The Authenticity of Bones and Waves

I haven't written here since 2017. I find this a bit staggering to say the least. (I write constantly, just haven't posted here, mind you) Disquieting how the days become weeks and then months and suddenly you have young men rather than boys and there is this mesh of delicate lines woven into the skin on the back of your hands that implies a fragility I don't yet feel.

I've recently returned from visiting my husband who is finishing a project on Nantucket. I went for a time last autumn and came home with pounds of shells collected from still-warm sand, whole and smooth like pregnant eggs spilled from the sea. This time winter hung low, close to the ground; a presence that changed the colors of the sky and the smell of the mist when the sun had fled the day. The sand was cold and the wind had teeth.

The shells I found now were nothing like the fruit of late October. The beach is littered with just shards of shells, fragments of a whole worn like seaglass into such beauty it took my breath away. I collected piles of them, washed and scraped and then laid them out to dry on the kitchen counter, an ocean boneyard. I marveled. I dreamt of them, drifting lazily beneath the surface of the water as the waves crashed overhead and the skeletal shells danced like drunken moths.

They're my favorites now, these calcified remnants; having tumbled through the storms and worn away the surface to reveal the swirl and sweep of the loveliness inside. I find this a disconcerting parallel - how we spend so much energy preening and polishing our exterior only to have the hurricanes of time and the sands of age wear off the brittle edges, peel back the flesh, and expose the majesty that is the unadorned soul. Beauty has become a misled quest for a particular color of paint, when what is truly of value lies there, inside the tendons and cartilage, the marrow of us.

I've now begun dreaming of the sea almost daily. I'm sketching and thinking of creating a small group of paintings inspired by these shells. I think I will call it The Bones of the Sea.

Pathways

It appears that November has arrived cloaked in mist beneath granite skies. The rain has washed away the gaiety of last evening's zombie parade through my yard; a handful of scattered candy wrappers in the lawn the only evidence of the gleeful dancing made slightly awkward by sweetly full sacks and overflowing pockets. I watch as silver drops chase each other down the glass of the window now, loving autumn's temperamental moods.

I adore rain. Despite how it makes my bones ache, I have some kind of connection to the elemental weeping of the heavens. I know when it's coming, plan accordingly, and often paint my best work on these damp days. Yesterday, I had one of my sons help lug the large canvas from the entryway of our home up to my studio. (it's four feet tall and five feet long and I'm not nearly coordinated enough to maneuver that up the split stairs alone) This painting, while hanging for several years now, has nagged at the back of my mind for months. I've studied it, scrutinized it, contemplated it, and flatly glared at it - the nagging becoming nearly a howl before I figured it out.

My paintings are me. I know this. Frankly, it's probably the reason why nearly every canvas I sell has 2 or 3 other paintings beneath the one I finally accept as finished. There is much in me still under construction. Days when I am not my best, days when the edges unravel and the threads untie....these days are sometimes caught in the pigments of my brush. Later, I can see them plainly laid out as clearly as if intended - and thus, I love gesso. That milky thick eraser of such a record. Thirty minutes and that canvas sleeps, buried gently and deep, only visible in my memory.

This is the painting. It scratched at me. Most of my work, whether planned or not, ends up with a path in it. I paint my dreams and apparently am traveling quite often. But then again, isn't life a journey? Always in motion, we move ahead, turn around, choose a direction, sometimes stumble...sometimes spend entirely too much time looking back. It finally occurred to me, this path is dark on both ends. Life can be dark, choices difficult, and at the time I painted this - I can now see how trapped I felt. My path wasn't going forward, but sideways - and either way I turned, I wasn't heading toward the light.

And so, on this drizzly slate day, I chose the music, (this is what I painted to) and I began again. Five hours later, paint smeared in my hair and across my cheek...

It's only the first layer, just the beginning. I will dream tonight. I'm not sure yet where exactly I'm going, life is always a wonder and often a surprise. I'm looking forward to the quiet that comes when summer's golden rush has faded and winter puts the world to sleep. I will paint....and see where it leads.

Happy November, my friends.

Smelling Like Dirt

Recently the café where some of my paintings are hanging hosted a “Meet the Artist” event, a lovely evening of wine and cheese; laughter, art, and fascinating company. I sold several copies of my book over the course of the night and was asked to sign one for a stunning young woman from Turkey – and thus began a conversation that has lingered in my mind for days now.

I have a long-term, passionate love affair with the written word. Meanings and nuances swirl through my mind - I think in pictures and in doing so, turn and move words about like things; examining, dissecting, diving into them. I titled my book “Season” as the three definitions of that word (a period of time delineated by weather and daylight, to harden or temper, and to add flavor) directly reflect my experience in life. The book is divided into four seasonally minded sections and each begins with several of my favorite quotes. The first includes this one:

"In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt." 

                                                                Margaret Atwood

The young lady I mentioned before is studying literature and given cultural and language challenges, inquired what it meant. While the first literal sense of the words is simply (to the gardener who lives through the dark months of winter plotting, planning, and longing for the tender blush of the first thaw) that in planting a garden, you will smell like dirt by the end of the day. However, the more we spoke, I explained that I also believe deeply that this applies to so much more than petunias and basil.

Beginnings. They are the root of us. We begin relationships and jobs and marriages. We begin parenting, new chapters, adventures, projects, penance. And with each beginning, the success of the thing, no matter what it is, I believe to be directly correlated, even possibly umbilically connected, to the effort we put into it. As was said today in a fall planting lecture I attended, “If you plant your bulbs two inches down, you are merely feeding the squirrels.” (Susie Lobdell) You need a shovel, not a trowel. Put your back into it, wear clothes you don’t mind tearing, plan on sore muscles. Exhaustion is an ingredient, not a side effect.

Do you smell of dirt? Are you putting the effort, the thought, the planning into your life to make it the one you desire? Are you weeding out the destructive elements that you know are gnawing around the foundation? Do you spend time thinking – simple reflection – about what has been successful and what has failed? Research and intention and bloody knuckles….do you smell of dirt?

The world is tucking in its edges now, curling up for a long nap beneath the hoarfrost and ice. I moved my summer plants inside this afternoon anticipating the freeze coming tonight. I’ve purchased whiskey and made soup and fetched the down comforter from the attic. I have some things in my life that need attention. Winter is good for that. May we each contemplate our lives, work at our lives, sweat and heave and celebrate our lives like the stunning gardens they are meant to be.

At the end of it all, I thoroughly intend to smell like dirt.

Rain

I keep dreaming of the rain. A week ago....

From the kitchen window I watched the darkness swallow the evening, damp grey-green trees fading to glistening black silhouettes against the clouds that tumbled about the sky. There is something about summer rain...that sultry humidity that builds for hours like a lover's flirtation and then the rush of pounding release infused with the scent of freshly mowed grass, distant bonfires, and hot pavement. The drunken flight of brave fireflies as they attempt to dance despite the deluge, the sway of branches filling the night with the sound of wind and leaves and thrashing.

I hesitated in the doorway to the back porch, the storm louder than the house behind me and everything inside of me. I stepped out till the rain was just skimming my arms, softly...another step and then one more and I slowly sank down to sit on the top step. Closing my eyes, I let the day slip away and focused just on the rain. It was heavy - not a sprinkle or shower - but that drenching wetness that ran thick fingers through my hair and traced paths across my scalp; slipping over my cheekbones, under my jaw and then down my neck to slide along my sundress. The sky cracked and I could feel the thunder inside my bones.

I remember playing endlessly in the rain as a girl. Now? Now I keep an umbrella in the car and plan ahead and shorten errands when the clouds gather...I skirt around the edges and watch through glass as the world rinses the dust away. But not that night. That night I let the rain pull the worries from my mind, wash the doubts and the fog and the uncertainty from my soul. It scoured the shadows from the corners and left me soaked and somehow...clearer.

I stood. I was astonished at the weight of my dress - so easy and loose, now it clung like an unwieldy second skin; wrapping about my ankles, the thin straps digging into the flesh of my shoulders. I left wet footprints and entire puddles behind me as I climbed the stairs. Suddenly chilled, the shower's heat permeated the room while the storm still raged in the night and I slipped silk over my head, braided my hair... I felt lighter. Rather than launder it, I hung the dress to dry in the shower and the next morning it smelled of rain.

I wore it again.

Unrestful Rest

Sleeping, for me, is an attempt to dive into an ocean...made of Jell-O. Rather than the swan-like move one envisions, there is much awkward thrusting and some jabbing elbows. A franticness that is alien and undesirable in such a moment...bruising. I've watched my husband and sons drift off casually, so easily as if sleep were the natural conclusion of an offhand breath or finished sentence. For me, it is a battle; sometimes edging closer to a war complete with bloody casualties - a war against the clutches of my waking mind. That vast indigo sea of rest and rejuvenation eludes me for wretched hours.

Often, rather than sinking into its silky depths, I seem to drift mere inches beneath the surface, watching the memories and fears and faces of my conscious mind ripple before me as if I'm lying on my back viewing the world through a translucent aqueous lens mere centimeters thick. The images have lost their crisp edges and begin to blur...I can feel the vacuum beneath me and attempt to plunge away from the surface only to feel tethered by invisible threads that tangle in my hair and flesh.

Sometimes I wonder after day three or four of sleepless unrest, if my judgement, my temperament, my ability to write and cope and paint and cook-more-than-noodles is in permanent peril. For it is within our dreams, our hours of unconsciousness, that our souls are reborn. Our humanity is solidified against the robotic tendencies of routine and repetition. This is what sets us apart....

Do you dream?

Investment

Midnight has flown. The shadows that live only before the dawn are draped about my room, arguing with each other. Yesterday is merely a memory and tomorrow barely a wisp of a dream. Today I spent hours investing in things that perhaps I need to reconsider. One of the joys/gifts/freedoms of the young is an abundance....of everything. Of laughter and time and energy. The very things that seem more difficult to find later on when life complicates like some mad scientific experiment that has reasons and factors and elements - and still exponentially explodes beyond rationalization. While the crowds applaud philanthropy and sacrifice - they are crowds. In real life where hours matter and exhaustion is palatable, one must do the math.

Have I mentioned....I'm not good at math?

One plus one should always equal two. But when it's time + the past + memories + hope + maybe + investment.....but the = is missing? When the explanation is always up for the task, to immediately squash any question, but the answer feels dreadfully hollow...

I find myself at a place of introspection. Please....how do you shuffle or recalculate? How does one rearrange or prune or merely adjust the friendships that are changing, sliding sideways...pausing? I'm an idiot. I will be the one still standing there when everyone has left the room....I know this.

I hate this.

Cable Boxes, Broken, and Thinking

6:40am and I've pulled furniture from the wall and crawled through 4+ years of dust. I can feel it sticking to my palms, my arms, the back of my neck. My left hand is completely coated in the drab grey wonderfluff that is Hazel's hair, unvacuumed corner crud, and spider waste. I'm fumbling through the power cords, flashlight clenched in the crook between my neck and shoulder, swearing like a sailor in my favorite black nightgown - the one with the lace about the edges...which is now furry. *shudder*

There it is. I snag the cord and pull it from its socket. I count...28, 29, 30. Pushing the shiny silver prong back in, I wiggle out from where dust bunnies go to perish and sit disheveled and disgruntled on the floor watching the cable box whir back to life. Perhaps it was over-heated or over-worked or over-everything. Scrambled. Debilitated. Like some long forgotten magician's trick, there was a flash of light and the flicker of two-dimensional company joined me in the duskiness of dawn, rattling on about predicted weather and expected rainfall.

And it occurred to me (not a crash of thunder occurrence, more like a dribbling faucet of realization), that I am that cable box. I feel a bit scrambled, off-center, slightly broken. The electronic universe we are surrounded by - when something goes amiss, it needs a reboot. Not for just a moment, this will require time, some counting, and possibly a little breath-holding. A pause to let the circuits reset and the wiring cool down.

I need to unplug. So if you notice I'm missing, trust me - it's not you, it's me. I'm going to clear my calendar for  bit. Make room to read something other than a list, sit in the sun and think a while. Just for think's sake.

Night Thoughts

The world is sleeping. A side effect of my husband traveling so much is the loosening of my grip upon time. My fingers are unlaced, detached. Reflexive clock watching has been replaced with distraction and sudden paranoid moments when I fear I've forgotten something immensely important. The days bleed into evening and I've lost track of their passing. Often I climb into bed after the boys do, exhaustion giving in to the call of soft sheets and a novel; but I'm also becoming rather familiar with this 3am discussion held beneath the blackened sky - wind and clouds and night murmurs.

My hair tangles about my shoulders as thunder stumbles across the heavens and the cat claws at the door behind me. I ignore him. Sitting on the top step of the back porch, I lean into the storm - huge and dark and somehow bigger than the one in my mind, dwarfing my fears and insecurities until they are the pebbles beneath the deluge. Washed clean of detritus and debris, the rain rinses away the clamor of the day. How is it that mere drops of water can be so deafening, so all-encompassing?

I'm painting now. More than I have in years. I agreed to fill in for a canceled slot in a local museum's line-up and then realized I was committing to nearly a new, completely finished painting every week. Sheer madness. Last night I dreamt I was painting trees that fell off the canvas and sprouted at my feet, their roots tangling about my legs until I couldn't move. I've done the shopping with paint in my hair, picked up the children with paint on my face. I smell of paint.

I miss writing. Like air. Like cheese. The night thoughts are scribbles in legal pads stacked beside my bed, waiting to be decoded, untangled into complete sentences with punctuation and capital letters. They whisper to me sometimes, echoes behind the music while my brush smears pigment into visions.

Just a few weeks now. Wiring and naming (seriously, naming a painting is a calamity of my dreams where it was born - a thing of feelings and emotions that is quite difficult to distil into a word or two) and stacking them on the landing outside of my bedroom until they will be driven to the gallery and strung up for all to see....and judge.

The storm has moved on now. I can see lightening etching new patterns over another sky, another life off in the distance. Perhaps God is laundering the world leaving night thoughts everywhere damp and shiny and clean.

......................................................


Addendum per Mary's comment. Painting vs writing...?

Lists

It's 12:27am January 1st, 2017. I stood outside for 20 minutes listening to the firework thunder and echoes of enthusiastic lungs laughing as they shouted into the night. A new year...what exactly does that mean beyond the turning of the calendar, the passing of a date? The air was crisp and pure and smelled of Spring four months away, snow and ice guaranteed to coat the world until then. My heart longs for warmth but is astounded at how quickly this season seems to be passing.

I'm now curled in bed with feet tucked beneath the down comforter, Hazel on the floor at my side, and the boys left gaming in the basement with a 2am curfew - even now their laughter ricochets up through the ancient ductwork and faintly ripples in the air. Jase slumbers beneath the covers (he's fighting an early winter head cold I am fervently hoping he does not share) and the Twilight Zone classic marathon paints my bedroom with wavering black and white shadows.

This year had a different list. Older birthdays and boys learning to drive. A position that has massive promise but that took my husband away for weeks at a time on a regular basis. A book published. Paintings finished. I resigned. These notes on a list look different but the year felt...hard. How does life feel? Does your year spill across your mind in a list like mine does? A series of triumphs and failures, laughter and sorrow? The boys are nearly men and the dog no longer a puppy and I find the lines about my eyes are faintly deeper. I sleep less (who knew three hours could be enough?) and dream vivid dreams that make my husband laugh out loud with their absurdity. 

A new year. A human year. Right now, my bedroom draped in flickers of grey, I am promising myself to feel it. To taste and laugh and cry and rage. The wind rattled my window just now, promising a storm before dawn. I turn off the light and watch the branches dance beneath the stars.

A new list begins.

Winter and Water

The night seemed heavy as it closed about the house. I could hear ice tapping against the windows; frozen rain beneath dark clouds outside the window frame, a virgin winter's storm. The day had been full of uncounted trips up and down the steps, silent lugging of laundry and Christmas décor and a somewhat heavy heart. My elder sister is in California, her mother (she is my half sister) battles after cancer related surgery...a friend of mine is struggling to tread water with her son, and another contemplates life-altering changes to his horizon. The holidays seem to amplify life - in all of its loveliness as well as its agony. 

Two weeks ago I was taken to court as my ex-husband petitioned to quit paying child support. In his words, "the eldest child is quickly approaching emancipation" (Sawyer's 18th birthday is in June) and he no longer wanted to provide for Sawyer or his 15 yr-old brother (who happens to be 6' 8" tall and wears a size 15 shoe, just imagine the grocery bill alone). The story is tangled and long and personal, but when the line of questioning from the Judge went a particular direction pertaining to his ethics in business - he angrily withdrew his petition. I left relieved, strained, exhausted...and when I discovered he'd retaliated by leaving an anonymous scathing review of my book on Amazon two days ago...angry. 

The spray from the shower head is heavy rain at the end of a drought. My dry shoulders hunch against the torrent, the tight muscles slowly relaxing as heat penetrates through sinew and bone. I watch the water swirl about my feet and bend to push the plug into the drain. I hear voices in my heart. Beyond the closed bathroom door I listen to one of the boys on the stairs...I slowly kneel in the tub. This claw foot monstrosity was one of the reasons we bought the house off Craig's list seven years ago, and I fervently promised it was going to be worth it despite the living room ceiling falling in four years later when there was a leak from the plumbing.

Tonight the tears stream down my face, mingling with the water that now rises against my waist. I turn, slowly sinking back, letting the steaming warmth envelope me. I take a breath, and pull my head beneath the hot, wet silence.  

The hush. That moment when your heartbeat is louder than your thoughts.

Several weeks ago I found myself in a conversation about our virtual selves vs our concrete. Our ideals vs our handshake. Please don't tell me you're for $15 minimum wage if you don't tip your waitress well or that we need more kindness if you cut off people in traffic on a regular basis. I took the boys Christmas shopping yesterday and thus commenced a lesson in rude behavior, dangerous driving, and terrible manners. Who are we? In real life - not online where we debate policy and morals and supposed integrity; where we can attack without consequence. Who are we...who are you? What kind of neighbor are you? Employee? Parent? Spouse? Friend? In real life where the scent of you is as palpable as your words...

My lungs burn as I clamp the muscles in my throat and keep my head beneath the water, my heartbeat furious thunder against the rage within my flesh. Gasping, I surface...my quiet house seems so loud. My soul shouting.

The days pass and the clocks tick and it's a new......Season.

Sometimes I feel as if the sky is another shade of blue than before...but I fear it is I that has changed, not the sky.  I'm not exactly sure how to pick up where I left off here - how does one play 'catch-up' and attempt to describe the color of the sky? 

I resigned from my job.

A week later one of my clients shot his girlfriend in the head. 

I made up my mind not to wait for permission or time or the right moment, but to finish some of my dreams.  I'm painting again.  And I've spent late nights and later midnights and even some very early before-dawns....and this happened. (my head is still spinning - please take a look, feedback?)

Some of it is here, some not.  Parts and bits and the sinews that knit my soul together. 

I'm at loose ends, looking to begin once more.  I may stumble some, and trip over stones and roots and the dark lumps that sneak up on us all in the twilight that hovers before the day....but I am determined to write my future, as much as live it. 

I will be back...please, what have you been up to??

Spring

The lilac trees in the neighbor’s yard are tipped with soft green….I feel as if I’m holding my breath.  Although, if truth be told, I’ve felt this way for months now.  Last year didn’t end with confidence.  I’ve just reread that sentence four times.  Its simplicity somehow is satisfying while it falls chasms short of describing those months.  There are moments in life that absolutely have no words.

I don’t believe I could live in a climate that didn’t have seasons like this part of the world – for the sheer and basic reality of emotional stability.  Every year Summer’s igneous heat pummels the grass of our yard to a faded yellow pulp; and then Autumn arrives with her glorious cloak of nutmeg and ocher leaves that scatter in the smoke-scented wind.  My soul soars those months.

The frost appears, tracing icy lace along my windows, reminding me to pull out the sweaters and Christmas garland.  The holidays are magic; twined with music and mulled wine and the glitter of starlight on snow….and then Winter creeps in.  I swear he steals beneath the trees when we sleep, his claws so hard and dark and cold.  The air burns just to breathe.  The slush and grit of winter invade me; cling to my feet and drag upon my soul…and then the lilacs bud.

Life has such seasons.  I’m rather tired of winters. 

Have you ever had a dream that when you awoke, you didn’t know whether to be relieved or sad?  I am in such need of Spring that I fear I am reckless this year.  I’ve torn the plastic from the kitchen window already….there are hyacinths on my dining room table.  I’ve painted my toenails.  Please Lord, let Spring be near.  I fear my heart cannot keep up this mad pulse without sunlight and warmth.

Hope is a season.  A spring renewed that is astonishing in its ability to reappear after the dark.  When the storms have passed and the wreckage is left, how amazing are the glimmers of green that forever persevere between the fragments of our humanity. 

 

 

Shadows and Seeds and Thoughts on a Rainy Day

Sometimes I park on the street behind my office.  The ancient church that spans the block beside us clangs the hours as they pass, stained glass vibrating with the resonance of time.  There is a sidewalk there that I traverse; concrete and nature collide beneath oak and maple boughs.

Today was filled with rain.  Skies grey and damp sluiced the world with autumn's wet embrace.  Have you seen the shadows yet?  Ghosted leaves along the cement, the tannins of life leached out as decay breaks down the cellular walls that gave summer its emerald hue.  The essence of fall bleeds for a time, leaf stains that paint the world in shades of bronze and rust.

I wonder, as life is both light and simultaneously dark...am I the same?

The glow of youth glimmers in jade and sage that slowly burns into amber scarlet flames.  Months pass and summer wans and ochre shadows now lay along the stony walk.  Eventually they will be washed away by the heavens, sifting to soil and sand...the remnant becoming the seed of next year.

Pegs and Holes

Morning light burns the lingering mist from the trees as my white Toyota company van trundles over rickety brick streets, thumping to a stop at the light.  The red disk glows with a thin damp halo, summer’s humidity already dragging hazy fingers across the cobalt sky.  Spinning tires hum over grey pavement, weaving through the meandering pulse of the radio and my mind wanders…

I’m headed to a client’s apartment. In her 50’s, she has curly grey hair, twinkling childlike eyes, and no one. Her family abandoned her to an institution decades ago and there is a staggering story of her mother throwing her down the stairs when she was six, resulting in the brain damage that altered the course of her everything.  Years on the street, raped, transient, she has lived through a hurricane life I shudder to think about.  But now?  Now she has a small one bedroom apartment in a building that used to be an elementary school.  Wide hardwood doors and long hallways still seem to echo with the voices of children when I’m there.  She loves Elvis, he’s all over her walls.  Every Monday I come; she waits for the electric buzz of my finger on the button marked 104.  I watch while she methodically fills her pillbox and I double check, counting the pastel colored marbles that equal stability to her.

As I drive, I can see her smile in my mind and my lips curve in response.  We’ll make a list of fresh veges and fruit and I will run her to the corner market and help carry her cherished mushrooms and sweet tea inside.  I will wish her a lovely afternoon and she’ll thank me and hold the door open heartbeats longer than necessary to watch me leave.  I will wave and promise to come back Wednesday.  Then more pavement and another buzzer and another pill box.

All of this quite seriously changes the fabric, the weave of another life.  It is good.  Right and strong and…good. 

As I drive my eyes trace the telephone poles connected by waves of black wire, a strange aerial sea that swoops and dips up over the hill.  There is a sense of wrong so thick within my car I nearly choke.  My throat closes, muscles spasm and my hands clench the wheel, white knuckles rigid knobs of bone and flesh.

In a world that spills out entirely too many movies that have themes of “she felt out of place, like she was missing her calling, until….”  Am I caught up in such a delusion, such selfishness?  That while in the very midst of doing so much right – it feels so wrong?  I feel out of place, like I’ve crammed a literal square peg into a round hole, shaving off the corners; a pulp of sinew and mangled skin left behind.

My co-workers are wonderful, my boss is funny and compassionate. And I am writing nothing.  I have oceans inside…instead I drive and smile and help and hug and drive and count and smile and drive…

I am doing such good.  But sometimes the weight, the palpable taste of what I am not doing is thick and heavy inside my mouth.  It coats my hair and drips into my dreams at night, reeking like tar and sadness.  This wrongness…how can it be so dense in the midst of such right?

 

 

 

 

Enthralled

It's strange to become a creature of steel and glass. I've spent months inside windows and siding, panels of wood or plastic or stone.  I guide.  I encourage and help and persuade.  At the end of the day I plainly ache for the feel of sun on my skin as a man thirsts for water itself.  I return home - love and welcome and it's worth it....

But after the boys shower, I step in.  Above the sluice of the water, I can hear their teenage prattle and laughter down the hall as I wash the day away.  The dust and depression of lives lived entirely too alone; it saddens me, chagrins me.  The soap slides down the drain....and the sky outside the window splinters. 

I've never been able to resist the siren call of a thunder storm.  I've now tucked the boys in and find myself sitting, wet hair and nightgown, on the back porch in the dark.  I sit at the very edge, warm rain soaks my calves and drips off my toes.  The scent of spring redolent in the saturated air.  The wind surges and I can almost feel the caress of the rain sliding down the blackened bark of the huge tree in the rear of the yard.  Undulating and curving over the knobs and divots like a lover's wet touch...

The house is still behind me.  The trees have become fingers of ink against a charcoal sky.  Dawn will arrive all too early and yet still I linger.  Spring is a lover supreme, is she not?  She seduces with promise and teases with the fragrance of lilacs and loam...

I revel in her.

Identity Crisis

It's been so long I'm sure I've fallen off many reading lists, but this is not entirely by chance....you see, I've begun to lose myself.  The coherence of my voice has faded, my selfhood feels unraveled, my identity threadbare and fraying about the edges. 

The delusion of youth is that life is a quest that leads to some grand epiphany of self-discovery.  A moment of clarity, long sought after when the "aha" of recognition floods the senses.  Limbs tingle, tiny hairs stand on end, and a river of peace surrounds your soul.  "This is who I am."

And then life fucks with you.

You see, there is no constant.  The you looking back from the mirror when you're 22 is such a different creature than the you holding the 8lb wonder of breath in your arms a decade and a half later. You, the heart and soul, the collection of scars and stars that sails the ocean of experiences, weathering the storms, beaching for a moonlit bonfire to dance and sing--and then off again only too find oneself on the edge of the Bermuda Triangle.  This you is a thing of  reaction and response and flux. The dancing construct of you no longer applies when the hurricane hits.  After divorce. After terror and loss.  The waves of the world change you.  Whittle and shape and mold you....the joys that paint the universe with sunlight.  The agony that dims the shadows beyond black. 

Defining ourselves, learning ourselves....distilling?  We all know a guy who claims to be an athlete but hasn't touched a ball since college.  The musician who doesn't even own a guitar.  Is there an expiration date to delineation?  A margin of error for a resume?  If paint is required to be a painter... 

I'm a social worker now.  I spend my days helping disadvantaged, sometimes damaged souls learn to live independently in an often hostile world.  This is good.  This is right and what is needed and I'm rather good at it......

...and I am missing me.

Shit, so selfish that sounds.  I drive between clients, the virgin rain of spring dragging lazy fingers across the windshield, my mind a tumult of canvas and pigment and brush strokes that will never occur.  I haven't touched a paintbrush in months.  My studio is cold and dark and my days are filled with the frantic exhaustion of forty hours of caregiving, on top of three teenage boys and a husband who needs understanding and love now more than ever.  I'm wiping tears as I type this, smearing them away with the back of my hand as I take deep breaths and pray the boys wont come upstairs until I can spill this out and pull myself back together again.

Rather ironic that just when my website was finished, the number of completed works froze; an unmeltable block in the midst of season's change.  You can see my work here and should you be interested in one, call me quick as they may be the last.  How morbid I sound.  I know there is no absolute, the future is unwritten--dear Lord, I know that better than most, but I cannot seem to find the strength to balance these me's.  I fear one is replacing the other. 

And I am missing her.

Intimacy and Fear and Twinness

It's been an odd summer for me.  Begun with such a visceral rampage of emotions, chasms so deep and dark, skies painted with the prism of fragile faith, paralyzing anguish and livid relief.  I think, in a way, I overdosed on introspection.  Facing some of my most unspoken fears forced an excavation of the soul; broken bits and lost bits and forgotten ones were found.  In these moments, we discover much about ourselves.  I curl in.  Disengage.  I'm not one to ask for help even on the best of days and this was so acutely displayed these last few months as to be painful to my friends and family.  My sincerest apologies for this.  Communication was impossible for me....hell, even the thoughts within my own skull were agony.

Recently I've watched in surprise as someone I know has gone through a similar season and yet, in complete juxtaposition of me, has publically announced every step of her journey; fears and hopes, updates and disappointments, all published via social media to hundreds, if not thousands, of people.  I'm awed... amazed...terrified.  That level of intimacy with so many is unthinkable for me.  And yet a great deal of my life has been spent in a quest for intimacy; an attempt to fill a cavern so vast that held only shadows.  Some might hazard this was a result of a rather isolated childhood and a family that I was never close to until ten years ago; but frankly the Why is so much less important than the Now.  The Here is more relevant than the How.  Forty years on this planet has taught me that one of our greatest mistakes is getting caught up, trapped within the Why and How, missing out on the gift of choice, forgiveness, and potential that is Now.

But it is true that my Now had a beginning.  Everyone's does.  In that quest for a soul mate I lunged toward the nearest hand offered--and thus the tragedy of my first marriage commenced.  A man that would order me not to breathe on him, that didn't like touching.  I was a fish thrashing about in a desiccated death valley of a relationship.  Which brings me to the story of my second husband of six years now.  His How is something that twists my soul every time I think of it.  Oh, to be grateful for such heartache is a terrible thing...yet our Now is chiseled and sculpted by our Hows and Whys, is it not?  This is his story, which has become my own.

Four and a half decades and our medicine has advanced in a miraculous way.  But there was a day back then, when a young mother was told at eight and a half months pregnant, that her unborn baby had perished.  There was no heartbeat to be found.  She would have to carry the stillborn to term and endure labor while planning a funeral that included an eighteen inch coffin...she nearly shattered.  Returning to the doctor, she insisted she could still feel movement and was assured this was merely a manifestation of her grief, and thus she wept and fragmented until the contractions began.  Hours later a beautiful lifeless boy was born....and fifteen minutes after that, my husband Jason was also.

Can you imagine the sorrow and the joy of that moment?  An excruciating combination that stained everyone in the room with the colors of  despair and wonder.  The world turned and life happened and Jason didn't discover he was a twin until he was fifteen years old.  This suddenly explained his feelings of perpetual aloneness, an internal 'missing' that never ebbed, no matter the company.  He dreamt, almost nightly, of sleeping wrapped around another.  Entwined.  His first marriage also, was full of echoes and emptiness.

And then we found each other. 

I know few who sleep as we do; a knot of limbs, flesh against flesh, where one ends and the other begins unknowable.  His face on my neck, my lips against his arm, our breathing syncs and we slumber.  Intimacy beyond my understanding at times. 

Twins bound by life.

Missing

The grim tang of irony lingers in the back of my throat as I type this.  My last post in March was laced with hope of a new season....and one arrived.  Please forgive my silence these last months--some things require the curling in of the soul in order to survive. 

At any rate, my missing months are here.  You know the blog drill, scroll down to April's first post: "April Fools" and read backwards from there.  Only ten posts.  I feel as if I penned them in blood.


Love to you all....

Seasons

 

Another grey day.  As if the sky has melted the clouds and become an ashen soup of slush and grit.  The crystal flakes that drift about beyond the window have lost their glitter, the magic of the holidays buried beneath the leaden weight of frozen snow.  It always seems that Winter becomes a petulant child this time of year, vacillating between tantrums and exhaustion, dragging his feet and clutching at the world with claws of fractured ice.

I dream of spring.  I hear delicious whispers of warmth in the night and wake grumpily to the same arctic world I kissed goodnight the eve before.  I want to nap.  I want to sulk.  I want to move south.  Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live in a climate without the radical seasonal changes of Pennsylvania.  The pale green of spring that gives way to the lushness of summer that burns itself out in a rush of copper and ruby and gold before the ivory silence falls.  The calendar flips, the clock ticks, and if you endure....hold your breath and pace and wait...another season is just weeks away.  Trust me.

And such is life, really, isn't it?  Some seasons gloriously grand....some barren.  There are islands of paradise and deserts hellishly dry; monsoons and hurricanes and floods that threaten to drown.  Fields of topaz that stretch as far as you can see.  Days of darkness, days of bliss.

Sometimes you can anticipate the season ahead.  Sometimes it slams you to the ground with enough force to crack your bones and knock the air from your lungs.  Seasons of love, of despair, of passion or pain.  Seasons of stagnation and ones of spectacular bloom.  Some cause permanent scaring, some heal.  Some strip you naked and bare.

Some teach you to fly.

2013 was one of the most difficult years of my life.  There are more lines around my eyes now, more shadows in the periphery. 

But it's nearly spring....can you feel it?  As if the earth is stirring, the ground thirsty, poised on the brink of something new.  I'm here, crossing my fingers, holding my breath, and hoping....

Here's to a new season, my friends.  May yours be lovely indeed. 

                                   
                                                         Hope is the dream of a soul awake.
                                                                                                                      French proverb

Appetite

I stood at the stove, wooden spoon in hand, reveling in the beefy goodness saturating the air and condensing into damp whirls upon the kitchen windowpane.  Nina Simone crooned from the stereo while the rosemary and sea salt bread crisping in the oven tinged the house with that hominess that I swear only comes from baking something with yeast inside of it.  The chaos of the day was slipping slowly into the shadows, dinner was moments away...

"Mom, I'm starving--can I have a snack?"  My fingers clench for a split second on the wooden handle and my spine stiffens. The woman who has spent two hours on her feet to produce this masterpiece of a meal is slightly offended, but a glance at the six foot two, twelve year-old lanky boy in the doorway restores my sense of humor--seriously, the boy has always been hungry.  However...

"Do you know what the most important ingredient is?" I ask, my head tilted slightly, eyes shining, a smile on my lips.  He sighs, he's heard this many times.  Grinning back, he turns to leave with that resigned slouch of the shoulders, capitulating as gracefully as his growling stomach will allow.  "Ten more minutes!" I call after him, chuckling softly to myself.  My friends, do you know what the most essential ingredient is? 

Appetite.

My mother used to tell me this as I too, hung about the kitchen, drooling over the scents escaping the blistering oven.  The pots that simmered upon the stovetop, the pies cooling on the sideboard.  Ahhh, the delicious joy of aching anticipation.  Feeling positively hollow, it seemed as if the blessing was going to last till dawn, but then that first bite....oh, sweet heaven!  Eyes closed, mouth full...utter bliss. 

With this holiday season creeping closer, candy stuffed fists knocking on our doors, programs dripping gravy and cheese seeping from our television screens, hypnotic magazine pictures of the ultimate festival of cakedom strewn about our coffee tables--may we take a moment to pause.  To evaluate....

How hungry are you? 

I fear the truth of that question may surprise you.  For if one is excruciatingly honest--for many of us, it has been years. 

It's the latest diet fad, hanging about a while now--the idea that the standard "three meals a day" motif of life was actually straight from the Satanic bible.  It's solely responsible for that cushy tush and those darling love handles we all seem to sport....GET THEE AWAY FROM ME, YE SPAWN OF HADES!!  (ok, I am actually laughing as I type that line...)  Rather you must eat six small meals spread throughout your day, peppered with "healthy snacks" and tiny treats all in the name of:  "Never let yourself get hungry because you lack the self-control to not gorge until reaching the point of belt-loosening expansion." *sigh*

But I ask, have we lost more than the odd pound in this quest?  We are becoming, in oh-so-many ways, such a society of the moment--waiting for anything at all, a thing of the past.  On-line shopping, instant downloads, fast food, drive through restaurants (NOT to be confused with fast food, mind you) automatic-importunate-split second life.  We multi-task our existence and waiting is a terribly un-vogue ritual spoken of only by those that actually know how to dial a rotary phone.

Desire and yearning.  Thirst.  Longing...needing....craving.  The friction of a fingertip along the soft skin on inside of your elbow, the absolute most perfect Christmas gift ever found, a love letter written by hand and sprayed with scent that lingers in the mailbox for days, making you smile.....butter melting into the dips and divots of a piece of hot bread, the oven still spilling it's yeasty warmth into the kitchen behind you....each of these, made so much more splendid....

By the wait. 

By the appetite. 

So this year, as your life amps up into overdrive and your schedules begin to collide like planets knocked out of orbit, I challenge you.  Don't snack on your way home.  Don't indulge every whim--for the very definition of a whim is just a passing fancy....wait for desire. 

Be hungry. 

Life will taste better.