5am

my stomach heaves and wretches
memories? dreams? flashbacks?
sensations
run up and down my body
my skin like fire
like something not my own
then begins
the restlessness
and i am up, i am moving
through space like a frantic pleading
keep moving, keep doing, keep breathing
stay above it
above this sadness
that greets you each morning, like
an old friend
this weight you've never not known
at least since you can remember
can you remember?

in my otherwise
elephantine memory,
there is so much unclear
so many blurred visions
chunks of time, missing
she says, you loved him!
but all i remember
is years later
when he reappeared at a family party
stomach clenched,
knees locked,
my frozen legs would not carry me close to him
to even say hello
i did not understand why
at the time

the photograph, of me posing
my child body, thin and stark
the look on your face, when i
asked too many questions, again
the silence
the silence that haunts all the halls in my family's homes
the compliance, the terrible note of acceptance
of all my grandmothers' best kept secrets
the shame, the pain
the silence

there is no witness to this story
no one to tell
no one to break down to
my mothers memory is full of holes
and wine
winding staircases that lead to nowhere, to walls
my otherwise elephantine memory
feels untrustworthy, at best
or maybe like it doesn't know if it can trust me yet
my grandmother won't speak of it
he, is dead.

but this story lives and moves
in my body
memories resurfacing
like tremors, quakes, triggers of
torrential tears
this story, this listening
its like sewing together
patchwork pieces of my past
this is the only story that renders sense
of useless scraps
of these stories my body tells,
but my mind cannot remember.

Of Family and Giving Thanks

This morning, I remember.
I remember my many Novembers, these holiday times, autumns and winters spent with Family far and wide.

I remember my first holidays away from the place I was born, with Family whose love lifted my head, made my belly roar with laughter and opened my heart and eyes to different ways of living, profound ways of loving, and the ever-present Abundance that has nothing to do with how much you have.

I remember crisp, cold mornings in the desert.  I remember the morning star and water blessings, the warmth of coals and so many heart-felt prayers, I remember Family of Spirit and cactus and feather and bone- whose love taught me about our capacity to surrender, to love beyond and through the pain we sometimes cause each other, to heal.

I remember winters of wandering, of many seasons spent on the road- meeting Family everywhere and anywhere.  I remember hand-crafted, patchwork Orphan Holidaze-wherein gathered all the ones near, that were far from their blood and place of birth- shared sadness turned shenanigans and laughter, bottomless cups of sweet coffee, plates overflowing with the fish and loaf-stone soup feasts that would fill bellies and hearts.  Family whose love taught me that Family- is what we cultivate and create, and everyone and anyone we love that way.

I give thanks for all those I am blessed to know and to love.  For all my Family.

New Mama Writings

The week you were born, I wept.

I wept in gratitude, that you were healthy and strong.

I wept in terror and utter humility at this heart, this life, this little body entrusted to me to care for and protect, to serve, to support, to nurture.

I wept, already grieving the day we would no longer be together in a fleshly form.

I wept, for fear of death- something I had never felt so viscerally before.  

What if you died?  What if I did?  

We will. One of us first.  

I wept with a heart that already knows it cannot control these things- that life is full of tsunamis and disasters and other small horrors.  I wept knowing that some day, some way, we would be parted from one another.

Never have I feared death, not in this way.

There have been times in my life when I would have welcomed death, and many days when I lived my life as well as one dead.  But not now.  

Your birth, your life has changed everything.

Never have I felt the inoperable, inevitable tear in my heart- knowing that loving someone this much, will result in sorrow of the same magnitude.

This weeping was right, was good and proper and timely.  I recall it with a tenderness, a preciousness, and hold this luminous space as sacred.

What else can we do but break our hearts open to Love and weep in the face of the temporal reality of our bodies?

What else can I do but treasure every day I get to spend with you?  

What else can I do but lay my head down, forehead touching ground, and give thanks for every little bliss? 

Her

She teaches me to smile again

each morning.

She greets the new day with a simple and uninhibited joy, 

she reminds me that today is a gift.

Another day 

together, 

is a gift.

And it keeps on this way, this

celebrating

silly

simple way.

She teaches me to do better, 

to be better, 

just by being.

The Season of the Dead

wicked winding mind
wormholes and
white rabbits
two steps forward, one step back
two steps forward, one step back
then
the clickity-clack of bones, out of joint
but still dancing in rhythm
to your heartbeat, She
the skeleton woman who haunts your depths
who drinks the tear, who rends you Beloved
and broken-open
and vulnerable
again

O Bee!

Let me tell you, Friend,
of a gift
you once gave to me,

it was close to when we first met
amongst the rosehips and lizards
the close and swarming calmly humming bees

you asked me something,
and then I watched you
move towards the ground and sit
before me
kneeling.

you listened,
as I would sit in prayer

my heart welled up in my eyes
and honey tears
spilled over the edges
of my all my wounded places
i have never felt so heard.

I remember this
now and then
sometimes,
in quiet moments of sweet reverie,
ten-thousand tiny wings singing
tonight,
it rose to the surface of my mind
when recalling a time
i felt like someone bowed
to the Queen in me.

Bless you, Bee.

Courage

embrace your Life.
All of it.
For all that it is.  Let go, just
for a moment, now, all
that you think it is not.

embrace your Life.
embrace the good, the bad
that which you cling to
that which you push
away at all costs.
Just, embrace

Hold it
gently, in your arms
Like the little one
you once were,
like the Little One
to come,
Who is already here,
arriving.

Embrace yourself,
your many selves,
the Ones who have been
hidden
or shut down
or unfed
for so long

I call Myself to myself~
I, we
will need All of me, now.

mortar

my heart is already folded
like a crane
or a child's fortune-teller,
or maybe a bad hand

its edges are crisp in places, soft in others
taken on a shape that is not
without its pointed places, not without pause
or surrender
taken on a form that is not its
natural
resting state

how do we find our way back
from those shadowy borders?
back from half-truths that fell like mortars on the
the small and still unstable trust
that we were building

i, am no carpenter
no brick-layer
i have built towers of feathers to the sky and wondered
why my constructs keep toppling over
i have not laid hands down on a project
with anyone
for a long time,
in remembrance and reference and dread
of what happened the last time
i was stupid enough
to believe
that another's heart and hands
were building with me

this,
this is no easy history
to face, to rearrange, to release in
order to hold something different
but i am willing to try,
i think
i am willing to set down my disguise for awhile
and just try to be me,
with you,
here,
in this

but what unknown weapons do you carry?
what hidden land mines live beneath the surface of your skin that
once set off-

do not remember


that maybe, you love me
that mortar can fill the cracks, and make stronger
or
that we are trying
to build
anything at all.

New Relation (from Authentic Movement writings)

he is screaming.

i start shaking,

not 

trembling.

i am standing.

i walk towards the sound,

and pause

i stick my tongue out

i taunt, i’m not scared of you anymore

i push up my sleeves

to my elbows

i walk

i feel the bottoms of my feet

pad-like

balanced

i walk around the screaming.

i am circling

hands on my hips,

feet striking the floor.

then

i lose a little steam,

the defiant confidence

of my stride is lost

as the screaming continues

and threatens

to grow louder.

he is chanting.

I bump into him,

and he is whispering soft

and low, shh, shh, shh, shh-

i am stunned.

i stop.

his hand is touching mine.

his skin is old

and dry and cracked,

rough and tender.

i take his hand in mine

and place it

on the side of my head, my face,

cradling

i am held, gently

i am safe and protected,

cared for.

he gently encourages,

shh, shh, shh, shh-

tenderness fills a space

in my chest

i step away

and tears pour

down my face

big, wet, uncontrollable

streaming flow

i stand alone,

and move again.

this time

i am circling,

he is still screaming,

a choked back sob

i want to go to him and

touch him

tell him with my fingers, my hands-

shh, shh, shh, shh…

something inside of me breaks

and compassion enters my heart.

not shame,

not judgement,

for this pain and rage.

my anger receives my compassion,

as i offer it to his.

Dear Friend,

In two weeks, it will be two years since you died.
I still find this unbelievable.

Sometimes I forget.
Sometimes, walking down the street, I'll see a man with a similar stride or build or haircut, and the thrill of you races up my spine- lighting my heart and face with that certain silly joy that is you, and always you...and then the smack, the crash, the recognition of a stranger and that terrible remembering.  
It couldn't have been you.
It won't be you again, anytime, ever.  At least not this time around.

And then it is heartbreak, all over again. It is the phone call that I got while driving down the freeway at breakneck speed.  It is the raft overturned, the chaos, the horrible moment of truth that I was not there for, but that lives in my imagination.  It is a sobbing that threatens to unbind my ribs from their cage, my chest cannot contain the raging river of grief that fills me.

When I got off the phone that day, I howled.  I shouted and screamed.  I made horrible, animal sounds that scared even me. 
And now?  Now, I cry quietly.  Hold back.  Somehow shame my grief into feeling old, feeling past it's time, as if the "use-by" date could expire on such things.

But grief is not linear, Friend, and neither is my missing you.  Some days it is the fiercest thing.

And it still baffles me, how one can lay such beautiful plans, and unexpectedly, suddenly not be alive to live them.  How an entire lifetime of dreams disappears in an instant.
How you, You, can still be gone, still be dead.  That this is true.  That this is not changing.
That you are not bursting-out from around some future corner, laughing at our tear-stained faces, howling, exclaiming that you've fooled us again! Ever joking, ever Trickster, You.

And so, instead, I live with a cruel and hopeful forgetfulness.  And a still sometimes unbearable truth.

I love you.  I miss you.
This is true and unchanging.
I love you.  I miss you.
You are always remembered, always cherished.
We love you.  We miss you.
You STILL make us laugh, even in our grieving.

Until we meet again,