steady yes

even though my chest was rapidly rising and falling i found myself breathing in the steadiness of the energy between us. that is why i could not sleep. you asked me what caution looks like. perhaps it has a look to spectators but the only indicator i can trust is the feeling within me, the knowing that my lessons are learned. reflected light comes from a clarity of vision, after a season of cleaning mirrors. there is a steady opening in this chest that you fall asleep upon. your strength allows a safe space for me to be myself, for this alone i would say yes. but there is much more. it is a joy to meet you half way, to feel the reciprocity in your touch. i have no expectations or disguises, i will not pretend to be completely healed from past wounds. perhaps scars are our only caution signs. all i know is that today i can give you my 'yes'. i know that each day i can give more of myself because i am living in the flight of my dreams. it is fitting that you came to me with a bird in your hands, there are feathers all around you. i see your wings and they are beautiful. throw caution to the wind and fly with me today. 

shapeshifting

today i awoke with hope in my arms, lying next to me like a lover's convex curve. it was as warm as the suns rays slicing through the blinds and i found myself not feeling alone. a presence as safe as home, carrying me over the threshold towards the open hearts of the ones who love me. there is an internal shift that begs for external expression. the journey here was paved with obstacles the size of mountains. yet the change can only be known through the subtle varying degrees of feelings. the difference is found in that moment where inhale turns to exhale and the unpinable lapse in time between sight and recognition. there is no more pain there. through me pours a faith in all things i love, the saving grace that held me up when i no longer could stand. i trusted in that love when love and trust failed me. i wont pretend that i have patched every hole in this leaky boat, but the tears that rained down no longer threaten to sink me, steady bailing keeps me afloat. i see my destination ahead and i can see the beauty in the past's wake. everything happens for a reason, there is no fate or destiny only the branching tree of choices we have made. if you are strong enough you can trace ever reason down to its root. dig through the dirt and you can come clean. you may find that love is buried there.

each moment is an opportunity to create compassion.

quotes

"one morning you will awake to find that you are the person you dreamed of, doing what you wanted to do, simply because you had the courage to believe in your potential."

today is that day

"tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair but manifestations of strength and resolution."- Kahlil Gibran

no longer will i appease the doubter for i know my love's source.

reading bedtime stories

i could have done without it, but that's not what i got. it is like looking at a complete stranger and yet i still expect to see myself there. maybe because i once did. i recognize the eyes, the smiles, the posturing, the lean against the bathroom sink. it's too easy to stay the same, right?  have we changed enough to remember the fairy tales differently? some serious editing and a few added characters makes me wonder if the ending will be any less predictable, it sure sounds familiar. all i know is that we are all promised a happy ever after.

i believe.....

i believe in the power of compassion. i believe there is beauty in taking risks. i believe there is providence in living with an open heart and an open mind. i believe there is grace in vulnerability. i believe that even the biggest wounds can heal. i believe that the worst loss will lead to your greatest gift. i believe in my own strength. i believe in love. i believe she will find me. i believe that the best is yet to come. i believe i am more alive than ever.

power and grace

some people in our lives are not meant to stay for long, we share a moment, embrace a connection and walk away changed. certain people leave a strong mark, some imprints are more beautiful than others. i suppose it depends on circumstance, chance, timing, or even the aligning of stars....but why is it that one big love can leave you broken and then a half hearted one can set you free? there is power in seeing your patterns as they unfold and there is grace in deciding to change. now i know what it feels like to let go, to be detached and to still know a moment of love and friendship. i asked for nothing, she asked for less. when my eyes stay clear, my heart becomes open. now i am ready to trust again because i trust myself to see that all love must come with wings.    thank you, g.

healing and feeling scars

i ventured into your space to see if what i suspected was true....yes, i am over you. i looked up into your poet tree and and heard the little bird sing. it was a song about love. i smiled because i was at peace that it wasn't for me and i cried because i was grateful that you were free. we both are finally happy. today is the day i learned what love means and it is found in the sound and sight of flying wings.

the mourning lingers

burning bridges is not my form of trail blazing.....

to be understood

What makes one heroic?- going out to meet at the same time one's highest suffering and one's highest hope.

What does your conscience say?- "You shall become the person you are."

What is the seal of liberation?- No longer being ashamed in front of oneself.

The Artist's Reality

"sensuality is our index to reality.....and our notions of reality are known to be simply the registration of comparative degrees of pain and pleasure." -Rothko

Greenberg

two lines from that movie really stuck with me:

1. "hurt people, hurt people!"

2. "do you know how hard it is to learn to accept the life you didn't plan on living?"

this pretty much explains why i have no business dating and why i can suddenly bust into tears in line at the post office.

Book 3 #124

In the horizon of the infinite- We have left the land and have embarked. We have burned our bridges behind us-indeed, we have gone farther and destroyed the land behind us. Now, little ship, look out! Beside you is the ocean: to be sure, it does not always roar, and at times it lies spread out like silk and gold and reveries of graciousness. But hours will come when you will realize that it is infinite and that there is nothing more awesome than infinity. Oh, the poor bird that felt free and now strikes the walls of this cage! Woe, when you feel homesick for the land as if it had offered more freedom- and there is no longer any "land."

symbolism

two mason jars of wind falling into the river. i watched them float away until they tumbled over the dam. one lingered longer than the other, if i had chose to i could have easily retrieved it from across the bank......freedom has weight, and still it floats.

delightful

...she won't need her arms to hold me because she will hold me with her heart...

balancing act

life feels like a constant tightrope walk. i recognize the importance of this time in my life, the sheer act of walking a thin line. so much risk, so much effort, so much discomfort, so much within reach, so much slipping away, so much that has always been within me, so much hope,feeling so alive on this edge. it is utterly overwhelming no matter how welcomed or necessary. sometimes i think autonomy is really an illusion, I did not set up the line, I did not make the rope. People watch from either end with an outstretched hand. I can do the best for myself, take care of myself first, fulfill my own needs, breathe steadily, stay balanced but the truth is i have not done it alone. i don't know if i would be writing these words without the loving people in my life: family, friends, strangers who opened themselves up to me. I've made more new friends in the last 6 months than the last 4 years, I am grateful beyond measure. It is the greatest gift, the opening of my eyes and heart. However, it is not easy to grieve and mourn the loss of a life you've lived for so long. It feels like rubbing up against jagged rocks in order to remove shedding skin. I asked for change, I got more than I ever imagined. I am powerful in my ability to manifest, I accept I made this all happen. Everything happens for a reason, to see this it takes a backward reflection not a future prophecy. I see now that she was there long ago, perhaps just a dream that lived inside me, it's not fair to her person that she disappointed me. I saw my self, my dream, my ideals and to be honest I still do. That was one of the many fatal flaws. I recognize now that this feeling of something dying within me, this immense grief has to do with what has been in me all along. The transition from one life into another, allowing the dream to die and opening up a space to actually live it. I know why I fell, why I chose to, I loved for who I was. Who I am still lives and still loves. Now I have little to give others in terms of material and objects, any sense of societal security. Clearly now I only have myself to give. It took losing everything to know what that means. I could intellectualize it but now I know what it feels like, sounds like, looks like. Through this I've learned how to articulate my needs, to loosen the chains, I am being opened to the flow of exchange. Clarity comes with a healing price; mourning. I wish I had that gift to give then and the spaciousness to receive endlessly, I knew in that one area she was right. Retrospectively, it could not have been any other way, there are so many reasons why. So now, I write to express myself, to one day be heard and to be understood.... by whom I do not know. It's healing to see myself again, so long overdue. The wind of each day brings abundant smiles to my face, just as it trembles the tightrope of my heart. I step gently and intentionally...looking forward, not down. open arms, open hearts await.

words only

"Just as you were about to step on it, I asked you: 'Do you want to cross the footbridge to me?'-Immediately, you did not want to any more; and when I asked you again, you remained silent. Since then mountains and torrential rivers and whatever separates and alienates have been cast between us, and even if we wanted to get together, we couldn't. But when you now think of that little footbridge, words fail you and you sob and marvel."

wake up call?

this morning i awoke to a voice that said "go on with your life...you don't need me any more." a little nutty perhaps but it sounded like the voice of reason and change. the question is 'who was there that i don't need?'

#2 My Happiness

Since I grew tired of the chase

And search, I learned to find;

And since the wind blows in my face,

I sail with every wind.

disconcerting thoughts

I'm not sure what is more shocking to witness: to see your mother reflected in yourself or to see your ex in yourself?

humble pie

nothing is more humbling than realizing "even I wouldn't date me"...my life is presently a train wreck. It would be cruel to invite another passenger to join me on this trip.

choices

from the moment i made the choice to fall in love, i set into motion the unraveling of my life as i knew it. each step i made was out of the intention to get me closer to my dreams, to create my life more beautifully, to fulfill my needs and desires, to live in passion. i truly did the best i could with what i had and what i knew. despite the best intentions it wasn't guaranteed to be the right equation. if i had any idea how difficult it was going to be; the high stake costs, the pain, the disappointment, the loss; i'm sure i would have made other choices. but i would have passed up on the lessons, the growth, the love, the opportunity to reinvent my life the way i have always wanted it to be. it's so cliche but true, life never ends up the way we plan it to be. i'm at peace that at the end of the day this is all a result of my choices, big or small. i've been so close to manifesting my dreams, i've touched them, i've literally held one in my arms. i still remain hopeful. now i must learn to accept what is, what is real, what is not, what i really want and what i actually need. i long to trust. i need to trust in the things that i love. to trust love itself. that is the choice right now that i have to make. fear is part of the process but it does not consume me. hope and seeing everything within reach keeps me breathing another day. i am strong enough.

"What you still need to know is this: before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we've learned as we've moved toward the dream. That's the point at which most people give up. It's the point at which, as we say in the language of the desert, one 'dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon.' Every search begins with beginner's luck. and every search ends with the victors being severely tested." from The Alchemist

eternal spring

sadly, birds remind me of shoulders and skin, of mornings in the trees and silhouettes flying away at dusk. their songs sing of things i took for granted, her wings, my legs, a rushing clock and falling leaves. spring brings promise of life, as routine as an anniversary. i will create a memorial, erecting stones in the earth, balancing rocks on top of themselves...a sundial to slow down the telling of time. the elements will inflict their will just the same, make known the temporality of loss, love and life....or so it seems. this human drama was never meant to soar like birds, it enacts the gravity of boulders. the greatest weight had me descending rapidly toward earth. still, the birds dance to their songs and rhythms, constellations and horizons as their recurring stage. i can't help but marvel at the beauty of it all..to wish i was still up there with them.

3.6.2010

art has deep and difficult eyes

Who would have known that an 'I ' and a 'U' was enough to trigger such an emotional response...I knew, I felt it when I first said those words to you. It is fitting that you use words to counter what I say in paint, in silence. We always wanted to collaborate, the power couple, but here we are. Powerful in our creativity, our ability to hurt each other, yet no longer in the form of a pair...we are as distant as the expression on your face, in life and on canvas. The pain so close it mocks my skin, the paper thin flesh that carries inscriptions, the story of this love so far gone. You speak with intentions and I speak with visuals. This lonely bending heart remembers love, it knew its depth, it knew two breaths. The colors faded into hues as cold as the day I could see my breath suspended and still before you, the ice queen, the ruler of her skull-sized kingdom. The gaze you speak of is not mine, we are mirrors remember. In the end it reflects nothing on me. The subjective concerns between you and the gazing object are yours and yours alone.

12.2009

the body palimpsest

you landed on my limbs, a little poet bird. your light frame defied gravity and made my branches bow. me...a kind hearted tree, unknowingly awaiting the paper mill. how was i to see i'd become vellum so quickly, i was looking to the clouds for cracks and openings. your tiny talons inscribed your presence.. each word, each breath.. onto me. my body palimpsest....my heart a manuscript. look closely and you will see me. i am every leaf, every season, every ring, all the love i feel inward, sink downward and send outward into the sky. if you could have held me up to the sun you could have seen me. I have transformed into pages that reveal words that tell new stories...create new beliefs. love is beautiful when you see it that way, when we want it that way. you are there on my surface, the deepest etching, the newest entry telling our tale. i too want to let go, to know what that means for me. i want to feel the dance of swaying in the wind, the passion of drinking from the river. i want to see the beauty in you flying away into the horizon, the bird that built a nest in my leaves for a season. now that nest is empty and i will house it until the wind takes it from me. i never intended to keep you like a cage, but your eyes reflected bars not branches. I wept the day I understood that is how you saw me. you were the loveliest bird to me and I just wanted to be your poet tree, naively I wanted to be home to each seasons nest, to continue to grow more branches and leaves. I am an old oak tree, perhaps I make rings too slowly. Instead I am reduced to pulp and paper…parchment for poetry. What I would give to see the blue around the shape of your wings again. To feel every breeze as a breath, every dropping leaf a relief, falling whispers beauty…a song of love promised on the feathers of a bird who arrived and departed from an expanding horizon. How I loved you then..how I love you still. Is today the day little bird?

11.2009

a moment

Do we know what we say? What we write? What we think? What we paint? What we etch into each other’s soul? He said I hold a big responsibility in my hands. I hold all of history and all of eternity. He said be wise, be well, good luck. I found myself wanting to believe him, his observations, his opinions, his theory that women don’t find themselves until their thirties. If correct, then I am just beginning to level out. Is that what this is? This loss, this death I feel, this death I want. Acceptance found in a random conversation up in the clouds. He had more faith in me than I often have in myself, honesty in the beauty and ignorance of a first impression. Perhaps we’d be wise to listen to our gut more, perhaps we’d see ourselves better if we woke up each morning and gave ourselves the gift of an optimistic first glance. He was kind and honest, and offered me a moment of connection. Those are the moments we live for, brief or prolonged. Did we have this? Can we remember it? I wish to walk away with grace. I wish to tie an invisible thread around your coat button. Someday I’d like to tug on it and see if it is still attached. Only when the time is right. He said maybe it still could be you. I laughed nervously. He said he loved a Whistler, because of it’s subtlety. I’d like to see that painting someday to understand what he meant.

2. 18. 2010

consider....

that everything very personal is essentially comical.