flood waters and forest fires

each one
is a tearing
ripping
rending
breaking
emptying
healing
lifting
lightening
renewing
revitalizing
soothing
searing

salt water wells
over flowing
in aqueous rivers

at times
the beating muscle in your chest
allows a breach in the dam

and they come

until they are done
no sooner

and like a forest fire
the evisceration of the path
clears away infertile things
allowing, in its almost perfect way
for propitious growth

beyond anything you dreamed
before the flood

circuitous journeys in confusing deep vastness

I try to be open hearted.  Open to love in its many forms.  But I don't always interpret it correctly.  I accept it without judgement.  But other people give with defining regulations, whether or not they admit it.  If I lived in my world, we would all have some weird version of a hippie commune.  We could touch and hold and comfort, kiss and cry and yell.  We would listen and work out to the best of our ability.  We'd learn when to push an issue and when to offer space.

All I have ever wanted, really, is to be loved in a comforting and safe place.  To FEEL the idea of not alone.  And I had that.  Perhaps people don't get that often.  Perhaps what happens is we all get it, but in sparing and strange dollops, like a cinnamon crumble topping on a blueberry dessert bread.  For a while, we have too much...perhaps we take it for granted.  And then all of a sudden there is none.

I don't think I ever took John for granted.  The depth and simplicity of his love amazed me.  I thought today, about something totally unrelated, what would John say about this?  And then I thought that it might help if I applied that to other parts of my life.  Specifically this big lonely that I carry.  But that didn't work, because he'd tell me to stop flirting with anyone I was flirting with and love on him. Which I would do gladly...

The Id doesn't learn.  It wants.  Regardless of social skills...we all fantasize and reach for whatever seems close, suggestive in its libidinousness, tender in its clarity, safe in the distance of it all...

Things don't work out how you plan, even when you don't plan.  I shunned planning.  John was the second best accident of my life, aside from our Neil.  And he was perfect in his imperfection, everything I needed not because he was everything, but because he knew that he wasn't, that I wasn't, and he wanted me anyway.

Because of my past I wonder more than I might...I know the power of being alone.  I know that only by loving yourself and being in a strong and confident place are you likely to find whole and healthy relationships.  I also know that, as a mother, if you duck your head and focus on your babies and getting through, you might look up and realize you missed most of your life and you are now almost dead.

I had an amazing chance.  I didn't blow it.  I took it and rode it till the end. Yet I am left with a responsibility that loves me back deeply, but that needs beyond my borders.  I am left with my smile, my community, my pets, my fear, my

Lonely

I want to wear it the right way.  I want to respect it, my Lonely.  I want to acknowledge it so that I can honor John and his love.  And I want to move on in order to do the same.  And, really, I don't know how to do any of it.

I just want a safe, made up place, full of love and tenderness, free of judgment and definition...so I look for places where my mind can spin and my fingers go numb.  A place where I can wonder and think and hope.  A place that isn't anywhere.

there is no answer

Learning new corners of
loneliness.  Sometimes, random people call and ask for different things...today it was someone with a quote for car insurance: So, it's just you and John, right?  awkward pause... and I get to say "He...is dead.  He died last summer."

I don't have anything to say.  Other than the things I feel I have been saying, in a variety of ways, for the last what seems like an eternity.  I want to be a better person.  I want to drink less.  I want to do, um, fewer things that hurt me.  I want to stop wishing I wasn't alone.  I want to NOT be alone.  I know I have far more than soooooooooo many people.  I also know that each of us have our own journey.  What we deal with is what he have.  We make of our "gifts" what we are able to make...whether or not they feel like actual gifts.

I remember when John was ill, I used to watch Super Nanny with my oldest sometimes.  We'd laugh and be shocked at some of the things the kids would do... he would say "Mom, I would NEVER do that!"  There was an ad for one of the episodes in which this woman had three kids who were just out of control.  She was hysterical, talking to the Nanny about how her husband had died and left her with three kids and she wasn't supposed to be doing all this alone.  I switched the channel and never watched it again.

I know that comparing yourself to others is not really ever helpful, which is fine because I don't even know who to compare myself to...if I look at that Super Nanny lady, I am KICKING ASS.  If I look at parts of my life and think about how my mother went down the drain, I am terrified.  If I think of some of the choices my mother-in-law made, I think I'm doing okay-ish...then, there is all my online friends who run.  I want to be that person!  I don't want to drink and wallow.  I want to do things that are active and healthy.  But this is what I do...pain makes you more of who you were anyway.  I am loving.  I am a great mom.  I am a sporadically okay house keeper.  I have a high mess tolerance.  I over think things.  I have a dorky sense of humor.  I love dancing and reading and being outside.  I have learned to accept help, mostly because I know how deeply I want to help other people, and because I remember how much time and heart I have spent doing just that.  And I write.  I love to write.  I write to understand what I am, who I am, what I want to do and how I want to be.

And now, I am going to bed.  Every day, I wonder so many times a day how I will continue to find my way.  I never have a f*cking answer.  I do what I do.  I just keep swimming.  And I know I have found my tribe.  My beliefs about myself, the universe, the people that matter and the things that matter...they are solidifying.  So at least there is that.

distant storms and almost butterflies- I want to sleep outside

love and sparks
and breezes

silent lightning
and small voices asking for help

a bed full
to the point of not moving
and empty to the tips
of cricket cries

breezes, again
the world sweeping
the past past you

air that smells like rain
(there is a word for that.  I almost learned it recently)

is there a word for
a heart that smells like love

that feels it in the lack of
atmospheric rumble

brushing immobile tendrils
of hair too used to being wrapped
in a ponytail

until the rumble comes
deep and distant

it doesn't even quiet the crickets
but it drives
the wind

and tells you
gently
in no uncertain terms
that you
are not
all there is

the silent noise that was
between
the souls that did nothing but touch

will never be
settled

so bask
in all of it.
the wind, the light, the chirp, the rumble
the empty and full and soft and hard

that is what
it all is

and all
we can ever
ask

mixture

faces
swim before me
after me
beneath me

so deeply desiring one
to swim with me

red lights
soft blinking lights

How do we get here
with thumping ceilings
and nights that are longer
than
non-poetic long things

I don't have poetry.  I have fear
I have this anger that I am alone
which has blended into a broken
heart.  A broken soul.  A broken being
and all I want is something not.

hands to hold me up
are everywhere
hands to help keep me moving
alive
hoping
guiding

but
there
is
no
real hand
no shoulder
nothing.

Nothing but my power
push
help
hope

And that means
my fears
concerns
short comings
confusion
loneliness

There's no time
to count to three
no counting at all

just try
or maybe
count fast

either way, for my love, I will
dive in
and never stop trying.

who

sometimes, my hands go numb.  And when that happens, I realize my brain is numb.  My heart is numb.  It's been a little over a year.  I feel like I should be able to shout my way to being okay.  I have passed just wanting to be touched, in a physical sense...although I still want that.  I miss his hands.  I miss his touch.  I find I am here, missing a partner...someone to help.

I have been fighting to find strength to miss the MAN I love.  Now I realize I have to find a way to miss and get over (not over, but move beyond without letting go of) the man who was my best friend...

I think I am far more broken than I have been willing to admit.  My shoulders seem sewed to my ears.  And I still do nothing.  My house is a tornado!

It's tough enough to be yourself.  Even when things go more or less like you hope.  I have so many things to be thankful for.  Yet I am still so scared.  So lost.  so quietly connected to so many people, but still so alone.

If anyone is reading this and you have a significant other to sit beside you, let them hold you extra long...kiss them slow and soft.  Tell them something you would otherwise have been embarrassed about...put your head on their shoulder, sigh, and stay just a little longer than normal.

I need to find my way beyond here, where i am lonely to my toes, but not totally alone.

I thank John for our babies and I thank the universe for the amazing people out there who have never let me go, and for those sweet souls new to my world who hold me up.

If I prayed, which is still awkward for me, I'd pray for the strength to make all those people proud.  I am imperfect in my ineptitude and beautiful in my confusion.  I am swollen with the "bruty" of life (Glennon's brutality and beauty)...and I can do nothing to avoid any of it...I will keep stepping, keep swimming, keep dancing.  I will fall on my ass, read more than I clean, and hide more than I should.  But I will also love deeper than anyone ever would have believed.  Inside fear and loss and grief, I will love and try and make an ass of myself, over and over.  For John.  For my mother and grandmothers.  For my daughter.  For my sons.  Because I am good at loving and falling on my face.

step step, spin, twirl, fall, step again.  keep on dancing, keep on swimming.

even though I am scared beyond the understanding of terror.  I smile still.  It's who I am.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Sunset_Party_Dancing_Girl_Silhouette.jpg

noting beliefs and concerns...this sure is a marathon

such a confusing journey I am on right now.  I know that comparing myself to the "progress" of others has never been a helpful thing to do.  I have known for a long time, in my own small way, that each of us journeys on our own path and rules do not apply.  Now, in grief, I feel for the first time like I should be "keeping up" with certain ideals and people.  But I still acknowledge that I have my own past, my own path, my own journey full of ups and downs, strengths and mistakes.  And by accepting this, how can I assume my path through this particular hell will be like any one else's?

The community I found last week helps more in silent ways that I yet know.  I see my youngest sleeping.  I want, with tenderness and love, to beat the knowledge of his father into his brain.  This is not a thing that can happen

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/0f/d5/17/0fd51766aae5cb8f8751e2204a626656.jpg

I don't feel right saying my old desperate shameful mantra "I am nothing, I have nothing".

I don't feel the deep and desperate, breathless connection I had to a past love.

I feel John deeper.

I sense there is strength beneath the surface

I still am encompassed by inaction

My house is a chaotic maelstrom of my desire to pack or clean and inability to decide which comes first...the confusion results in inaction.  which then exacerbates the conundrum.
in other words, it is a colossal mess.  Even for me

At least I am reading a lot.  I wish there was more to it than that.  My load of camp clothes have been washed and dry and remain in the drier because all the laundry baskets are full.  so the load of towels remains in the wash...festering.  I will have to wash them again soon.

Plus there is the summer budget crises, advanced course.  getting through this time has always been hard, even when we had John to run camps and diving stuff.  Last year the only reason we made it through was because of donations from random friends and a cancer support organization.  I tried so desperately to find a home to buy before the end of July so that I wouldn't have to pay rent or mortgage.  That failed.  At least I had been able to save the money to cover rent.  Although not bills.  Or really food.  I have $500 left in my savings.  And that is all we have until the first paycheck of the year in mid August.

We will find a way.  Not because I believe in god.  But because I believe in people.

And because I have no choice but TO believe.