Archive for the ‘room to grow’ Category

I am here, in this place I hate to love;

where the whispers flow with the ease of a breeze,

and breezes are indefinite in the cavity of my skull.

question me.

I question you;

rather the existence of you;

your presence, your sincerity, your intention.

I question you;

in your actions and motives, your words.

I question you,

your touch, your smile, you.

I question me.

your misleading? your ill tended? your not?

I question me.

questions, thoughts of unsupported consequence.

I fumble.

I questioned me in you and you in me.

I questioned.

quietly.

questioned.

I dangle effortlessly, strangled in my own deep breath, gasping for more, more pain and sorrow and joy and pleasure. Allow me more, increase that wretched rope and let my feet grace the cold velvety earth, let me feel the freedom which my body and mind allow, let me run; choke me at the end of the tether I crafted, strong and pure, made to bind me to my own intentions and here I will dangle in the depths of a canyon so shallow that not even an ant would drown, and yet the depth is great.

Here I seek my anchor to keep fast my hot air balloon. Heaven forbid my dreams escape me, move faster then my realities, or that my realities may overcome my dreams and drown in a frightening sense of normality.

The balance that tethers my balloon, that keeps my inhibition in check, and forces me to be reckless the balance that is human is me, is my lack of balance.

So much of what I see, what I do and what I have sought has been about balance – yoga and meditation, diet, family, friends everything in harmony. That is what all the quotes say, all the books, find balance, find peace, create a space that uses feng shui, moderate find balance. So they, they, they, they, the same they that always seems to know all that ever is and was and will be. The they that send chills down my spine and turn me nauseous THEY…well to hell with they and them and all that is as it is and is as it should be, if it is as it should be then why could no one warn me that it would be this way.

I have fought my roller coaster, I pushed backwards up the track, and it ran over me, crushed me, raped me against the track and tore the flesh from my bone, left me broke and battered. I pushed. I fought. I aimed for balance, I sought to make balance to create peace and harmony where none could be found, to make lemon aid from lemons only to learn that I must also have sugar and water, rotten or perfect, the lemons alone do me no good. So take you cliches you, you they that are they, and them, and those. Take your virtues and character builders, take you silver linings and lucky rabbits feet, take them and stand tall and tell me, does not the weight of them cast upon you alter your balance.

Like a shot in my gut, the bloody nose of my son, a broken heart, and an intangible desire, you will certainly loose balance by carrying all of those that they give.  May I suggest an alternative.

Accept the loss, anticipate being bucked by the bull and tripping on the side walk. And when you fall, when you bleed and hurt, take it in, taste the iron and revel in the warm burn of a break. Take the fall and use it, abuse your instability, turn it inside out, poke it with a knife; and when your pain is so great that you can no longer feel it, then you are not in more pain, but you have over come that which you were subjected to.

If you live, but are afraid to fall, then you do not live. Very often we must loose our balance to get a better sense of balance. We must loose ourselves to find ourselves. It is the loss, the lack of control, the free will, succumbing to fantasy and inhibition, dreaming and daydreaming, struggling, and free falling that shake the core of our being; and should we choose to be strong enough, it is from these states that we emerge newly balanced, stronger, more refined in our being, more me, more us than even we knew possible.

The climb may be breathtaking, and the fall may be terrifying, but when you break through, you catch your breath and you realizes your more alive then before, then somehow you come to love the fall. to love loosing your balance, to giving yourself over to that which you can not control.

loose yourself, don’t be afraid to take the leap, you may fall, but if you do, you will rise again to another version of yourself. Do not go blindly, do not go forth in the game of balance weak and without faith, for when you slip, when the crucial moment arises and your balance is gone, to regain it is to test all the strength you have; because as you regain balance, you do so knowing that you will fall again, that you will taste the blood of another scrapped knee and suffer the stinging pain and do so knowing you will at some point have to do it again.  We are never fully balanced unless we accept that there is no perfect balance.

Through soft branches I notice the hour; being moved by fan blades and ice cubes I seek comfort.

Lost in my dampness. Heat rises to my dry lips and I ache for the coolness at length. The coolness of moon breezes and  the throat quenching of late earliness. For these are the comforts of a sunset heart at the beginning of the next dawn. Deep naps have reconstituted the tenacity of my being while I await the next session of incessant playing. The melodies are so often soft, tender and beautiful; and the beat is lustful, enticing and corruptive. I will be played again come the dawn I know; and  I stir now to the motions of the sun. I will be played softly and harshly, in various tunes, and with various times. The sound will rake the heart and soothe the ears in a way that implies we can experience love and pain and pain in love, beauty in the ugly and grace in the grotesques.

I am human. I am the duality of love and beauty (pain and ugliness).

I very much so enjoy words, phrases, the sounds in my head as I softly read to myself, never through these lips, but those that clearly speak, in as am image of myself somewhere inside. I hear me. I hear me as the character, as the specific individuals alter in form, I alter in form. I lust for words. For succulent phrases to gnaw on and revel in. And yet alas, the ability to produce such words is one I continually find myself at  odds with.

So to those of you who ask for more, I beg of you the patience of a crocodile, and the quiet of an owls wings, I will write more, but writing, like paining, like any art, must come when one has something to paint or write.

Here in this moment I struggle to swallow the chunks of life being fed to me.

Here is not a place where I am inspired to share, here is a place to crawl into, to hide, to repeat, and distort the scratch of my current record, for while I repeat, I recognize. I recognize that I have nothing to offer at this moment that you will enjoy eating.

So in the meantime please enjoy what I post, and know I appreciate the responses and I am working to more.

Till then…

test

The day begins as they always do during the weekend. Around seven the sun shines softly through the skylight onto the white cotton blankets and there are small hands tugging to get in, but only for a moment. A soft hug, and the expressed desire for milk and cartoons,and I comply.

Recently, in the past year, but mostly in the past several months I have fully embraced my lot in life and my roll in life. I am to be a single mother. Of this fact, I cry often, for no reason other than the wonder of how I am supposed to progress. The thought of another ‘father’ for my son, or brothers and sisters that are not really his, it is all so foreign to me. I assume that shall any of it ever be meant to be it will. That however, is rarely as reassuring as it perhaps should be, or perhaps it shouldn’t.  

I have accepted it. I have embraced the long days and the challenges. I have learned to find time to myself in small doses or late at night. I have also learned the importance of quality time. No cell phone, no email, no nothing. Just me, just Edan. And increasingly I find myself caught in the Rockwell moments of total awareness. I find myself so reassured that life can be alright.

The children’s moon frequently guides our path as we have enjoyed late day romps on the play ground or dinner with friends, nights on the beach swimming in our clothes, carefree ice cream cones and excessive amounts of tag. The days have been light, and the sun has been warm, often glowing, casting us in the roll that we embody. We have learned to have fun together. I have no pretense. I play on the playground and dig in the mud and jump the waves in my jeans and eat the rest of the ice cream and swap bad jokes. We are what we have. There is no love that is more binding than that you share with your children, but that you gain playing with your children.

And yet, despite the contentment, it does not dissolve the loneliness. It is only masked. Temporarily pushed aside. And at night, when the dishes are done, the agenda is signed, the lunch is packed, school clothes are out, the work bag is filled the list is written, and the day to come is prepared; then, as I crawl into bed the pillows absorb my loneliness, they take it all in. All the happy moments with Edan, all my successes at school, my handy household accomplishments, his great plays at practice and new eating endeavors, the plans for the holidays, and all the good and bad that goes with being a parent and a family.

These are all mine. I take them in doses along with a spoon full of sugar, and somehow taking them alone is none the sweeter.

If I  am the beholder of my eye, then I must be the beholder of my beauty; for though I have heard the words pass the lips of others, they seldom come to the tip of my tongue; and if not on my tongue, then how can it be.

I have longed now for my own beauty, my own sense of beauty. I felt that way once. Seemingly forever ago, but not so. And yet, I know that a part of that sense of beauty resided in the imposition of it onto me through the eyes and lips of another. Time has changed all that. I have now, for a while felt haggard. Beaten. Tired. Aged. And perhaps in many ways those feelings are warranted. The dilemma arises in how to overcome the exhaustion, the mommy fatigue, the sense of aged loneliness and unkemptness. How do I pull me together? How do I find me? Who do I find me for?

I have asked these questions often lately. I am not lost, but I am floating, hovering perhaps, lingering in a stage of uncertainty. I know what I want, I know who I am. I only wish I felt accepted enough in my own skin to embrace the manifestations of that being.

I am full of light and personality; and I am eternally grateful to the attachment I have had to develop to my independence, my inner strength, and motherhood. As of late there have been no moments that make me feel more beautiful than those I which I realize I am fully engaged in life. I have been caught racing up the hills, jumping waves in my jeans, blowing bubbles in my pajamas, and up and down the slide at the playground. Briefly, here, with no mirror, no pretense, no judgement of fashion and hair styles, I am seen as beautiful for the energy and life I share with those around me. I owe any radiance I have in those moments to living the Norman Rockwell moments.

In my true moments, my aware moments, my Norman Rockwell moments I am at total peace with the universe internally and externally. I am resolved that for those moments in time it is not just myself, but all of us at the Farmer’s Market, or the movie in the park, or the fourth of July fireworks, that are beautiful, aware and present, happy, and peaceful. In our presence I think we radiate the most; here the need for a certain appeal is lost. We are as we are, and in pajamas on the porch blowing bubbles is more me than heels and low cut shirt, though I will never discredit the joy of wearing my 3.5 inch shiny black pumps.

I am not sure where I am in life, what my entitlement to that sense of beauty is. I may have had it and lost it. Perhaps I will find it. But till then I have to find a means by which I can look into the mirror and begin to adore myself, because for now that is all I have. And with time, learning to adore my personal beauty may in turn lead to the adoration of my beauty by another.We desire to be desired. To feel glamorous and beautiful. However, at least for myself, and for now, despite how great the make up and the outfit may be, there is no comparison for how beautiful the adoration of another makes you feel, and how the presence of a moment captures the beauty you radiate and they beauty we all share. The heels and make up are usually a means of trying to catch the eye of someone who can then further the sense of beauty you carry, to post a sign, to create a moment. Not to be in one. And we create these moments so that the adoration of another may heighten our sense of beauty. However, our sense of beauty can only be furthered by our ability to acknowledge and accept our moments of beauty.

If we are lucky enough, we find ourselves in a moment; and if we are truly blessed, we find ourselves aware of the moment and experiencing it almost out of body, in a most omniscient and fully aware manner, a beautiful composition of life and we are at the center writing one of  a thousand sonnets that praise the moment. Silent and happy. Fully engaged, but fully aware, living in consonance. And in consonance we are regal, elegant, composed and collected.

Our moments of consonance are our moments of true beauty.

Im on the road, but sometimes, just sometimes the road seems long, and lonely.

When I was 16 I was put in the hospital. I had a very low body weight.

I stand at a miraculous 5’1 (no post comments needed, it is a fact to those that know me, I am indeed 61 inches proud) and at the moment I probably weigh around 106 (much to everyone’s dismay), but then, when I was put in the hospital I weighed about 85 lbs. It hurt to stand, to sleep, to sit. All life required more energy then I had. And yet I was running avidly, locked away, isolated, and quiet. I was generally speaking depressed about a great deal of events in my life at the time. However, depression aside, there was no way around the fact that I had an eating disorder. Perhaps I still do, perhaps I still battle the depression. In fact, up until about a year ago those were unquestionable facts.

I am beginning to doubt the validity of them now.

I do love to exercise. I do love that feeling of being light, able and strong. I like to run with my son, and chase the dogs, to play frisbee and kick the soccer ball. And I like to run for me. I like the exertion, the physical strain, the desire to collapse and collect, the quiet, the will power. But I used to be rigid, I used to track my time and my distance. I needed to be faster and run further. And finally, for the first time since I began competitive running (middle school) I can say it is not about calories to burn or times to beat, it is about how I feel. I feel, physically great. Forgive me my fat days, yes I too have them. And to those of you who hate me because I am so tiny, I hate to inform you but I weigh what I should for someone my size. I eat when I am hungry (and those that know me know that though it may not be often, when I decide I want to eat, I have no problem consuming mass quantities of food) I work out routinely, but ever more than an hour, and that only occurs about twice a week, then if I am luck I may get in two – three 30-40 min runs. This is revolutionary, never before, I used to spend an hour alone in the gym, I counted calories and planned meals. I gave up sugars, meats and carbs, I have thought of all ways to keep my weight down, EXCEPT not trying.

As I have quit trying to regulate my weight, I have found it does it better on its own, is this not so often the case with most situations in life – the more you fight, the more they resist, the less good they are. And so, with the focus on being happy, I find that I am what I am and I eat what I eat and life seems to work out much better this way.

What was most strange about all of this is that I love/d to eat. And in fact I love food, I am, yes I will say it, a bit of a foodie, not a snob about food, but certainly curious. In fact, my food credo  is that so long as it is not moving I will try anything once. Generally speaking I do not define the terms by which I will taste something, but in some manner I will get X onto my taste buds in a meaningful enough manner to form an opinion on the taste.  I love to cook, to create and to taste. I love food.

There is always talk about the kitchen being the heart of the household and the main holidays and occasions being centered around food. There is, on these rare occasions, this beauty in the kitchen. To cook, to make from scratch that which nurtures and educates and shares is a great gift, and experience. I learned mac n’ cheese first with my grandmother. I learned stuffing and cookies from my mom. I watched, I tried, I adjusted. There are not recipes for these dishes, they are just something that you learn, that you share, and that you pass on.

And to be in the kitchen with those you love is a great joy. To share together in that. I remember a time in my life, and it comes to me with a new fondness now, but I when I was first married, my husband and I would cook in in the evenings and sit on the living room floor and eat and talk and watch Cash Cab. We cooked. Neither of us really knew what we were doing, but I lead the way (except after an apparently enthralling Good Eats that made him decide to make tortellini at like midnight), he followed and we made our major meal into a major event and great time.

Looking back I am noticing one of the reasons I truly appreciate, even now, the bond that we then shared it is because it gave us something to learn and to grow in together. We had different jobs, and different interests in school. We loved gardening but had no yard. We loved antiques but had no money. We loved to try new things and to learn new things, and we started cooking together in college and it stuck till…

There is always that bond in the kitchen. Even at home for holidays, mom (whether I still love all the dishes or not) leads the way, and all those at the house pitch in, learn a recipe or a process. There is a great traditionalism, idealism, romanticism about coming together to labour over that which will nurture you and those you love.

This is much like the reality of laboring over ourselves and our relationships. The more that we are wiling to share, to put in, to learn and to try, the stronger, more fluid, and more consistent that bond between us will grow.

This is why I love food.

and some of it tastes really, really good.