dance || grain and silkwhat a strange week it's been. (side note: the older i get, the more often i say that. perhaps it's just that all of life is strange.) the torrential autumn storms and accompanying gale-force winds have turned the trees inside-out and planted a restlessness in my thoughts. i haven't even been that busy this week schedule-wise, but my mind still feels exhausted. too much activity inside.
i'm engaging in a continuing effort to simplify so that when i do things i love, i can actually enjoy them instead of feeling overwhelmed with the decisions and planning that are involved. i want to be able to absorb the soul nutrition that comes from things instead of chewing on them by rote.
i'm also struggling to figure out how to constructively handle all the relationships in my life. i don't need to be a best friend to everyone; i don't need to say "yes" to everyone who WANTS to be a best friend of mine. if i can't give everyone everything he or she wants or needs, it doesn't make me a bad friend or a bad person. and that's just the time factor. what about when i start to feel like someone is starting to dress like me, talk like me, cling to me too closely? my instinct is to recoil: i don't want my essence pilfered, and i don't want to stand in the way of someone finding her own true self. so how do i step out of the way and propel people further down the path of their own self discovery?
life and relationships are tricky.
female friendships welcome comparison,
envy, competition. i'm not a fan.
i'd rather be a lone wolf than deal with that.
but as thrilling as independence is,
there's richness in community too.
female friendships welcome comparison,
envy, competition. i'm not a fan.
i'd rather be a lone wolf than deal with that.
but as thrilling as independence is,
there's richness in community too.
it strikes me that independence is both the harder and the easier road to travel; easy because when i am alone, i don't have to rub shoulders with other people or their issues (some people have really bony shoulders, if you know what i mean). hard because it means i'm always face-to-face with myself and my weaknesses, shortcomings, disappointment, hope.
more than ever i feel safe being alone in a group. i'm swirling in the collective glass of social activity, but i'm at liberty to come and go as i wish. i don't have to remain tethered to anyone. i am only me; no one can ride the coattails of my effervescence, and my gestures and style are attributed singly to whom they belong. but at the end of the night, i drive home alone.
i don't really know what i'm trying to say.
a desire has been ignited in me: for freedom. for an unabashedness. for simplicity, for the ability not to inject too much gravity into situations. i want to live unfettered. i want to take things only as seriously as they need to be taken and let go of the rest. because i've been carrying some things, some subconscious postures of the heart, that have been silently siphoning my vibrancy and my joy.
there it is. that last paragraph.
i want my true strength and vitality back.
i want my true strength and vitality back.
i want to shimmer and sway as i orbit the sun
i want you to have to cover your eyes
but not be able to stop watching
i want you to have to cover your eyes
but not be able to stop watching
these are the stormy dreams of a girl
brewing in a fist of clouds
7 comments:
"life and relationships are tricky.
female friendships welcome comparison,
envy, competition. i'm not a fan.
i'd rather be a lone wolf than deal with that.
but as thrilling as independence is,
there's richness in community too."
Oh the struggles of being female in and relationship with other females. I'm dropping the wolf packs out there, one by one, and taking up with the few who really care to know the real me.
Just for the record, I've never been afraid that you'll go for my jugular.
Sending you so much love this morning. I wish it was still summer. I wish you could still be in the other room, on my futon, talking with Pie.
xx
your writing is so lovely...
And I was thinking of this recently too. Female frienships are hard. My impulse is also to run away from all but the really good ones.
But I struggle with the lone wolf thing too as I crave and really need the connection that only comes from really good women friends.
Good luck to you as you find your balance :)
Thinking on this, nodding, noting that you've been shimmering since the day we met... just wanting you to know I'm here.
This may be irrelevant, but I suspect not, otherwise I wouldn't share.
The other day, I was struggling with how to meet someone else's frustration and I stumbled upon an MLK quote. Its on one of my flickr pictures, but it said, "Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that."
Not in anyway that you hate this person, but the only way to help people find their most healthy path is simply to love the hate out of them. A well-loved person changes the world... Perhaps instead of recoiling, embrace and engage and see if that makes a difference? It totally did in my situation.
Preaching done.
Because on the other hand, you may need to flee like the dickens from the soul-suckers.
Only YOU know what's best for you.
You are one competent woman.
crm
Amen sister. Amen. This is starting to read like the HMO.
x
You're a great writer! I say, find your freedom! I had a professor who once said "no one can take themselves seriously AND take the workings of the universe seriously... you must choose one". I'm only now starting to understand what he meant.
Great blog, I'll definitely be back :)
...i love the lone wolf in yoU...i'm able to admire & respect you...from a distance...
&
every so often,
when you are not looking...
i bury my face within your heart & feels its furry
softness...
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