we celebrated halloween in a house

we celebrated halloween in a house. with pictures on the wall and cushions on the couch. pumpkins on the porch and toys in bins and the baby's bed just his size next to his bright climb in red wooden train engine. with fruit on the table and books on the shelves and laundry hanging in the laundry room. I'll miss the vine covered windows, the fenced back yard, the wooden floors, bright curtains, the shed and weeping willow tree. I'll miss the old part of town walks down the street, friendly neighbors at the park. colors of fall. Dear home, first home, last home for a while. I'm hugging you, trying to imprint you in my memory. capture the love and serenity... we filled and felt and fueled between your walls. we wanted to settle in you, planned to settle down for a while... but then Tyler Texas called. we'll go, and be together, and let our hair curl in the humidity, and catch a southern drawl. but house, little house that I love. I'll never forget that we celebrated halloween in a home.

the victim

I know there are pro’s and con’s but what are the cost of them? How much can you help someone you hate but can tolerate. Who needs help but will refuse it unless it is rose colored and depicts her a victim with an arm to lean on, no matter the cost. And will close her eyes and claim she never saw a thing. Woman, do you deserve the fate you chose for yourself? Are you capable of owning it even if you do not deserve it, but hold on to it with every gripping, leaching fiber? A weak thing that will not own its weakness except to garner justification and sympathy? You claim we hurt you. It has never been us. Simply pawns in your game of victim, or gone. Gone because I will not play with you. But if you ever chose to enter my world I will lend you a steady hand to make the leap.

with time, if only in my memory

It's strange to think of what matters in life. what strings the day to day together. what you believe matters one minute is so subject to change and circumstance. nothing grew me more than becoming a mother. perhaps because i did it on my own. my sister pulled herself away for reasons i struggle to comprehend and will likely never accept. The gulf between my circumstances and the beliefs which had lead me there and those of my extended family widened as the proof grew inside me. In my belly and my attitude. conservative christians for the most part and wildly liberal agnostic born from the christian culture. they could have believed my thoughts closer to theirs until the moment i shared the big news. and i was all to aware of it. few acted out the strangeness, but i knew i had proven the distance, and i felt the solitude. my badly wanted, pre-marriage, "surprise" baby. He became the turn in the road for me. the point at which i must begin to act out my beliefs. i was never false to them, but with him and the great responsibility of birthing, loving and raising a child i realized i must speak where, once, had just listened.
i am anxious of the hour. resentful that sleep alludes me in my deepest exhaustion. i want someone to blame. every moment of un-necesary wakefulness becomes sleep lost forever in my never rested parent-of-a-young-child brain. the truth is i have been tireder. it's the isolation that haunts me. and i resent it, for existing, for everyone who is distant, for keeping me awake while my son and husband slumber. it's okay though, it will take time, but this bump too, will smooth, if only in my memory.

Nothing's ever simple is it. Had a dream day today, in many ways. Eric took Kristoffer out around 6:30 and I slept in till after 8:00. After breakfast and a long bath took off for my first prenatal yoga class. Came home gave the baby lunch, then took a nap with him. took a walk and got ice cream. played at the park for a while on the way home then watched tv all evening.

but all is not well. i'm sad. eric is holding in an anger, hurt, resentment. I don't know. i am tired. and i want to remember the good day i had. maybe he feels cheated. i don't know. and i'm falling asleep as i write. i guess we'll see what comes tonight. i hope he can reach over in the middle of the night to hold me and I will know everything is okay. i love him. and i need him.

have patience in your dreams, self

Just remember who you wanted to be. It said. Remember who you wanted to be. And I did. I remembered dreams I dreamed before one of them came true, no two and took up my whole future. They’ve grown and grown until they’ve become a complete horizon that I don’t know how to pass. What am I doing here? What have I been thinking? What does my future still hold? Why must you always trade one happiness for another? I need someone to level with. I feel like I’m floundering, drifting like the meaning I once believed my life held has drifted out of reach. It was never going to be what I thought it would be, I knew I couldn’t know. There is a way. Self. There is a way. It’s just a slow way. And it’s not the way you thought it would be. But you are still on it. And eventually it will lead you to the next dream. If you believe and you keep taking the next step. One step by one step in time makes many steps. And the path becomes clear when looking back. You’ve been here before. Remember? Remember not only who you dreamed you’d be, in relation to who you are today, but also who you were before. And there is so much victory in that. If you chose to remember your dreams, you must remember all of them and see that where you are is where you have come to. Not just what you want to leave. remember that arrival is also a new begining. each time you end you begin again. and have patience

wonil

If I hadn’t met you…
You changed me.
For the better.

I am stronger for the simplest of love that you gave me.
Perhaps the most transparent person I’ll ever know.

I am grateful to you.

Maybe I will take your idea.

I just might.

Maybe I will listen to you.

I’ll consider it

Rare to find a soul like yours
I celebrate you with warmth in my heart

Thank you for watching me.

wisdom, do you remember when you were young

I am resistant. not hesitant. not timid. not shy.
a little angry. and a lot more. i am not a follower.
I believe that I can make waves, though I rarely do.

when I was a small child i dropped a glass jar of peanut butter and it shattered; held together by the glue like substance within. terrified I picked it up and put in the refrigerator like I had been told to do.

that is the end of my story and the beginning of another.

well, it is not the end. It was later discovered by my someone. and my father, who had instructed me to carry it in and put it away, locked me in a dark room until i promised to tell him the "truth" about why I had carried it in. I was terrified of the dark. I snuck out and hid under the bed in my brother's room, which was lighted, until I was discovered and dragged back into the dark, sat on the bed and asked why I was doing this. eventually the softer side of my father resurfaced and he told me not to do it again and let me back into the light with everyone else. I had been forgiven. or he had remembered. i do not know. I was relieved that the monsters were gone, for the moment.

but that is the end.

except there never really is an end, is there?

no story ever ends. no human story anyway.

but my other story is that I am that jar. a cohesively shattered jar. held together by the glue like substance within. left in a refrigerator because what is there else to do. because when the world is not a trusting place (and those of you who think it is, i have to tell you that you are wrong. if you believe it is, you have been very lucky, or you have been lied to, or you are lying to yourself, but it is not. the simple truth is that the world is an ugly and horrible place with a lot of love and potential for joy and peace.) little girls are pulled out of themselves by there vaginas and become frozen women, long before they are women at all and have even half a chance to find their voice, or not.

and many do not, because it is a much harder, much rougher, much more trying journey than you might think. and it involves dragging beautiful people into the mud with you. and finding beautiful people who want to do this is quite the challenge. there are not enough of them.


wisdom. do you remember when you were young?
you think i am angry, and I am. but that is not it.
you think i am wounded, and I am. but that is not it.
you think i need help, and I do. but that is not it.
you think i need healing, and I am. but that is not it.

you wonder if I am sad, and I am, but you are wrong.

If I were more of an artist with brushes than words, I would paint my life a large and beautiful mural full of colors; birds and flowers; waterfalls and lakes; bright tropical fish and snowcapped mountains; laughing faces and weddings, births, friends holding hand; and somewhere in a canyon, almost lost in the shadow between the orange and brown layers under a luminous setting sun a child by herself, surrounded by wolves, a human hand, angry teeth or blood... i do now know. I rarely flush it out. just a small fearful sorrow in the shadow. that you could miss, but must include.

so why am I writing this to you?

that. i cannot answer. perhaps I wanted to splash a little black paint in your garden.

or perhaps I just stumbled upon another human soul who knows. and wanted to cry and say, "it still hurts" for as many of us as there are, we are hard to find. and some of us, myself included, don't want to be told we are ok.