our last first tooth

I prefer my pets to people

It’s not that they are perfect.

My dog has destroyed my couch, ottoman, three pairs of my shoes, my daddy blanket, Cecilia’s daddy blanket, two of Neil’s shoes, 3 of Cecilia’s, my sheets, my new blanket, three pillows…

I STILL like that mother fucker better than people.

Today, my baby, our baby, lost his first tooth.  It seems like it took forever to happen!  But now that it came out, I want to shove it back in!  And revel in the awesomeness that is his growing up.  And the hollow that rings in my chest echoes and echoes and echoes.  John didn’t even get his first tooth.  There is that silent screaming thing I do, again.  I don’t make plans for things often.  I guess when I do, I do it without realizing.  I have always loved kids, but never planned on having them.  Mostly because I didn’t think I would ever find anyone I’d want to have kids with, anyone that would love me, anyone I wanted to be with.  I even threw my coins in the Trevi fountain in Rome and asked only for a husband.  Because I had to be sure.

As far as I can tell from this side of things, "sure" ain’t nothin’ but a deodorant.  And I’m here raising three kids on my own, going to bed night after night, getting up and going to work, and on and on ad infinitum…never having a best friend anymore.  Always having to create the safe space, never entering it.  Comforting and caring for.  How do we do it?  The single parents who are single forever?  How do you keep going?  I feel like a life vampire has been attached to my hip for three years, on and off, mostly on…sucking away at my life.  Count Rugen’s awful torture machine, set on low and made to be worn like a back pack…increasing the loss of life incrementally.  I see my hands and they seem to represent the slowing and drying of my heart.  The psoriasis hasn’t fully gone away and there are always spots that are peeling.  And I so often think to myself in a mumble how I don’t want to do this anymore.  The loneliness is a poison dart in my spine.  I got nothin’.  So I take a breath.  I go to sleep.  I try again tomorrow. 

And at least I have my pets.  Between them and, for now, my kids, I never totally sleep alone.

Lessons in self love

The 22nd of the month
will always be a date of power:
the two of hearts
and two is better than one
and a number to the power of two is more
than twice itself

22 is the most powerful number in numerology
able to turn dreams into reality.

He died on the 22nd day of the 5th month
5, the number of harmony and balance

It seems he lived and died with power and balance.

And in the moment when unsolicited words
wash around your head
attempting to seep into your soul
you realize
that numbers
are everything

I am 42.  The Answer.
To life, the universe, and everything.

And in this 22nd day of the ninth month
I read that our fall equinox brings She Who is Black
and I dance inside, embracing her
for I do not see black as bad,
or death
destruction
I see it as a color that protects you, allowing you to
suck
the power in
deeply

For Kali, the Black Mother, is shakti
Kali is existence

And I, also
am power
I am
existence

I live in the shadow of his death
learning to love in me
what makes others cringe

My voice is LOUD
so loud it cannot be lost, will no longer be languid

My love is large
larger than mere life
for I have lived to hold the hand of death
and I see

I see that destruction can be
exquisite
I am tender and tough
crying and raging

and continuing.

No coin has only one side
and lo my coin spins
lands,
and spins again
one moment grieving
one moment living

I have faced that which stood beside me
which I wished would never die

I will face what lives inside me
that must die

I will devour the weakness that makes me stumble
in favor of the strength that makes me speak

There is change coming

And toward it I dance
singing loudly
wielding both and pen
and a sword

laughing large and loud
swing wide my arms
to embrace it
all

A coupe of p words

Three years.  It's like a lifetime.

I still feel him.  I also feel strength, like I haven't in a long time.  I'm finding my way, slowly but surely.

I'm finding it in awkward ways, though, I think.  The things that make me think this are the party/social events I've been to recently.  I'm worried that I don't know how to interact with adults well anymore.  I went to an event with church people...my community.  UU's.  And they were interesting and nice and easy to talk to...and I still hung out with the kids.  And then, tonight I went to a work party.  It was fun.  All sorts of people I like.  I still hung out with the kids, mine and others.

I'm obviously still learning things.  I wonder how I do that in bigger ways, so I got back on a dating site.  Too many people too far away, though.  I don't want a long term relationship.  I am not sure I want a relationship at all.

But I was tucking Aiden in the other night, seeing him at 10, knowing him, loving him...and I realized that I do not want to live only for my kids...or even for them and work only.  I want to have a full life, not for the sex, or even the relationship...but for the fullness.  The ability to see and hear, help and connect...to another adult.  I don't want to put the pressure on my kids that occurs when they are all you have.  They deserve better, more...and so do I.

I feel so different than I did after he died.  I was terrified.  Desperate to be seen as a women.  So scared that being 40, widowed, with three kids, so much heavier than I have ever been...I worried that those things added up to me never being loved, never being touched, never being seen as a woman, a person...I saw nothing but work and fear and difficulties and I wanted desperately to be saved.

It seems that I have saved myself, or at least am working successfully on doing so.  Working.  A work in progress.  But I don't feel that clawing need anymore.

And for that, I am massively grateful.

Just not sure what the next, healthy steps are, nor am I sure how to create access to them.  Perhaps the answer is patience.  Patience and perseverance.

losing again

Ah... Life...
your gifts
are barbells
and hand weights

while in the forest
a fairy dies
stabbed in the back
by the human she tried to
hold

and in the town
the music rings
deep
into the soul of broken hope
 
while in reality, the woman too old for games
laughs
shakes her head
and remembers something solid

love

what it really is...

inside the bubble of real love
no one is allowed to run
and "broken" only opens you
because hearts that connect
do nothing
but open more

and she shakes her head with eyes downcast
because she also knows
that love pretend
does less than nothing

and, scientifically,
less than nothing is negative.
and negatives take away

therefore...
love pretend
takes
from your soul
your hope
your belief

the only gifts that remains
have small hands
more needs
less ability

invisible arms making
mist like embraces
creating aches
where solace should reside  

And, again, she has to manage
the desire to
scrape the skin
off her skeleton

fairy or human

loss

hurts
Perhaps more so
after loss.

slightly shared sorrows

What is broken

Is still broken

It will always be broken

It’s where the light comes in

It’s where the love flows

And today

I felt each crack

Without pounding hot knock-you-over tears

They oozed

Both in and out

Spinning green life tendrils

Into the world, a growing thing

To shade the sun searing sorrow

Of someone I’ve never met

And curling into my own dark crevices

Scratching over scarring spots

Rough rubbing the bits of remaining scabs

And my tears were for her tears

8 years old, so quiet, calm

Eyes like spring skies and hair a soft golden wheat blanket

Straight down her round, rosy cheeks

My tears were for the sudden screams

Even if they are still silent

Stabbing at her mother’s throat, eyes, skin, heart

My tears were for her little brother

Older than my youngest

Too young, still, to remember well.

But mostly, my tears were for the tears that are going to come

Knowing another woman will bend to her hands and knees

Clawing at the walls

Screeching louder than sound

Unable to stand, breathe, think

Head a pounding playground for the throws

Of sorrow

Life dreams and hopes banging against all sides

Of her skull

Simultaneously

I’d take them for her

If I could,

But the same way mine had to be worn

A thorny cloak to build up who I had to become

She must find out how

She will dress herself.

My tears

Were for myself

Because in my desire to help

I am helpless

With no gift to give but the desire to listen

To witness

To nod and offer no words and let my eyes soften

On her, attempting to be a silent willow tree witness

Standing guard

Until she is ready

To stand

Again.

1 and 2...little ones

Do I have a choice?

                Yes

I choose life.

Do I have ANY choice?

                Perhaps

I choose love.

 

Do I have all the choices?

                If they agree

I choose you.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

 

I have no gifts to give but me

Broken

Loving

Playful

Scared

Strong

Full of grief and hope and things I do not know how to label

So

Take my hand.

Walk with me a while

In the woods

In the city

Down the center of town

Hold my hand

So we are not alone

For the best gift

The only one that matters

Is trusting connection.

Nurturing hope

Nurturing the Hope Instead

"Grief can destroy you --or focus you … The answer to the mystery of existence is the love you shared sometimes so imperfectly, and… the loss wakes you to the deeper beauty of it, to the sanctity of it, [and] you can't get off your knees for a long time, you're driven to your knees not by the weight of the loss but by gratitude for what preceded the loss. And the ache is always there, but one day not the emptiness, because to nurture the emptiness, to take solace in it, is to disrespect the gift of life."
— Dean Koontz

 

My right forefinger

Finds the pulse in my neck

As my arm drapes around empty space

Where you should be

 

“Where you should be”…

such a simple phrase

except in the ways

it isn’t…except in the ways

That it wears layers

Like a fancy haircut

That came out wrong

Or a special cake

The dog took a bite out of as it cooled

 

Blood pounds

Time tip toes and races forward in turns

And bare feet dance

On old concrete

Peppered with stones, pine needles, frost wedge kisses of seasons and time

 

I see dead people too, like the boy in the movie

Just fewer, more specific ones

And sometimes

I know they are comforted by things

In this world of full moons, stomach bugs, and hair dye that won’t go away

 

We have buckets and backpacks

Filled with hope, good feelings, memories, and foolish choices

They weigh us down, they lift us up, they decorate our world

They make us walk the way we do

With a skip or with a limp, depending on the day

Encourage us to lean toward things that sing to us

Dance lightly with death while praying for everlasting life

 

You empty one and fill the other, or vice versa

Because at times

It may be your vices

That enable you to survive the unpredictable,

Versatile, vicissitudes of life

 

I’m old enough to know

I should not walk barefoot

And stubborn enough to not care

 

I’m old enough to know

That nothing is easy

And few things have Reason

Without your consent

I’m stubborn enough to decide

When I give consent

And how

And to whom

 

So to you,

I hold out my hand

I may trip, I may stutter, at times

But I

Believe.

I see you

And, perhaps,

Better yet

I believe my heart

holds extra eyes

Eyes that judge harder what should be allowed inside my barefoot, sacred, full moon space

 

Here and now, all eyes are staring

Attached to heads that are

Nodding

 

Through violations most intimate

And words sewn into hate buttons on the cloak of my heart,

through what feels like ages slogging up mountainsides

Drenched in judgement, hurt, and shadow shards of broken dreams

Cutting

Deeper

than I ever would have imagined

In any tortured fever dreams of angst and ague

 

There is nothing here

But consent

And I hear a voice

Whisper from deep inside my heart

“Where you should be…

Is where you are.”