Tag Archives: Choose

My petal face is showing

18 Monday Dec 2017

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Well, I could choose to ignore the fact that Christmas is coming and let the cards write themselves, let the gifts magically appear fully wrapped in my sleigh so all I have to do is show up… or I could choose to ignore the fact that Christmas is coming at all. Or, I could make way. Clear the decks. Prepare a space–a quiet space–and open the book of Christmas past. Time to open my address book and look on the names.

So many people that have moved once, twice, thrice. I know their children’s names, but not her grandchildren’s names. It’s a basic book, so I have to squeeze in birthdates, anniversaries, the day they died. So many spaces are blank, but I am slowly filling in the memories.  So many changes, people who’ve moved on with no forwarding address, and that’s okay. It’s like walking into a silent church, I can smell the incense, I see faces and remember my heart big in my chest at seeing you and you and you. I light a votive today as I write cards for friends and family whose paths have diverged. You are remembered with love and I always carry a light for you.

I have a rex begonia growing on my bedroom windowsill. It’s my first. I had to re-arrange the sill because the prayer plant will need her own apartment soon, she’s taking over the place. Rex begonia saw fit to rise up through the soil and create a space for a bloom, and she opened today, five tender pink petals.  Pink like the address book I’ve been carrying around all these years. My desk is clear. My right pinky is smeared in green ink from writing everything I needed to say, finally. Begonia tells me if she can bloom here then, hell, I can do anything.

Pacifice et nimis incommode morior

05 Tuesday Dec 2017

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Another day of life, another day I get to choose. Hold on, let me light some sage and pace the floor and forsake the waiting page because I’m not ready yet. Willing, able, but not ready to commit words to page, creating something from nothing.

Another day of life, another day I get to choose not to hate, to clench my jaw, to think and feel and say terrible things though you surely earned it.

Another day I get to give up. To throw in the towel. To say fuck it, nothing matters. (Insert leaping rainbow dolphin meme here.)  Another day to despair and ask, “Why do I give a shit? What’s the point? I’m wasting my time and energy. A woman’s voice does not matter and will never be heard.” Another day to wallow, to feel helpless, to watch things not go my way, to watch sufferings and wrongs that cannot be curtailed by the wave of my wand that means well, but has the exact power of a mythical unicorn. Another day to spend in tears because the child hurts, the women hurt, the world hurts, and can I point to anything at all I have done or have yet to do that will make real, lasting change?

Another day to to choose hedonism in favor of being in this world because wouldn’t I rather just live on Vanuatu and never give another flying fuck about this world ever again? My tick tock clock is countdown calling, and wouldn’t it just be better to surrender to the good life, a life of living moment to moment without sadness for the past or fear of the future, just hand to mouth and embrace that dirt nap when it comes in volcanic soil, without caring that I never had a soul to begin with? It’s just easier believing we are a parasite on a rock, hakuna matata, the end.

Another day to acknowledge the pain in my bones and my skin when I hear that no one believes the women, another day to acknowledge the betrayal of all I hold sacred if I turn my back on us. Another day of life to not give up on doing what’s right. To choose action, to speak out, to make a stand, to do what’s right, parasite or no.

Men and women are different. The guys have the upper body strength, but women have the gift of stamina. We keep going. You and I wouldn’t be here if we didn’t keep up with you all those colicky nights. No matter the shit or the threats, the bruises or the cum on our dresses, our fear to speak honestly because “No,” or “I will have,” “I deserve,” “I need” equals “No one will believe you,” women find ways to keep going.  And if I curl up and say fuck it and stay in my bed and wallow and wait for the soil then how could I ever deserve to requiescat in pace? I know that right now the few are running the world for the rest of us. Lying down and letting them steamroll us hurts our daughters and sons in ways that’s hard to see when we don’t know where dinner is coming from, but we must never give up. It’s hard to see a better future when we’re unbelieved today, but we just  have to keep going.

Another day of life to choose to keep going.

BOLO for Conflict. Calling Wisdom In for Backup.

02 Thursday Mar 2017

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Had to get up. Had to walk away. It broke me apart and hurt in my mother bones. I became the Angry one again. The little girl of me spoke her victim words:  “Someone. Help. Please Make It Stop!”

So here it is. He’s an unarmed black 16-year-old trying to stop somebody else’s cat fight at school. The cops roll in. He sits on the curb away from commotion. SITS on the curb crying. And you come and assault him after he wouldn’t put his hands behind his back to be cuffed for trying to break up a fight.  You put your body on top of his frightened body and proceeded to hit him.  When that didn’t work, your partner dove in and hit him some more, now two of you have him pinned, bystanders filming, asking why are you [hitting an unarmed teen?] I was afraid of what was to come.  I remembered the other deaths I didn’t want to see, vowing to protect my fragile insides from a death I couldn’t prevent, some other crime that’s just so easy to click off the screen and avoid.  I was so afraid that boy or the bystanders were going to get shot, and all I could think was he’s somebody’s child, please make it stop, feeling sick, angry, and shaking.  It happened last Wednesday, heard about it today, and now I’m wondering what to do with this Anger.  Then the other words came, the ones that the lawful people say: “Well maybe he shouldn’t have gotten involved; shouldn’t have resisted arrest so it didn’t have to escalate; too bad he has emotional issues and didn’t understand, but the law is the law, I mean, they weren’t hitting him that hard after all; they have a job to do, and this is just more anti-cop propaganda; sweet baby Jesus deliver America from the carnage.”

So now I get to choose not to get in my car and drive up to the Baltimore County PD and ask the officer at the front desk if he had a really bad day last Wednesday and dump bales and bales and bales of my hateful words in the hallway, plaster them all over the walls for the assault committed on a teenager and get arrested so I could spit on them and ask “How’d you like me to hit YOUR kids?”  Now I get to choose not to call the desk or spam their Twitter with RAGE. How COULD YOU?  Now I get to see what kind of woman I am, right now, who feels that no tear, no candle, no word makes a difference. It’s all a waste of time. The teenager should have been a man and let them take him in peacefully and work it all out down at the station.  Why let it bother me? Shrug. Click.

I’m writing in the dark because I just can’t bring myself to light a candle for justice. For peace. For wisdom.  I can choose to stay in the dark where it’s safe to fume and cry, to grind my teeth…or stand up and find a better way.  Now I get to choose what kind of woman I want to be, to seek justice and peace with words along with action.  And sometimes it is so. damned. hard.

A little time has passed where I could collect myself, and I would like to end this progression of thoughts this way:  Anyone who has been the victim of a person who was violently out of control, as I have been, will understand why it is not okay that these officers allowed their emotions to escalate into losing control of themselves. They couldn’t control a terrified teenager, they got angry and hit him repeatedly, which is the act of someone out of control. Their actions are under review, and this evening I will meditate on what kind of positive force I can be for everyone.

Keep Going

08 Wednesday Feb 2017

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Most days look very similar, similar in all good ways, in ways I am grateful for.  But there are some days, and they come two or three at a time, where there is nothing I can do but lie still. Succumb to inertia. Resisting the overwhelming fatigue and mental weariness is hard, and I gave up trying. I know what this is, and it will pass.  Lucky girl to have that time and space.

When it passes I am up and outside before sunrise, before the people come. In the dawn light, I am looking for unusual shapes in the sand, in the water.  I wonder how many days until the water becomes warm.  Lament for the two humpbacks that died this week, victims of cargo traffic.

Today has been an awake day, a day that I can think critically while driving to the grocery store and stock my fridge with good things, what a lucky girl I am.  Meanwhile, that mental chatter  starts to drag me down. The Virginia House voted to defund Planned Parenthood.  There are FIVE in the entire state.  Without state funding, they all might have to close.  Executive orders that are on track to undo all the good progress that was made on so many fronts. Everybody will buy from Big Ears Oil Co, right? Russia decriminalizes domestic “abuse,” but it was just a slap for Pitr’s sake. Feminism took away a man’s right to rape his wife, says the manosphere.  Sarah Palin wants us to pray for our leaders, but what if I don’t believe God gives one rats ass about the politics of man?  Murdering minority Muslims in Myanmar today, what am I being cute with some alliteration? And why do I care, anyway, when our homeless veterans need help?  Peaceful demonstrations are interrupted by left-wingnut terrorists. Presidential advisers are preparing for the Fourth Turning like it’s predestined, and I just fucking give up.  After all the phone calls and postcards and hoping, I just give up. I can’t keep up with what’s coming.  I’m done.  I’m going to take the George Carlin pill and say that the Earth wanted plastic, anyway, why bother caring?   I’ve a happy life. I should just focus on sunshine and waves.

I am ready to descend, lead weights dangling from each and every vertebra and my eyelids, to my couch and just not give one fuck. I got books, I got water, I got wine, I got a cement bunker over my head and neighbors I can occupy space with, what the fuck more do I want?

But what if I could make a difference, no matter how small?  What if I could be one voice that helped somebody else? Maybe it won’t heal the whole world, but at least I could say I did something. I tried. To help someone else believe that they matter.

I’m ready.  Are you?

Companion

18 Thursday Feb 2016

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Ocean.

Ocean. It seems I am always unprepared and overpowered when I meet you.  When I first met you as a child, I was captivated by what seemed like a true living thing, limitless, frightening, beautiful, this completely unknown world opened to me, but you were only allowed to touch my knees.  We went to the beach so infrequently no one seemed to think it important to learn how to paddle out past harsh waves and swim in the calmer waters, to not be afraid of the rush and roar, the push and pull of this relentless (fun) thing over which we had no control, that might go over our heads. No, no need to learn to swim there.

I met you many times with a friend on long-drive nights, carelessly trespassing on lands with signs that said “park closes at dusk” paying that no mind, only thinking with wild hearts, consequences be damned, it was an adventure! How unprepared we were to post bail on one of those very brief escapades. It hardly seemed worth it after a while.

I was unprepared and overpowered when I met you. I brought only myself and had no idea what would awaken while the world washed away in your high tide, then low. I was unprepared the day I realized that ghosts do exist. They are real. I know because I am one: My holy spirit became ensnared, then chose to moor itself upon damp sands forever. There is no other place but this one.

I was unprepared to meet you tonight, as our meetings have been these last few nights. My clothes cannot keep out the biting wind. Shouldn’t I know better by now how cold your breath will be and put something warmer on so I can walk the long way beside you? Still, it didn’t stop me from coming, obeying the need to see moonlight on little waves.

I’ve walked past many broken shells, whole shells, tangled weed and rocks in all shapes and shades over the years. There are few I care to pick up to keep for myself or share with another. Tonight there was a shell gleaming white under the moon, and I heard very clearly someone say “take this one.” I obeyed, tucking it in my pocket and making way to the oncoming waves, to visit just for a little while.   On the return home I took the shell from my pocket and felt her smooth inside, then outer ridges. I cupped her in my hand and breathed her in deep: the perfume of the sea.  Intoxicating, overwhelming, the power of this scent.  The shell was new to shore, hadn’t been lying long days with her insides exposed, rotting in the sun, fit only for a hungry gull.  She has a clean brine scent that no one can bottle believably.  She is on the window sill now, and I know her perfume will disappear. She will not be pleased when I bathe her in bland water so that I may keep her on the sill. Or maybe she will be pleased that I chose to keep her close, hoping to hear some story she wishes to tell.

I was unprepared to write tonight, but when you catch the true scent of the perfume of the sea, how could I not?

Harps and Alarms

02 Tuesday Feb 2016

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On the days I need to awaken by a certain time instead of sleeping in like a Lazie Mazie Bird, I set an alarm. For most of my life I have been awakened by some rhythmic jabbing honking blatting sound. It jars the sleeping body, it tears the dreaming mind away from its embrace, dislodges me from my sleeping place, that night-shift womb where all is right, even when the dreams are bad, forced to extract my body from a warm blanket, stagger to the clock in a fog and figure out how to toggle a switch and make the bleating stop.

One day I realized that there is another way to awaken.  There is an alarm on my cellphone that allows me to choose a ringtone and it sounds like harps. The notes repeat and get a little louder with each cycle, slowly drawing my attention from dreams into the outside, realer world.

How we choose to awaken each day can make such a difference in the way we spend the rest of the day.   I never want to hear the bleating blatting honking sound of a digital alarm ever again. Instead I can choose to hear a jaunty little jazz thing that gently calls me from sleep and into the waking world, just like I can choose to go to bed early so I can have enough energy to get through (most) of the day.  I can choose to stay up all night and drink four beers with high alcohol content and feel like hell the next morning, or I can choose to have two beers with a water chaser from my favorite plastic cup and know I’ll be better for it.  I can choose to eat too many slices of pizza or a greaseburger, put sugar in my coffee, no veggies, skip a meal, use words like “hate” and “grr” in my daily vernacular… or I can choose to do a better job with the body that remains of this person who was born 40-some-odd years ago and use love words instead of cultivate the hate.   It’s my one and only vessel–I get one shot at this. I haven’t paid my dues to get what I dream of, what I want and need, and by goddess everyone should have within reach, to choose.  The universe is keeping score, see the bone notches, and this isn’t a game I can win, but I damn well better figure out how to love the game and everyone who’s in it with me. And write about it.  Or … what else was all this for?

Breathe Dark

22 Tuesday Dec 2015

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Solstice.  The longest night.  Sweeping out the dark corners of my heart.  They say pressure and time makes diamonds. What about dreams? What about art? What about the weakest spots in the heart that sprung leak, spilling out and do I care if it overflows?  Will it make precious words worth sharing?

I carry in me the longest shadows, the hardest heart. The glow of a candle against the longest night is kind, but weak.  It is a sigh from the goddess who knows there is nothing she can do.

So the time comes to choose. To decide if I will share shadows today, cast gloom on all, or walk in sunlight on the shortest day of the year. Some things just won’t be swept away like silky cobwebs adrift on the breeze. I choose you. I choose darkness.

Let tomorrow take care of itself…