House & Soul

I walk around my house at night comfortable with the darkness, knowing it's path so well I have no need to turn on any lights. I know each room like a still picture inside my head, know precisely where everything is in every room from the desk pressed against the wall here, a lamp on a table there, to the cats curled up asleep on the chair they wouldn't dare to be caught on during the daylight hours. This is the comfort of home. This knowing of a space that over time becomes an extension of yourself, as much a part of you as your heart and your hands. This is the thought I've been grappling with, trying to find the right words to explain this feeling I've had over being part of and witnessing the separation of house and soul.

I wonder on that last night my Grandmother spent sleeping in my Uncle's old room in her tiny little house tucked back safely from the road, if she really understood that it was to be her last night sleeping there. I wonder if she (like me) would have stayed awake just to listen once more to all those familiar sounds, those nighttime sounds she's heard for well over the past 30 something years like her own personal lullaby... I think she knew but didn't want to know, probably crying herself to sleep in the darkness that night preparing herself for the morning ahead when she would wake and attempt to not show fear.

I admire her courage to let it go. To trust in her grown children to have her best interest at heart. To walk out that morning for the last time and face the day with strength and pride when what I'm sure she really wanted to do was stage a protest, sit in her favorite rocker and never leave. She may have even handled it far better than my Mother or myself who could barely contain our tears and even our tempers when the strain of everything began to be too much. She only cried once that I'm aware of as I was driving her to her new home at the assisted living community, my Uncle and my Mother following in a separate car. She took my hand and held it tight, looking at me with tears in her eyes as if she was a lost child and I was her only connection to the world. "I'll go," she said. "Because it's what they want me to do." And then she made me promise not to tell anyone that she'd been crying. A promise I only agreed to once she promised not to tell anyone that I had too.

I don't expect my Grams will stop missing her home anytime soon. I don't expect that her new "home" will ever quite compare. But what I hope is that she will come to like it enough that all her memories of home will bring comfort and joy.

Reading & Realization

"She's just a normal girl," she says.
"What does normal mean?"
Sonia shrugs. "You know. She's not that quirky. She likes mainstream movies. Romance. Action-adventure. She's not into inner turmoil. She's one of the most practical people I've ever met. It's like, life is a job. She's a realist."
For some reason I feel slightly affronted. I say, "I'm a realist."
Sonia laughs. "You're not a realist," she says. "You're a dreamer who doesn't believe in the dream."

- the Myth of You & Me
a novel by Leah Stewart

I used to think I was a realist. Now I know I'm like the character in this book, I'm the dreamer who stopped believing in the dream. Perhaps it's time to remember how to begin again...

Flight Risk

These past few months have gone past like a blur. Highs and lows. Lows and highs. Trying to find some semblance of a middle ground between two worlds trying to co-exist at the same time. I just keep getting this feeling that where I am right now is merely a holding point - a juxtaposition of sorts - pointing out the obvious of where I do and don't belong. Wondering as I am prone to do what the difference is between running away and running to and whether it really matters much at all if the end result produces what I really need, someplace new to begin.

The last time I felt this way - this restless urge to leave without looking behind - KC was four months old and I was reeling from the responsibility of it all, and the reality of having to do it all on my own. The truth was that what I wanted most at that time was to run South as fast as my feet could carry me to the comfort and the relative safety of my Mother. Because it seems that no matter how old I get, being around my Mom is like a respite for the weary and I am quick to shrug the grown up from my shoulders and give my inner child a few spare moments on the outside.

But somehow this time something feels different. Perhaps this time, it's not so much a reaction to negative forces around me but more so an honest reaction from my heart that feels more at home someplace else than I've ever truly felt here. Or maybe it's because I've spent so much time there these past few months, almost every other weekend for the last two, that I've created this home away from home. But I know - with a certainty that I've never had before that this feeling is as real as real can get.

But a grown woman has anchors. A child that doesn't want to move. A job that wouldn't relocate. A best friend who would be too far away for comfort. And the fear of turning my world upside down when I've only just settled into it after an exhausting year of domestic torture I only barely made it through. And yet... I can't rid myself of the familiarity of a different set of streets, the view of mountains rising tall against a summer sky, the smell of pine that lingers like molasses on the air, and the feeling each and every time I go back that what I've really done is come back home.

A Welcome Change of Pace

Good things...

KC and I went for a walk last night along one of the trails of our local park and despite a minimal amount of whining (on her part, not mine) we had ourselves a bonafide Mommy and daughter bonding moment.

The sun is SHINING! And it's WARM!

I painted my entire house - from top to bottom - in two weeks time and FINALLY it feels like HOME!

My new chair for my reading room was delivered Wednesday and it is SO COMFY!

I went on a camp retreat with my church last weekend and despite the manual labor part had fun...

Guitars and campfires go awful nice together...

I found a roll of film, had it developed and got some great shots despite the roll being over two years old.

I have great friends!

My new washer/dryer are finally getting hooked up! No more laundromat!

Tori released a new CD... I've already listened to it more times than I can count.

I feel like SMILING!

I'm laughing more and being miserable less! (Always a good thing!)

I love my Mom! (Statistics show she loves me back!)

My daughter thinks I'm a dork and occassionaly (okay, more often than not) I am!

Love is nothing to regret even if you don't end up together in the end.

I'm getting over my fear of walking down the street.

I have a backbone!

Puppies are cute... Cats are cuter!

My daughter is growing up and she's beautiful.

I have a new found respect for antiques.

My youngest sister is graduating from college.

Life without internet service available (24/7) is not so bad at all.

I work with idiots! And there are days I feel like I'm a cast member of some sitcom.

I never feel like Newman. Norm, maybe...

Blueberry coffee always perks me up.

Sometimes you need to slow down and realize you have everything you really need.

Do something nice today. Maybe you'll brighten the day of someone who could really use a double dose of happiness.

Be kind! Considerate! At peace! In love! Humorous! Helpful! Hopeful!

And if you can't do anything else... Just smile. I know I am...

Poetic License

The Embrace

She taught him the gods. Was it teaching? He went on

hating them, but in the long evenings of obsessive talk,

as he listened, they became real. Not that they changed.

They never came to seem innately human.

In the firelight, he watched her face.

But she would not be touched; she had rejected

the original need. Then in the darkness he would lead her

back –

above the trees, the city rose in a kind of splendor

as all that is wild comes to the surface.

Louise Gluck

The Triumph Of Achilles (1985)

Perhaps this is a sort of cheating; to read one poem for the thought and then transfer it over into your own words and interpretation. But isn't that what creativity is all about? Taking an idea and making it your own? Either way it was a good exercise to get some writing done when I haven't been doing very much of it at all…

Disconnect

She knows her limits;

sees them clearly.

Understands immediately

the things she can and cannot have.

She who can touch and reach

and see beyond the concrete wall to what exists;

to what is real.

She remembers looking into his eyes –

blue ice fringed with lashes like shutters,

an effort to keep his heart disconnected from his mind.

Allowing him to

- touch -

without being touched,

leaving only her to burn with the emptiness of his goodbye.

She knows her limits;

sees them more clearly now.

Understands how to separate herself from herself,

to act on instinct alone.

Pulling herself apart at will,

disconnecting emotions from needs to satisfy the wants of her hunger.

Creating her own distance like she keeps her own

counsel...

She knows him unlike anyone else who has known him,

knows him from the inside out.

Things he wouldn't normally say,

thoughts he wouldn't dream to speak.

He has told her these things, perhaps she thinks for absolution.

To resolve some regret he believes she can wipe clean from his soul,

using her up like a one time confession,

dirtying her with the stains of his sins until he needs her no more...

She who would have once believed that he was someone worth saving

believes only in his power to break her.

To be one more name -

on a long list of names - of those who have made promises they could not keep…

She leaves before he knows she's gone.

In a note that says no more that what she needs to say…

No response required,

Burning him this time with the simple etching of her name.

(Happier things from here on out... I promise. We could all use some good thoughts...)