consulting the oracle (poem)

someday I'll be ready
to lend out my smile
so that it will be deeper
than what I have now

but now
for now
I will keep trying to face the tiger
till I can smile at him
till I can get him
to roll over
and let me pet
his forbidden belly

my ache is in part for
the lost thing
in part for a sense of safety
stability

I walk in lines of life
filtered through sharp stick stones
a lack of words lined with
judgement
confusion
fear

places unsafe
unsavory
necessary
disorienting

a misaligned compass
whose magnet might be
warped

my directions follow feelings
and need alternate connections
a myriad of myopic microscopic
accidental miscreants
view me from somewhere concealed
and continue
over and over
to judge who I am
what I do
calculate scores
of calculated mistakes
that are nothing more
than moments

thus I'm borne again
forging my own iron mail
made of what I
can
believe

love
hope
fallibility
honesty
connection

will that be enough?

the Oracle
is silent
but she gestures

my gaze may be
cross eyed
no matter.
I will forge ahead
and listen to the song
of my own making

what else is there
to do?

dance lessons (poem)

Take it.
The empty feeling. Take it in and
absorb it.
Let the emptiness fill you,
inflate you.

Wear it like a gown
of glittering gold...
a ball gown for a royal dance.
Fill up with the pain and the loss...
the hurt and the fear.

How else do you immunize? Inoculation
is the process of taking
into your blood stream
that which would otherwise
Easily
kill you.
So take it.

Decorate yourself with it, my dear.
You know
you will not wear
the same thing forever...
not even a beautiful gown, adorned
with jewels of crystal tears...
step into it...
zip it up...
admire yourself in it...
for it is worthy of admiration, this pain.

It is the inside lining of love.
Feel the silkiness
against your naked skin.
You will be ready to take it off
soon enough.
Try not to rush.

Like the infancy of your progeny
it will not last.
It's brevity is a gift.
It's existence an honor. Be the queen
of grief, for his love elevated you...
beyond princess, 
the daughter of the king of all gods. 

His Love made you real...
an ephemeral version of the blue fairy. 

And you've been lying. 

Lying that healing has begun... Progressed. 
That hope was on the horizon, 
dancing on the binary code 
of a computer screen. 

Hope is here...inside the silken lining. 
Hope is what touches your bare flesh. 
Hope is what sears and cuts and falls 
like gossamer across gooseflesh. 

Hope will not grow, if you hold back 
the tears or 
disguise the pain. 

So dance. 

Let the dress swirl around you, 
flaring up for all to see...
be here and now, adorned in majesty, 
bleeding 
and crying,
laughing 
and dancing. 

Because you were blessed beyond 
so many. 
You 
had 
him. 

You tasted the fruit...
bruised and dented and still 
sweet inside it's imperfection. 
So dance, my darling. 
Do not attempt to still the beating heart, 
do not fear 
this emptiness, 
let the tears dry tracks 
upon your face. 
No make up will make you 
more beautiful.

So dance.

small confession

Here it is: I have been searching for a replacement. Not that I think John can be replaced. But I sincerely loved the way he filled me up...my life, my heart, the space around me and within me.

But I haven't been searching for something new. I've been hoping to find him again, some version of him.  An immediate replacement...someone to slip into my life in the place where he was. But that isn't dating. That isn't hoping. That isn't moving forward. That is clinging to what was...what has died. Perhaps to grow, to move on, I must accept my desire to go back. Admit that I don't even know how to hope for anything other than him.

mess

"Yer a handsome devil.  What's your name?"  So says Martin's mom in Grosse Pointe Blank

I have felt that in annoying ways and places since John died.  I feel like someone cut a string I was attached to, and my job is to gather the unraveling insanity by looking at every moment, every man, every chance that comes as an opportunity.

I know the rules.  The rules are, you don't look.  And when you turn away, there are chances.  And if you are lucky, they are good ones.

I know two people who lost their spouses.  One before me, about a year, and one around the same time as me...from where I sit, they seem to have found someone.  First Christmas together, for one.  I am ashamed to say that I did not feel gratitude or happiness for them...I felt jealous.

Before John died, when it became obvious he was dying, I tried to tell him that I was terrified as to how I would respond to the loss of him.  I recognized that I would lose my mind.  I knew it would have something to do with my desire for connection.  I didn't know how to explain it.

It didn't matter.  He died.  And there I was.  There I am.  Once upon a time, I stopped believing in love.  I didn't believe in hope and I didn't believe in my ability to find anything real.  And so I gave up...in a big way.  I decided to turn away from it all, to try and figure things out...and then there was him.

I didn't do any work on myself.  He just made it easy to make healthier choices.  He was my path to the places I didn't believe in.  He was what I needed, what I wanted, what made me whole.  He was my parachute key for a sky diver.  But it wasn't long enough.  It was enough to make a family, but not to give me myself.

So now, now...I look around and feel angry.  I feel lost.

I'm 41.  I'm a widow.  I have three little kids.  I have a deeply broken heart.  I have no compass.  I have a bizarre amalgamation of self confidence, self deprecation, courage, confusion, and desperation...





Looking for lyrics
and moments of magic
when there is no one to blame
and the giants have fallen
leaving you alone
broken
lost
with one hand inside mysticism
one hand in wrapped around needles
I'm a super star
nursing the man I love
to his dying moment
blood thinner shots
wishing there was someone
whose call I could wait for
there's nothing left to say

trying to fall awake, but my heart
still sleeps
and I cry
upon your aura...imagining images of what
should have been
what will never be
grasping at straws
not meant for drinking

I fall
and am awake
I dream
and scream inside nightmares
I crumble
and grow strong
and wear glasses
on blind eyes
knowing no direction
as the music sparkles in a star shine twinkle
and yesterday's news
lives inside a living noose
breathing softly
around my neck

when is it enough?

I'm not posting much, as my computers keep getting broken. The problem is, my heart is also broken. And this season brings more awareness of that shatter. I met a couple the other night...or met them again. And I found myself NOT mentioning my widow status. But it was a force of will. I wanted to...

What is a heart but a beating organ
That we infuse with magical powers
A walking broom
In an empty castle searching
For the sorcerer who awoke it.

What is failure when the heart
Strives for success
Is there
An appropriate punishment
Discipline
For a soul striving to heal and grow and
Teach

There are blurry moments of
Everyone trying
And so few connecting

Fingertips swollen
With knitting wounds
Eyes swollen with the knowledge
That nothing connects

I'm older and I have no answers
Just more generalized questions
Greater perspective
No less deprecation

I'm tired
Of sitting in the dark
Trying to define my failure
My pain
My emptiness
And tired
Of being judged unworthy
When does it stop?
Effort
Is nothing
Only outcome
Matters
And what comes out
Is clearly
Not
Enough.

how

I find myself wondering
over and over
how do I do this? 
how did I get here?
how could this happen?
how can I heal enough
to find a way forward?
how do I find a way
out of the hole grief dug me into at work?

To be the best teacher
mother
woman
human
I can be, I search for
self knowledge
empathy
kindness
patience
I try not to sweat the small stuff

And life hands you situations
that are all about the small stuff
The individual, specific, accountability moments
And people who see you as not their problem
scenarios that generate fear
self doubt

I do remember
that the small moments matter
I try to own my mistakes
to learn and grow

and there is fear
and there is loneliness
and there is pain
and there is loss

these things, though
are only
my
problem
except
I don't believe that
except
I can't make anyone else believe
the things I believe.

which leaves me
with an addition problem
and no answer. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I want there to be a poem, but I'm not sure there is one...I have conversations in my head.  I have these things that rattle around.  Last week, before we were sick, I went to a Christmas party.  There was a family there...two kids walked past as I was talking with the dad.  They were 8 and 6, and I  said "Add one more, 4, and you've got my set." I told him.  He said he didn't think he could handle another...they couldn't do three, as his wife walked over to him.  He told me that he didn't make it to the party last year, but they did the year before.  In my head, I thought, "Well, you might have met my husband then...before he died.  Try handling all three of those kids without a spouse...I'm a widow."

I remember reading so many different things about widows and how, for a while, they want to tell everyone, the mail carrier, the clerk at the grocery store, strangers on the street, that they are widows.  I feel like after over a year and a half, I should be beyond that.  I wonder when that will end.  I don't want it to ever end.  I feel like, if I stop telling people about him, about my loss, I lose the stories and the connection.  How do I talk about him, without talking about how he died?  That he died?  There is that loving phrase..."my late husband"

I don't live in a safe place anymore.  I wonder if I ever did.  I wonder how this works.  I don't understand how to protect myself at work.  How do I handle the fact that I miss to my core the way we touched each other?  I want to hold hands, to kiss, to have a place to rest my head...a shoulder.  And another part of me doesn't even care...that part just wants a naked connection, body and soul. 

The way I love my kids...it is so large.  I look at them and try hard to see them, to honor them, to pause each moment in our lives so that I can appreciate them in this particular here and now.  And it hurts.  And it makes me mad.  And I want to find a way to be grateful.  At least in some small way.  I hurt inside and want desperately to show my hurt on the outside.  I bite my lips.  I do not punch myself in the head. 

Find me.  How do I say that to?  I feel like I am failing.  I feel like I am not as good as others...as I should be...yet I'm doing my best.  What is my destiny?  I don't believe in destiny.  Destiny is a fabrication.  Who am I?  Who am I meant to be?  Who can I become?  How do I get there?

How
can I get through this
and be the person I want
to
be?

quotes and songs and careening creatures

It's like this:  I have to turn off the voice in my head that you might choose to call my "inner goddess".  When I met John, I'd gotten so frustrated with my idiotic behavior in regards to men that I decided I needed to just let the whole dating thing go for a while.  He was just so different than anyone I'd ever dated that, when he showed up a week later, it just made sense to go with the flow.

I assume like most people, all I ever wanted was to find a good relationship.  I wanted love.  A friend in high school dubbed my song "Somebody to Love" by Jefferson Airplane.  For whatever reason(s), I seemed to always be the one guys, uh, well, lusted after...but never the one that anyone really fell for...I was not commitment material, I guess you could say.  And I hated that.  And I played into it far more than I like to admit.

When it became apparent that I was going to lose John, something inside me broke.  It's like there was this small creature, living finally sated inside me.  When we would fight, I'd take a moment to check around inside myself, inside my heart.  And the creature was still sated.  My love for him never faltered.  It was the most amazing feeling I have ever had the blessing to experience.  But when the Grade IV diagnosis came back, that little creature went bat shit insane and broke every tether that could or had held it.  It screamed and cried and threw things.  It banged against every part of my heart and soul and mind.  It sent things flying, broke things, and would just not shut up.  And that hurt so badly.  And it was scary.  And this part of me, this "inner goddess" part panicked fiercely.  She wanted it back the way that it was...she wanted the beast sated again.  So too soon, I thought about a physical comfort.  I wanted touch, tenderness, kisses...I thought of the movie High Fidelity when Robin Wright's character finds out her father dies.  She goes to the funeral with John Cusak's character, who had been trying to get back together with her after she left him.  They have this conversation: 

Laura: Listen, Rob, would you have sex with me? Because I want to feel something else... It's either that, or I go home and put my hand in the fire. Unless you want to stub cigarettes out on my arm.
Rob: No. I only have a few left, I've been saving them for later.
Laura: Right. It'll have to be sex, then.
Rob: Right. Right.

 All I wanted was to feel. Something. Else.  But that's not quite right, because that creature was careening around inside me, screaming to have its peace back, John back, love back.  And that was not something I could offer.  So I reached around for a hundred different things to try and help me, like a blindfolded kid trying to pin the tail on a donkey that didn't exist inside a shop full of hand blown glass figurines, flailing hands just crashing around and breaking everything, hands getting cut, feeling confused, knowing there should be a way to connect and succeed, but not knowing how or why it was turning out to be so damned hard.

Today is the 18 month mark.  Last night, I lost my mind for a little while.  I was using the passion and support of someone from my past to try and quiet my crazy creature.  It worked amazingly well in moments.  But the moments have been getting fewer and fewer.  And then I asked for something small, something loving, something that crossed the line.  And the fact that it crossed the line was like a knife in the kidneys.  It was a sucker punch.  But it was sort of like a Fight Club version, because I basically did it to myself.  I knew I was asking for too much.  I did it anyway.

So now, I have to face the fact that I am terrified to be alone.  I don't want to raise three kids by myself.  I also remember seeing an ad for one of the Nanny shows I used to like to watch.  I saw it when John was about half way through the fight with cancer.  The mother was sitting there crying while the kids went bonkers.  She was telling the nanny that she never signed up for this, raising three kids alone...her husband had died.  She was not handling it well, not at all.  I stopped watching that show then.  But I kept her in my mind and vowed to not let my kids get out of control like that.  But I have to admit, I feel a lot like her.  And I have no clue what to do about this.

I am imagining I need to let the fear of being alone wash over me and run down the drain.  I need to accept the panic that comes when I think of how I work in a field where there are rarely any single men to interact with.  I need to face the fact that online dating may just not be the right thing for me.  I need to breathe deep, love my kids, and just let myself be lonely and scared and angry and lost.  Because I am those things no matter who I try to reach out to, no matter what I say.

When the truth is

found
To be lies
And all the joy
Within you dies

...

When the garden flowers
Baby, are dead, yes
And your mind, your mind
Is so full of red

...

 Tears are running
They're all running down your dress...

Don't you want somebody to love?

Wouldn't you love somebody to love?

Yes, in fact.  I would.  And I have no control over that.  And perhaps I just need to accept that, too.  Accept that I want it, can't control it, and let those things was over me, too.  It sounds so easy.  The screaming creature inside me tells a different story.

"I must get my soul back from you; I am killing my flesh without it."  

--Sylvia Plath