{ 10 / 11 / 17 }

i've had a pile of clean laundry on my floor for way too long. it's begun to expand and i've also begun to trip on it, so last night i decided that instead of being held captive by this inanimate (yet somehow growing) mass of fabric, i was certainly a grown-ass woman completely capable of picking up after herself and preserving a soothing space and putting her effing t-shirts away.

it had been an interesting day; full of frustration and lack of productivity at work, faced with harsh realities and poor communication. staring down the barrel of a 12-hour workday coming up, i decided to get two new books at the library, make a dinner that had plenty of vegetables, do yoga, listen to cello sonatas, and finally, reclaim my bedroom floor.

i made it through the first three layers of clothes (i told you, it was a mess). and then i saw it.

the small pile, three shirts.
cumulus blue, feathers, soft grey.
given by her best friend to me,
fluttering shreds of ordinary objects
that felt anything but ordinary.

i picked up the grey one, soft with wear. the smell, the presence of her, washed over me. and all of a sudden i couldn't breathe.

every place i go reminds me of you

i don't want to remind me of you

i clutched the fabric to my chest with both hands, holding it so tightly my arms shook. hot tears streamed down my face. where are you where are you where are you, i asked. how are you not here.  how are you not here anymore. it seemed so fucking stupid that this shirt could be here, but she wasn't. my eyes wandered to the raven cup candace had also passed on to me, now holding some of her makeup. i thought of the palette standing up in my makeup tray, the one her hands held, the one her eyes wore. i pulled on the necklace hanging against my chest, pulled on it until the clasp bit into the back of my neck.

all these things, derivatives of her, held concretely in my hands,
so full of meaning and so meaningless at the same time.

i don't know how to honor her best,
or honor the loss others are experiencing.
sometimes the best i can do is:
kneeling on the clean floor of a dark room
crying silently, gasping for air
asking the question, over and over
asking my questions into the shimmering silence.

{ 8 / 27 / 17 }

standing on the very edge of the dock
water shimmering with movement
no sun
no reflection
let go of him here, he said
leave him here
i closed my eyes and thought,
rip here, and here,
and here
felt him come unstuck in several places,
like velcro
rip
rip
away

driving past the trees and branches
leave him here
so i left him there
changed the contact info from pet name to formal first and last,
deleted the photo.
blank. let his face fade as the trees blurred past.
gone
rip
away

leave this here
leave it here with me

so i leave
so i left.

{ let it all out now }

i think you know
we waited too long, now i have to go
i don't know why
we break so hard

last night, driving home, both hands gripping the wheel
i thought i don't think i've ever been this sad about anything
(not even being let go and forgotten all those times)
and i felt so helpless and infuriated and silly,
trying to keep the car on the road while i caught my breath,
choking on disappointment and injustice and death.

//

i feel on the verge of snapping lately, everything so sharply and urgently in focus that i can't process it. everything pressing in, needing me, now. i feel squarely in touch with myself --- what i need and want --- and how starkly that compares to what the world is and needs and wants from me. it's liberating and jarring and terrifying, realising i'm at odds with so much. how big a misfit i am. all my life i wanted to fit in: i dreamed of having blonde hair and blue eyes, stick-like limbs, gap jeans, spray-on deodorant, doc martens. how little it all matters now, how i wish i could've understood how profoundly all that is for shit in the end. how much more it mattered that i was hard-working and had deeply private thoughts and loved to read and felt things so strongly even if my body never gave those feelings away. 

i'm sitting here with tears running down my face thinking of all that time and energy wasted wishing i was anything other than what i was. i wish i could go back and tell my younger self to get started learning how to listen to and accept myself instead of trying (and failing) to measure up to the flimsy vanilla standard being perpetually shoved into my face (that i swallowed thirstily, to be fair). it was agonizing not to look like the popular girls or wear the right clothes back then. i've always felt like an ugly duckling, the odd one out, so crudely rendered compared to the much-more-desirable caucasian woman. i think i will always feel that way. and any attention i get i meet warily, since i've only ever been of use to men in their attempts to get to my friends.

the damages that are done,

the damages i facilitated.

the aftermath.

so much to undo all the internal harm.

//

i've almost stopped browsing social media entirely --- i post to it, but i try not to peruse it. doing so tends to water all kinds of ugly seeds in my prickly soul, and i learned this in a devastating way after a breakup. thing is, i'm a bit of a masochist, so sometimes the worse something makes me feel, the more i do it (revisiting an ex's profile with newly-posted photos of his honeymoon? count me in). and although i'm a reasonably disciplined person 93% of the time, the other 7% of the time i'm a first-rate binger. so the easiest thing for me to do is stay off something altogether than randomly allow myself to hop on every once in awhile, only to emerge 2 hours later with absolutely nothing meaningful added to my life, feeling like shit.

that being said, every once in awhile the chutes and ladders of social media lead me to something that does add meaning to my life. i recently stumbled upon audrey rogers. her style and gorgeous images attracted my attention, but her thoughts kept my interest. in particular, the ones shared below:

Time – now that is something to really concern ourselves with. We don’t have an endless amount, we are all going to one day die and yet we still choose to spend entire hours of our existence internally insulting and abusing ourselves. We must be fools.

--- for full blog post, go here

woke up this morning, hating every bone in my body, tugging at clothes that all felt too tight. no matter how lovely we might look to anyone else, we all, as women, tend to prefer we believe we look completely vile. it's so sad, so terribly sad how easy our self confidence is grabbed from us on an almost daily basis. I do everything I can to resist, but still somehow falter sometimes. And so here I am, having a fucking great time in nothing more than a very tight bodice, because it's all part of the fight. Fighting to love yourself - it's incredibly hard, but to not struggle, to not resist, to not fight - well that's for the weak. And we as women are strong. We deserve to find that strength in life - the strength to love our thighs or countless freckles or round stomachs and to proudly flaunt them in any which way we prefer. One day, my body will no longer be walking this earth - I refuse to spend the days I have here internally insulting the skin I live in. Life is just too short for that shit, really, way way way too short.
--- for a beautiful, thought-provoking instagram feed, go here

//

i disappoint people. i can become reclusive. that deeply-feeling soul i've been struggling to manage all my life is sometimes easily bruised. and when it is, i am angry with myself for being so damn sensitive. so i hide. you'd think all this self-awareness would help me recognize when all this is occurring and not withdraw, but that's like saying if a turtle knows it's green, it should be able to stop itself being green. i haven't quite figured out how to fix my tendency to bruise easily and i'm not quite sure it's something i need to fix. i have attachment issues that originate with being given up as an infant and passed through the arms of strangers for the first several months of my life. it's not an excuse, it's my reality. and i'm trying to come to terms with it so i can have constructive relationships. but the reality of life is that people leave. they get married, they move away, they get busy. and we can be far away from the people we sleep next to, the people we value the most, the people we can't and don't want to live without. we can be far away from ourselves, for fuck's sake. being near to things is not easy (not for me). i have lost many along the way who wanted to be nearer, i have hurt them, they have tried very hard and still not gotten close.

i am sorry.
know that i'm struggling with it too. every day.

//

do you ever feel like just being alive means
you could be accused
of having bitten off more
than you could chew?

{ ew / bleck / stop }

i don't know who i think i am, blogging at 10:37pm when i have an early-ass morning comin' at me and a whole lotta week still to address on a limited amount of patience and energy, but here i am and there you are (theoretically) and i don't feel ready to lie down and sleep yet, so.

so.

so, my hands smell like clementines.
or these "citrines" or whatever hybrid fruit is being sold in stores right now.
anyway.

i'm feeling a lot tonight, but (ironically, since this is a blog and technically a form of social media, though i think it could be well established that this particular blog is like the opposite of social media since there's nothing very accessible, virally interesting, or widely appealing about it) mostly i'm feeling like facebook and email and the unfathomable distribution of information through social networks are the absolute worst. even for someone like me who a.) intentionally avoids facebook in the hope of fostering contentment with my own circumstances, b.) barely has the wherewithall to check her personal email or reply to text messages, and c.) could happily go without leaving her house or speaking to another soul for days at a time. even a misanthropic weirdo like me is capable of feeling utterly left out. it's the most discouraging thing.

i get it, life changes, everything has its season, there are dozens of natural fluctuations that occur
that have absolutely nothing to do with how cool you are or how much of an insider you're considered in any given subculture or with how much people like you. and i wish i was one of those people who could observe these natural fluctuations without feeling anything at all except mild interest. but i'm not. when three different people share the same piece of news about a mutual friend and i realize i'm the only one who wasn't informed, it stings. that's just who i am. so partly i need to just get over it (like so many other things in this world that i just can't seem to swallow with the ease and nonchalance of a naturally cool person), and partly i need to come to terms with the fact that this is just who i am. it can be managed. i can learn to carry who i am and things that happen in a balanced way that doesn't over-emphasize or minimize either.

i know this. i do.
and i believe in my own power to do this.
it's just hard work and lifelong work. and sometimes i'm tired,
and it's been a long day, and i remember what happened last year
and how much it hurt, and how much has changed for me that i never wanted,
never could have imagined, and never asked for. and on these sometimes,
being the last one to know feels like never wearing the right outfit
or being picked as the best friend or getting asked to prom.
and that shit hurts.

the end. eff you, monday.

{ we are rising suns }

what things will linger

only in memory?

this month i turned one year older.
this month i became more myself.
this month, i wear purple fingernails:
we're going into the third week. i'm on my third shade.

this afternoon i drank champagne.
right now cookies are in the oven.
it has been a time of being kind
to myself.

----------------

what tongues can whisper of coming remedy?

push out the melody

----------------

until this month, i'd been feeling behind:
behind all my friends who are committed, married, and procreating.
behind the people with fantastic jobs and financial security.
behind the couples nestled in newly-bought homes.
behind the people who are happy. who have found their place.

then my birthday hit and i realized:
i am not behind. i am not subject to society or subculture's timeline for a life.
i am not tethered to a conventional trajectory. i am not defunct.
i am where i belong. it may not be comfortable. it may be solitary.
but i am where i should be. so much is not figured out. but it is right.

----------------

what things will linger only in memory?

clocks tick, hands don't move

----------------

i lost my grandpa last week. i saw him in his last days,
shuddered by his bed as he labored to breathe,
tears running in rivulets down my face.
it's not something i'll ever forget.

in the ensuing days, as everything you would expect has rained down,
i've faced so many humbling things about myself. they rise unbidden in
layers, in humid vapors of grief.

i want people to think the best of me. i want to to do what people expect of me.
what my parents think of me, of my actions, is still painfully important to me.
i've matured in the sense that i don't always do what i think they want me to,
and it bothers me less when i realize i haven't pleased them.
but deep down, i still want my parents to approve of me. so much.

in the past few months i've said and done more things i never would've said or done in front of my parents because i just couldn't hold it in anymore --- things like bullshit and i don't want to talk about this anymore and fuck --- and the world didn't end. they didn't disown me. they didn't even frown disapprovingly. in fact, sometimes they nodded and even laughed. and then i laughed, out of nervous relief and with delight at the realization that my parents and i are finally peers. they respect me. they aren't measuring me by obedience or behavior anymore. they are beginning to see the woman i am, the person i've become --- and they accept her.

since my grandpa died, i've said a few really honest things to my mom i never would've said before. i cried as i said them because i was afraid she wouldn't like it. because i was afraid she wouldn't like me. because as my mom is losing her parents, i'm faced with the truth that i will lose my parents one day. i see the care and honor she's given when they've treated her like shit and taken her for granted. and i don't know if i'm capable of that. and i worry about coming up short for my parents when it matters most. i worry about so many things.

my mom saw my honesty and we reached understanding. she didn't disown me. she didn't even make a subtly disgusted (but sharply pointed) comment. she said she appreciated me explaining what i was feeling and that it made sense to her when she thought about who i was. it was truly a milestone for us; i'm not sure we've ever had such a positive interaction about something so deeply emotional.

----------------

i'm going to bed early tonight. the wake and funeral are tomorrow,
with a military burial tuesday. i don't know how i will do.
death is strange. it leaves sticky, raw filaments in its wake.

my cookies are done. i've had the first bite.
i daresay they are perfect.

----------------

are we bursting from the ashes?

all things yearning for the push?

can you hear the ever groaning?

shedding hours we have become?

we are rising suns

we are rising suns

we are rising suns

we are rising suns

lyrics: son lux

rising

{ late night light: november 5, 2013 }

a quick note on my most recent (and most monumental) life change:

i have a computer.

for the first time in, oh, three years.

while this makes things like online banking and general correspondence much easier, i can already sense the impact on my expression. i can now post entries to this space when i'm actually feeling and thinking something, as opposed to when i'm at work, i'm overwrought, and i feel pressured to write, to put something (anything) down, to prove that i'm something more than what i feel like i am --- an overwrought, pressured, creatively stifled slave.

(god, i'm so dramatic.)

so here i am, feeling a light shining on the part of my brain that only comes alive at times like these, in the hours after a too-short night and an ever-long day and many moments spent with the slimmest ocean of tears rolling traitorously behind my eyelids.

i suspect there will be many more late-night entries like this, accompanied by the poor-quality photo booth selfie, typed swiftly while my latest song obsession plays on repeat like the tide of desolate, beautiful loneliness that presses into the edges of me when autumn comes.

welcome to late night light.

-------------------------------

i met anne lamott tonight. there was a gentle gathering of people in a building owned by an order of franciscan sisters to recognize the release of anne's latest book, stitches. she spoke for a few minutes, very haltingly at first, but before long her expansive speech patterns had mesmerized every person in the room.

she named, welcomed, and lamented pain. she talked about how the world today is a different world altogether than the one she knew as a child. she said things like,

we stitch each other up

and

rest is a spiritual act

and

there can be meaning without things making sense.

i stood in line afterward to have her personally address my copy of the book, which she'd already pre-signed. when i reached the front of the line, i knew what i wanted to say (you have no idea how timely this is, a huge part of my life has been shattered, i have lost something i cannot live without just like you said), but instead i knelt down beside this dreadlocked yoda-like woman with eyes that have seen so many things and said, "would you mind writing my name?"

immediately she spat out, "no, i only write my own name. well, fine, i'll do it. what's your name? but i'm pissed about it." so i spelled my name, which she scrawled above her pre-done signature almost dismissively, as if she had no patience for a girl making outrageous requests.

she hesitated for a second and then drew a rudimentary heart next to my name.

under the lights in that gymnasium, warmth flooded my soul.

i touched her wrist and threw back my head, and laughed.

-------------------------------

it's very inconvenient for some people

when you finally fall apart. don't believe the lie

that you ever really get over the losses in life

that are only barely survivable. 

{ anne lamott }

{ girlbird }

nude lip, heavy upper lashline, cheekbones

somehow this minimalist face is perfect for today.
imperfections tucked away, but the veil is thin.
if you looked really closely, you'd see it all.

i wonder about a lot of things

i feel like the planet i live on imploded, falling away to thirty million wings of ash. it fucking disappeared. the air has a different molecular structure now. the environment is new, mutated, indecipherable. the ecosystem is reforming inexplicably: soil, bird, blade.

you don't hear me

and i can't hear myself

i have so many questions. it's overwhelming. i told a friend that i feel like the tiniest ship in a vast ocean...i am without wind and without instruments. i have no direction, no impetus. i am unmoored. i am without port, without reason, without a home.

i'm not a line anymore. i'm a stationary point, i radiate in no direction. i have no magnitude. i'm flatlined. i bob aimlessly, listlessly, the only sound an occasional creaking of the mast or the burning rub of rope.

--------------------

my solutions to surviving the void before me, so far:
1. stop eating
2. withdraw from the people closest to me, since they can hurt me the most
3. educate myself, intensely
4. fortify the city walls
5. triple the guard

not a very good list, but like i said, i've been set so free that i've no idea what to do with myself. i feel the compulsion to make myself smaller, take up less space, be less visible. i made myself more visible to the wrong people and they told me i made their eyes burn. i don't know how to make them  un-see me. i don't know how to disappear.

-------------------

there was once a bird, extraordinarily ugly but painfully brave.
she spread her wings because she could. because it felt like she was born to.
the world groaned and told her to stop.
she felt flagrant, obtrusive, misunderstood. surely there was a habitat for her somewhere,
filled with wild species, magnificent creatures, beings with unusual markings and distinctive behavioral patterns.

but where?
how do you find a place in the world when you're naturally afraid of exploring? how do you find where you belong (or who you belong with) if that place and those people are thousands of miles away? if you've never been there, or met them?

how do you spread your wings again
when you've been told they're horrible and ungainly?

--------------------

throw me in the water

don't think about the splash i will create

leave me at the altar

knowing all the things you just escaped

{ daughter }

{ i'll be found }

when the world has fallen out

from under me...

{ brooke fraser }

{ heartbreak playlist }

i'm sad. i want to call her, but i shouldn't.

so i'm texting you.

usually something like this would cause internal turmoil for me, maybe even tears. but for once i was glad to be on the other end of the phone. for the record, i'd like to be that person more often: the person who feels privileged when others come to her with their heaviness, because they trust me. because they believe i see them. because their battered souls find safe harbor in my presence. because, whether they could articulate it or not, they hope i can help them somehow.

i don't think anyone is born knowing just what to do in any given situation. i don't think receiving someone else's pain is something we ever know how to do. but i do believe that certain souls are born with the ability to simply do or be whatever is needed in certain moments. maybe it's a certain receptivity in a person that allows her to ebb and flow with the tide of someone's grief, or elation.

i don't know if my soul reflects this receptivity or ability to move with the tide of a situation. what i do know is that as i've gotten older, as i've gotten better at listening, i often find myself doing or saying things i never would've expected of myself when a friend comes to me raw with need. sometimes it does feel like some other force is forming sentences or bringing my arms around someone in a certain way. i always feel a mixture of confusion and relief when this happens.

oh friend. 

you aren't alone.

and you need the perfect song.

he did. i sent him some. i sent him 18 perfect songs for those moments. and if i hadn't felt the same kind of lost, so full of yearning with no acceptable outlet, so restless with everything unrequited in the world, at some point(s) in my own travels, i wouldn't have had the resources i (he) needed.

to everything that happens to us

that eventually happens to someone else

to seeing heartbreak as a gift that devastates me

but gives me a chance to be part of mending another

to being the one to harbor you

when the seas are just too rough ---

i am here.

{ s.r. }

find me on 

instagram here

{ sometimes }

{ elle est toujours seule }

sometimes you get knocked down

sometimes words take the wind out of you

sometimes what you've been burdened with chills your bones

sometimes you get one more chance to prove you can still stand up in the storm

sometimes life seems to laugh at you

sometimes it seems nothing will go your way

sometimes all you want is what you can't have

sometimes your throat is so hollow you think you'll never speak again

-------

i don't want any more of { those emails }
the ones that send a sharp current across the back of my neck. i don't want to be ambushed by these messages, no matter how well-intended they may be. i hate having things unexpectedly dropped into my lap, especially emotionally difficult things...it only amplifies their impact. i don't want to keep getting hit with everyone's vehicles of expression. it's happened too many times, i'm fragile now, i have the world's asphalt embedded in my skin.

i don't want to face { that }
because no matter what, i can't win --- no matter what, i'm the ugly girl, the dark one, the unpredictable inaccessible one you'd be nervous to take home to your mother. even if i'm completely justified in my actions, i will always be { less } i will always be { too much } i will never be ... what? i will never be right enough to be chosen.

i don't want to feel { this way }

-------

her heart is broken but she won't say that

her heart is broken but she can't go back

{ b.r. }

{ more of the afterward }

i have run through the fields

only to be with you

only to be with you

would you?

i've often asked the most impossible question in order to procure the answer i knew was coming: no. i can't. i don't want to. i don't want you. some people feel storms coming in their bones; i can sense abandonment from miles away. a shadow in the marrow of my days, the smallest lesion on each embrace. and before i knew it, he was gone ---

abandonments are like hurricanes --- they follow certain patterns, you prepare as much as you can, but each one cuts a wider path of destruction than the last. i've mapped each one in minute detail. i've felt them approaching but chosen to believe that certainly the same bolt wouldn't strike the same girl twice, through the upper right chamber of the heart, just missing the liver, fracturing the seventh rib, traveling down the length of the left leg before blasting a hole in the ground big enough to get lost in for weeks, months, years...

this is all old psychology, we've been over it. you don't know anything about it, and you shouldn't have to. because a desirable woman throws no shadows, she is tall and full of light, without jammed doors or grimy windows. also, she's thin and domestically inclined. she never buys silk scarves on impulse. she is best friends with her mother. she can bake a pie in her sleep and she never asks too much.

make the choice. make the
choice. make

the choice.

we both know what direction you're going, and it's the only direction i know from everywhere i've stood: away. on this side of it all, i always think i want to see that face again, but i'm beginning to believe that's because everyone seems so much more necessary when they're walking away. even now if you turned around, i'm not sure you'd look anything like the irresistibly broken person i remember.

i don't know how to escape this, but i'm leaving.
i don't know how to get better, but i'm getting out of bed.
i don't know if i'll ever be the same, but i'm not sure i'd want to anyway.

with everything ---
she

{ ------ }

when you try your best but you don't succeed
when you feel so tired but you can't sleep
could it be worse?

tears stream down your face
when you lose something you cannot replace
i will learn from my mistakes

{ d e s p a i r }

to compare = to despair

me:
i DO feel grace in this situation.
but watching someone else's life take off
while mine takes such a dive ---

{ H O P E }

d:
dives are what happen right after being shoved off the cliff...
THEN you soar.
no dive, no soar.

{ T r u t h }

i am imperfect. i am loved.
my life is imperfect. i love my life.
perfection is a mirage. imperfection is real.
i want to face what is real more than i want a trouble-free life.

by Grace, with Strength that is not my own,
i will come through and see the other side of [this].
i'm setting out early with an open heart.
there is always another side.

lose something every day

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster.

{ One Art || Elizabeth Bishop }

i hate that poem.
and i love it.

and after some of the loss i've felt in the past year, it almost shocks me that i could be so upset about something that seems so small in comparison . . . but. i think i've lost my favorite ring.


it's a beautiful green-blue amazonite, it's a parallelogram. it shields the my left ring finger from where the finger meets the hand to the first knuckle. it's something beautiful i bought for myself in a time of shadow, and it has brought me light.

and i don't know where it is.

i've looked everywhere; i've called restaurants; i've frantically emailed friends whose houses i've gone to; i've retraced my steps; i've spent hours trying to remember the last time i concretely remember having it on my hand. you don't understand. i never took this ring off, except if i was at home. and if i took it off at home, it went straight into my jewelry dish. and it's not there. and no one has seen it. and if it's not any of those places (and if i never take my rings off in public) i don't know where it could be. and the circular nature of this kind of retracing is wearing a groove in my brain, but i just can't stop. i'm beside myself.

part of me is just waiting to find it sitting on my dresser and feel utterly idiotic for having torn apart my room and any clothing i own with pockets for the past week. the other part of me is whispering all snakelike in my ear: you'll never find it. you lost it, stupid girl. now someone else is going to wear it. too bad.

and whether it's loss like this (the silly, simple, but strangely symbolic kind) or loss like that (the truly serious and paralyzing kind), i'm just not sure what lesson i'm supposed to learn from losing things, or people, or health, or love. well, i think i DO know the lessons we're meant to learn from having something unexpectedly ripped away and the subsequent searching and grieving and (one day) accepting, but it kills me that we have to go through this kind of absence for any reason.

i don't know what else to say. i'm almost ashamed for being so disheartened about the loss of a small, inanimate object. but part of me thinks that once you've lost something big (or something you never thought you'd have to lose), even the small things cut into that old wound. and it hurts. and the frenzy to find it, to put things back the way they were before, consumes us.

here's hoping we can hang on
and find in peace
what we truly need

{ s i g h }
she.

je comprend || i understand

a tide of remembrance washes over me and i have something to say to women (to myself).

i remember being solitary, walking down hallways by myself, drawing a line with my steps just to the right of center because walking down a hallway by oneself seemed more artistic that way. and if i walked to the right, i was leaving space for someone else, someone to walk beside me.

i remember the other girls, the ones who wore mascara and Express jeans with the trademark straight stitching across the back pockets. i remember their confidence that i now know masked insecurity, how they floated, how they shone. and i remember feeling so grounded, so heavy, too smart and too dull to be carried by anyone.

i remember feeling so painfully unchosen. everyone else was seen and chosen, and i was left behind, an island of unfound treasure floating in the sea of nothingness. my light was hidden. no one could see me. i was alone. i watched as my friends were found, i cannot count the number of them whose boyfriends came to me for ideas, for poems, for information, for present-wrapping tutorials. they wanted me, but not for me; they wanted me insofar as i could help them to be seen by someone else.

there are years that are unkind. and for some, they are more unkind than for others.

and yet.


i want to tell you (i want to tell myself) that there is one who loves you, who sees you. you are not alone. you are not unchosen. you are not forgotten or passed over or thrown aside after a period of time --- after boredom sets in, after restlessness takes over and lesser ones leave you lying in the road, discarded for something more exciting (in other words, ironically, something less likely to ask for their growth).

there is a good samaritan coming your way, he hears your cries and will take responsibility for you, your healing, your welfare. he actually feels the pain that is yours: your burning eyes, your punctured heart, the acid of rejection that churns with every step. he is coming. he will find you.

his plan is to bring you to a place where you will be taken care of, to pay for your restoration and see to it that your bones are set and your wounds sewn. and he will do this even though you have never met --- because he already loves you. there are a million reasons why he wouldn't stop to take you under his care, but the clamoring of those million reasons is nothing but a meaningless drone compared to the song of love he hears for you.

so stay where you are, and bleed, and hurt. close your eyes and imagine what dying feels like. shiver as night falls, turn on your side and cling to the last shred of life in your heart. but as the light fades, listen for footsteps --- listen for his voice. he is calling you, and once you are found, he will not let you go.

click photo for source;
writings based on Luke 10

the loss of winter

the sudden onset of true winter (-12 wind chills, blustery sideways snow, and the sound of plows through the night) has put a chill in my marrow. it's the creeping subtle cold of remembered loss, and the numbness spreads from my heart outward. all i want to do is let the ice freeze me over and protect myself from feeling too much . . . but even i know the best life is lived with feeling, sometimes feverishly, eyes bright with tears.

so here i am, scarf draped like an embrace, shaking but not with cold.
could there be more? am i ready? i'm beginning to be convinced that
i will never know. i will never know until the moment it happens.

|| such a beautiful wintry corner ||

i want them to know that i remember them, these lost friends.
that i learned so much from them, their bravery, their weakness.

that i think of them every time the cold comes, and wonder where they are, if they are watching, if they are happy. i am silent for their families left behind. i am different for having known them and bittersweetly glad their struggle is over. this is the down side of oncology. but it's an up side too. isn't everything a down and an up, an end and a beginning?

in loving memory
J.M.
L.J.
R.W.
G.K.
J.S.
J.E.
D.M.
|| just to name a few ||
i miss you all.

and you --- what can i say to you? i'm not sure there is anything
to say. there is only feeling, and that which is unspeakable. i am
not without voice for my feelings, but words seem to have failed
in the worst sense, words have been abandoned for silence. this
is not the brave way. or maybe it is --- maybe the biggest things
must be borne in darkness, under veil, near the center of the earth.
we are being recreated from the inside out. a new body, a new
heaven, a new love. and while this happens despite us, i still want
to say, there is not a moment to lose.

love,
she.

her, tonight

through the gaps in the blinds, i see the lights
across the way, and i wonder how much longer

there are days like today, emotionally wrung-out and whiplashed days. i didn't even know i was fighting a battle inside until things got quiet, i was alone, and it was finally still enough for me to realize my soul is raw with waiting and doubt.

____________

i don't know yet why this has to be.
i'm still fighting the not-knowing.
i know it's completely counterproductive,
but when the enemy is inside
victory is so much harder.

____________

she's wandering in the desert
she's in denial
she has her daily bread
she spits it out
even the water now
is not enough

this story is long and i'm stuck in the middle, the part that dies without proper momentum. what is the author doing??? i'm in a forest, i'm drowning at sea, i'm falling at deathly speeds from the highest cliff. i'm not okay. so would someone please write me out of this? i know difficulty forges character, but i'm so laden down with characteristics that come with tragedy and i'm beginning to resent the whole thing. the more pressure that's applied at this juncture, the greater the risk that she's going to spin out and launch into some alternate universe where there's no love and no god and no love.

wait. did i already say that?

____________

tonight i am not enough
and he is not enough
and you are not enough
and it is not enough just to know
...that one day it's going to be okay
...and somewhere there's a perfect plan
...and "it's better to have found out now"
...and "there must be something better"
...and "this means y = mx + b"

no.
no no
no no no.
triangle of no.
tonight, it is not
even close to enough.

i hear you say

i hear the voices say no one said it was easy and i say back, but would it have been so bad? one in one billion, trillion maybe, but not you. so i fall back asleep and think of anything but this: birds, forests, the rain.

today i want to hibernate in a room like this with books and movies. it's been so grey lately - instead of fighting the gloom, why not make it work for me? in a recent interview, Donatella Versace said that she wants a couch so luxurious that sinking into it after work makes her forget everything that happened that day.

but what if something remarkable happened that day?
do we have to forget everything, or does the memory have a filter?

the pain passes, but the beauty remains
{ renoir }

both of these last 2 images are from a quiet place i really appreciate for its simple beauty and unpretentious artfulness. i grew up playing on the dusky shores of Cape Cod, stumbling through the beach grasses at night to comb the seaside for shells and other treasure. when i think of that time in my life, i remember noon picnics, mosquito bites, and lying in the dark with my brother talking about what we'd do if burglars ever broke into our house. i remember looking out the window and seeing the people in the cottage next door playing cards on a red-checkered tablecloth. i remember feeling free, but knowing the featherweight of childhood wouldn't last forever. the fun (and eventual crankiness) of being packed into the backseat of our dolphin-grey Datsun. mostly i remember being truly present to each moment. as a child, these things are effortless.

i was safe and free. i carried less worry than i do now, or i was better at letting it out to sea. maybe that's why time near the ocean has always felt so soulfully cleansing for me --- the push of the tide forces me to face reality, and then it's all pulled out toward the horizon. all i have to do is be there and be still.

____________________


what about all these tears, i wonder. where do they go? and i hear, they are the salt in the oyster shells, witnessing the birth of pearls. there is no great beauty without grief. and today i can accept that, i can feel the needle stitching my soul's memory. it stings a little, but the thread against my heart tells me there will be healing soon.

when all around my soul gives way
he then is all my hope and stay
{ hymn; e. mote, 1834 }

pretty good year

i am here with you now to say
the things that are unspeakable
so
listen.
{she}

the cooler weather has brought it out of me, this spirit of remembering, this silence. i'm getting ready to hibernate and i only want to take the very best thoughts with me. i'm too old and too young to waste any time with being afraid. it all sounds very bold, but i'll tell you i'm not sure what it means. i just know i want to use the time i have the very best way i can.

so i'm looking people in the eye, i'm smiling more, i'm not speaking when i don't feel like it. and i'm giving myself to you, to this, because without it what else is there? without love there is nothing. without love my life is just noise. what am i even saying anymore? i'm lost in a waking dream. i'm a professional daydreamer {all right, it's all right now --- over the rhine}.

don't you just want to be
in this bed, in this bedroom?

i am here because i want to be here, but also because somehow the 2 year anniversary of this little blogette passed me by and i never realized it. this space came to be in September 2007. it is still going. it has changed. i have changed. it holds the words i've written during more intense experiences than i can count. it holds so much of me, and much that most people who know me in "real life" might never see. it's been a portal to a handful of kindred souls i feel so privileged to have found.

(i've also somehow reached 5,000 visitors around the same time. most of you mega-bloggers passed that tally mark long ago, but it's a landmark for Speaking For Herself.)

gorgeous image found here

today i don't really know what else to say that hasn't been said already. it's autumn. there's been disappointment and heartbreak and rebuilding and maybe the slimmest white moon of hope rising in my heart. i don't know what the future is but i'm ready for the unknown --- having said that, i implore the heavens to be kind. i need to be quieter sometimes. i need to excavate this uncut gem sitting beneath my ribs. i need to unfold my wings. i need to breathe deeply. i need to:

read T.S. Eliot
finish Jane Eyre
wear more scarves
buy new jeans
write a few poems
learn to like tea
knit
remember
fling off the old,
put on the new.

everything is new and so unpredictable
i have much farther to go . . .
{rosie thomas}

je ne sais pas.

every man has his secret sorrows

which the world knows not.

{longfellow}

sometimes mes pensees become sad, and i don't always know why. i think there are invisible triggers in each day that prompt certain memories and feelings in us all. maybe i listened to To Be Alone with You too many times yesterday, or maybe it's the grey, oppressive weather. maybe i haven't seen the boy i love in too long. maybe the fluorescent light i sit under every day has finally turned my brain to a maudlin mush. i really couldn't tell you.

i've been thinking about loss this week, specifically how it feels to lose someone and leave on bad terms. i'd like to say i'm one of those people whose every relationship, past and present, is wrapped and packaged perfectly, but i'm not. and partly i'm okay with that --- if you live boldly and passionately, chances are you're going to have some intense encounters that just don't fit nicely into any box. it's not that i've made a list of mortal enemies in my short life. but i've lived and i've lost, and i suppose losing is a part of life that deepens us.

there have been relationships that have fractured and, years later, been resolved, usually on my initiative. i've resented others' inability to step forward and face the past at the same time, but on second thought maybe it's easier to be the one who brings reconciliation about. maybe i'm not as brave as i think i am --- maybe i'm just selfish and controlling. in any case, i've found that all the people i've gone back and reconnected with were receptive, which didn't mean we became best friends, but at least their "box" was contained enough to put a lid on and put on a high shelf, perhaps never to be opened again.

i think we all crave resolution. likewise, i think we all know that resolution won't always be an option, and therein lies what i believe to be one of the primary sources of melancholy.

_______________



being in love is a wonderful thing just like everyone says. but there's a dark side of love too --- insecurity, jealousy, that reflexive self-preservation that often kicks in and ruins everything. i'm not being a pessimist here, just a realist. we must overcome the darker side and allow the beauty of love to overtake us.

for the first time in awhile, maybe the first time since my relationship has gotten truly serious, i allowed myself to think, what if i lost him? and i stopped to consider it, really consider it. i started to cry and realized just how devastated i would be. my entire life would change, would seem to crumble away. i'd be orphaned and lost. the realization of how utterly awful it would be was staggering.

living with the fear of loss is like harboring a disease that may never surface. you can't ignore it completely, but you can't let it take over either. the truth is, i could still lose him. the truth is also that i may not lose him. nothing is certain now. nothing is ever certain, is it?

no, nothing is certain with our words or intentions alone. it's our actions that make it so.
if i say i will love him forever, chances are i won't. there will be days i don't love him, or don't feel like i do. but to stay with him day after day even when i don't think i can, to respect him when i don't think i could be more annoyed with him --- maybe that's love, or the highest form of love we can enact in this finite world.

______________



see, i think i know something about love, but really,
i know almost nothing. i don't think most of us do.
or maybe we know more than we appear to,
but there's no way we could ever express it.


either way, there's only the trying.
i'm up for it if you are.

a fresh start

i've been wanting to brighten things up but lacked the time, inspiration, motivation, and, ironically, the motivation to procrastinate. today's circumstantial recipe provided just the right mix for such a change.

i trained a new employee for 4.5 hours this morning and felt totally drained afterward (could have something to do with the 4 hours i've spent training every morning this week). so i checked my email and some of the sites i love that aren't censored (yet). then i resolved to freshen the blog. a few forgotten images on my hard drive and some "save picture as" from Anthropologie's site later, here we have it. you like?

and yes, i ghetto-edited the header using PAINT. when's the last time you thought about that old graphics program? i must be the only girl on the planet without Photoshop or Adobe or Lightroom - and i take pride in that. i can make a decent-looking banner using PAINT. what kind of old-school hottie am i? if you really wanna know, just ask my boyfriend :)

in the middle of creating this place anew, a patient's widow came in. i settled in for the long haul because i could tell she needed to get some things off her chest. she's in a bad living situation and in total despair about losing her best friend. i listened for 45 minutes and as the conversation came to a close (if it was up to her, we'd talk for hours), i let out everything i'd been wanting to say.

sympathy is a tricky business. i think grieving people are very kind not to sucker punch all the well-meaning people who mistake empathy for sympathy. i've learned that you pay your dues by listening, absorbing, and taking on their burden. when you've abided with someone in their sadness for a certain amount of time, you've "earned" the right to speak to her grief. it's like anything else: if you aren't experienced, you don't get to tell your superiors how to do things; if you do, any potential respect they might have had for you disintegrates.

now in the course of just one conversation, this "earning" has to happen rather quickly, which means your listening and abiding skills have to be top-notch. (i'm not trying to portray sympathy as a strategical enterprise, but i work in a medical office. i have to seamlessly incorporate grief counseling into my already cluttered day. if i didn't know how to move things along, i'd be unproductive at best.) every grief situation is different --- but once i can sense i've been given the position to speak, i say something like this, like i did this afternoon.

i'm sorry for taking your time, she said. you must think i'm crazy, but i still talk to him every day. i just can't even see a future without him. i still haven't been able to bury him - i don't have the funds. he wanted to be cremated, and his ashes are at the funeral home. they have these little gold urns . . . she showed me the size with her hand. she couldn't say anything more because she was crying.

i don't think you're crazy, i started. i don't think you're weird. you're grieving the loss of this person who is so important to you --- whatever it takes. and you may talk to him every day for the rest of your life, and that's okay. it makes sense that you'd be sad --- i'd be worried about you if you weren't! so don't let anyone tell you that's wrong.

as for the future, you don't need to be able to see it right now. you don't want to be so sad that you're unable to function, but you also can't stuff it all inside and expect to move on without dealing with your feelings. your concern right now is getting through this minute, or this hour, or this day. one day you'll need to think about what things might be like 10 years from now, and one day you WILL be able to see that future. until then, all you need to do is take one day at a time. you have to be braver than most people on the planet right now.

she laughed bitterly. he was much better at being brave than i am.

but those parts of him, i said, have rubbed off on you. you were together so much for so long that those things have become a part of you just like he was a part of you. he isn't your dad, but you've inherited those things from him - he's passed them on to you. she looked at me doubtfully. we never see the best parts of ourselves, you know? i continued. we always look down on ourselves. someone else can see the good parts of us better than we can. so you may not see it when you look in the mirror, but i'm telling you what i see in you. and i don't say things i don't mean just to make people feel good. sometimes it takes someone else telling us what we are for us to finally know.

her tears hadn't stopped, in fact they'd increased, but she was silent. i knew she'd heard me. and if i didn't think i'd burst into tears of my own, i would have said, his bravery is in you and that's how he stays with you. he's made you brave, and see? this is how he made sure you'd never be without him. this is how he never has to leave you.

instead i said, i miss him, too.
and there were no words after that.
and really, how could there be.
let our tears of remembrance speak for themselves.

rest in peace
JM
september 7, 1949 - november 8, 2007

two weeks of life; two weeks of death

lottie

diana

jim

phyllis

jennie

you are remembered.

not caricatured in death and hindsight,

but loved as you were

and as you are.

the world is not the same without you.

goodbye my dear friends