it started to seize and make terrible wheezing noises, puffing itself up all over, and then collapsing back into a peaceful, sleepy state. It was the saddest thing to watch. We had to call animal control to come pick it up and take it to be put down. It turns out there is an epidemic of distempter in the raccoon population right now and it wreaks havoc on the neurological system and there isn't much they can do, but put them out of their misery. The mama raccoon came back last night to find her nest empty and the space cleaned out. I don't know if she'll stick around or not, or whether she's healthy or not, but I can't stop thinking about both of them.

words and deeds

It occurs to me that I do not always place my trust in those who are deserving of it. I expect people to act in accordance with their better natures, with what they profess is important to them, with honesty and integrity in all dealings. But the reality is that most people, certainly not out of any maliciousness, rather in their fumbling attempts to be happy, are utterly self absorbed and act with little to no regard for anyone other than themselves.

I ask myself why, for instance, do I place my trust in someone who chooses to be dishonest in his closest dealings with others? I don't mean outright lies, but lies of omission, which is, to me, as dishonest. And is it too much to think that the people I am closest to, who say they love me, might consider, for a second, what it means to, say, pursue a course of action within a very small pool, that will leave me having to swim in their mess after they are long gone, and, perhaps choose to do otherwise? That all sounds very abstract, but I live and work within a very small community and it would be nice to think my long term lover and friend might choose not to make things more difficult for me, personally and professionally, especially when he'll be leaving the state soon.

I have to remind myself of the kinds of relationships I value, that I want to cultivate in my life, and remind myself to not be so attached to one that fails in such important ways. I say this without judgment, despite how it may appear. I would not invest such time and energy in one that I didn't feel was worth all of it, but I sometimes lose the essential perspective that reminds me just how fickle and unreliable most everyone is. People are not what they say, but what they do, and while everyone makes mistakes, or takes some course of action that causes another some grief or difficulty on occasion, again, not with any thought of malice, it is important to consider the pattern of action that presents itself and not become too attached to those whose words and lofty aspirations fly so high above and apart from the more consistent baseline of their deeds.

Most importantly, I have to remind myself that I keep choosing these situations and I am the only one who can change that. I wonder, when I am quick to love and prone to accepting others as they are, whether perhaps it wouldn't have been a good idea to keep all my defensive walls in place instead of systematically tearing them all down. There is no point in having the world's most open heart if there is no solid foundation upon which to rest it. I have a lot of work to do.

an open letter

Dear Mosquitoes:

I swear I am not snack food. I'm begging you: please, please dine elsewhere.

Also, if you would remind me again of what part of the ecosystem you are so vitally supporting, I would appreciate it ever so much.

~me

a quiet day

This is yet another entry about my experiences on the #15. This morning was marked by the loud and mostly vapid conversation of two girls (in their late teens, I'd guess, but possibly early twenties). Both were dressed as though ready to hit the clubs, even though it was barely 9:00 a.m. on a Tuesday, which was fine. They were headed to Seattle for an overnight trip. They carried suitcases large enough to block the aisle for this overnight trip. I mean comically large. I mean, two weeks worth of stuff for one night.

They were probably pretty, with fine young skin, though it's tough to say for certain, since I could have carved my initials into their cheeks through their makeup. The wafting power of their combined perfumes was enough to knock over a small army, but, actually, none of that was what I found so off putting.

Girl #1 sat talking on her cell phone in an excessively loud voice.

"Yeah, like, this whole week I get to go on trips. Uh huh. I'm going to Seattle and then I'm coming back tomorrow night. And then I'm going out again. And then I work on Friday. And then this weekend..."

You get the idea.

An older woman, who happened to be sitting next to me, leaned over and politely asked, "Miss? Would you mind speaking a little more quietly, please?"

And the girls ignored her, the one continuing her conversation, it seemed, even more loudly.

The woman spoke up again. The exchange went like this:

Woman: "Excuse me, but would you please keep it down a bit?"

Girl #2: "Um... can't you see she's talking on the phone?"

Woman: "I know. I talk on the phone but do so---"

Girl #1: "Good. I'm glad you talk on the phone."
then to her caller: "Yeah, whatever, there's this woman..."

Girl #2: "If you want quiet, don't take public transportation."
(Girl #1 continues to talk loudly)

random male passenger: "They should make a rule against that."

Woman: "There is a rule against that."

random male: "Oh, there is." (Points to sign on bus with obnoxious girl talking loudly on her cell phone next to the phrase "Do Not Disturb Other Passengers"

Girl #2: "If you wanted quiet, you should have gone to the library."

young guy with saggy pants who is standing behind the girls, obviously checking them out: "Yeah, totally."

(This guy was strange, because he was encouraging their rude behavior, it seemed, in an attempt to impress these girls, and yet not three minutes earlier, he'd politely given up his seat for a guy with an injured foot.)

Woman: turns back to her book, shaking her head a bit but saying nothing.

Girl #2: "I mean, it's a public place. It's PUBLIC transit. If you don't want people to talk don't be in public."

young guy: "I know what you mean, right?"

The bus pulls up to the stop. The girls are so busy being rude and talking on the phone, respectively, that they don't realize it's their stop. The bus starts to pull away from the stop.

Girls (shouting to bus driver from the back door): "Um, we're trying to get off."

Girls again: "UM, WE WANT TO GET OFF HERE!"

Driver opens the back door for them.

Girl #1 to woman: "I hope you have a quiet day."

Girl #2 to woman: "Yeah! I hope you have a QUIET DAY."

They exit. The doors close.

I laugh and say to the woman, "Well, the good news is that most people eventually grow up."

Woman: "That's true. Except for the odd few, most people do."

Me: "Looking back, I'm sure I was a terror as a teenager."

Woman: "Oh! I *know* I was!" She laughs.

And with that, it was clear she didn't have any ill-will toward the girls. She was just asking them to take it down a little. But, presumably, because she was old and white haired and looked a little prim and was reading her book, these girls took it as an attack and went out of their way to be rude to her.

I decided that perhaps, terror though I was, I was perhaps not anything like those girls. I can't speculate on the women they'll grow into, but I can say that I hope I still have a sense of humor like the older woman I sat next to clearly possessed.

tuneskip?

Is there a word for when, for some inexplicable reason, a song gets stuck in your head that you have not heard anywhere recently and for which you do not have any particular fondness? Is there a separate word for when this occurs and only a small segment of the lyrics loop through your mind endlessly? Is there yet another word for the special kind of hell it is to experience both of these things to the tune of Toto's "Africa?"

water and napkins

So, I've been nerding out on a particular astrologist who deals with astrology from a depth psychology perspective. Among the many interesting posts she makes are weekly posts that give a day by day explanation of what's happening with the planets that week. Friday's entry included the following:

"The first celestial shift of the day occurs at 3:32am when mercury moves out of Gemini and into Cancer. the conscious mind and intellect's shift from Gemini to Cancer is from air to water, intellect to emotion, Spirit to Soul. With Mercury moving into the mothering sign of Cancer, conversation and communication can take on more watery, emotional, nurturing undertones. Speaking from the heart is supported in the coming weeks- as is focusing on the home, family and inner life environment." (emphasis mine)

I note this simply because I had some weird ass dreams early Friday morning, so much so that I woke up and drafted text messages to myself to remember them. This happened at about half past three. I've outlined the dreams below, since this blog has become a bit of my own personal dream archive.

Dream #1

I was attempting to navigate class 5 rapids alone and narrowly avoided my own potential death. I don't know why I was there, or really what I was doing. There was some kind of chute that had been constructed in the waterway. It had two tiers, one dropping water into another that further opened onto a particularly rough patch of water. Then the river continued on to the rapids. I was floating across the water in the top of the first tier in a small, round inflatable raft. I remember running my hands along the edging, afraid that the chute might open, while at the same time not really understanding the danger.

A carload of strangers pulled up to the side of the waterway and shouted at me to get out of the water. They said it was the worst part of the season and explained high high tide and high low tide. They also told me that the Eel River, which is where I was, was notorious for its dangerous rapids. Apparently the chute is where adventurous tourists would drop in and then directly head toward the violent, churning whitewater. (Later, I checked into the Eel River and found it is an actual river, and the Dos Rios to Alderpoint section of Eel River in California is 47 miles long and is classified as a class II-IV section. Weird.)

The next thing I knew, I was standing on top of a platform on the first tier of the chute and an old friend of mine who I used to work with at Kepler's Books was saying that he didn't understand how the whole thing worked. He leaned on a lever that dropped the platform and sent me flying over the edge to the second tier. My bag, which had been on the platform with me, was tipped over and the contents emptied onto the second tier. Water began rushing on top of me and I knew that as soon as enough water had dumped on me the second tier would open and I'd be sent straight down the chute into the rapids without so much as a raft. My friend absent-mindedly pushed the lever again and the flow of water stopped. I was soaked. I picked up my bag to find that my cell phone was still in it and completely dry. I was injured and wet, but otherwise OK.

Dream #2
I was sitting down to dinner at an outside table with B, and also R's friend Ryan. There were other people there, but I don't recall whether I knew them or if they were with us. Then a girl I used to know (in the dream, though not actually in real life) sat down to the table and began complaining about the explosive arguments she regularly got into with the man she loves. I told her "I might almost prefer that to the back and forth of 'I'm in this, wait, no I'm not, I don't feel that way, except, I love you, and we should do this, but I'm scared, well, I'm something, and anyway I want to be with other people, only, I love you, so, maybe I should go' and me going, 'okay. eviscerate me. again.'" The girl said, "If it works for you it doesn't matter that nobody understands it."

The girl and I then walked to R's old apartment, which he'd recently moved out of, and we went inside where we found various items that R and other former tenants had left behind. Most of the things we found were not particularly noteworthy, but then I saw a partial set of my cloth napkins and place mats strewn about the apartment. I remember feeling really annoyed by this and then going around collecting my things and stuffing them into a plastic sack. I remember not knowing how or why R had these things in the first place.

dogs

Once again, I find that I often have more patience and fondness for dogs than I do their human owners. This is, perhaps, because good dogs are often nicer and better behaved than the human on the other end of the leash.

you look like sex

Walking down the street this morning, I was treated to these fine words, shouted by a gravelly voiced indigent fellow:

"You look like sex," he yelled as I passed him to cross the street. "What are you doing walking around with all that sex?"

Some days riding the bus practically pays for itself.

unconditional

It has taken me a long time, but I think I finally understand what it means to love unconditionally. It is not a matter of not having wishes or desires. I may desire to be with you, that you might love me as I love you, but such desire does not determine my relationship to you or how I treat you. My love for you extends beyond our interactions, in fact, extends far beyond whether my wishes and desires are ever fulfilled. I love you and your singular nature. I love you and your godlike being that shines from within. I love you and your absurd sense of humor. I love you in your moments of sadness, and weakness, and contradiction. I love you even if you do not love me. I love you even if you love someone else. I love you for all the things you are, which includes the ugly bits, the difficult bits, the occasionally unreasonable bits, in fact, I love you because all the aspects of your personality and behavior comprise your uniquely beautiful and beautifully human way of walking through the world. I love your strength and fragility. I love your fierceness and your stubbornness. I love your laughter and your perception and your process of discovery and growth. I love that you challenge me to be greater than I am and that you challenge yourself. I love that, despite observing all the crushing realities around you, still you possess a childlike wonder and a kind, loving heart, still see the sublime beauty of the world, and that this is not the result of ignorance, willful or otherwise, or a filtering of fact; you see all that is harsh, inconsistent, and cruel, and yet you still go on seeking truth and seeing beauty and growing every day more lovely. And yet I also love you independently of all this. I love you even as you stumble or fail, even when you don't make any sense to me. I love you when you are present and when you are gone and I will love you even if you become to me only a memory. I think I even understand now what it must mean to love as a mother loves her child, in that my love for you is full of such tenderness that even if I were to watch you grow distant from me and we were to eventually part ways, I would love you still more fiercely, so that whenever you felt low, or wanted a friend, or simply wished to look back to see where it was you had been, how far you'd traveled, you might be buoyed by my love and it might give you some measure of strength or peace or pleasure for all the rest of your journey in this space-time continuum or any other.

junkies

I think, perhaps, the only thing more depressing than an old junkie (of which there are few) is a pair of teenage junkies making up stories on the #10 about how "sleepy" they are to excuse the fact of their "falling asleep" on some old woman's shoulder.