together, alone.

Saturday, July 11, 2009 4:31:53 AM

today will be the last day of my binge.

i can feel it. i’ve been dragging through my life this week, someone else’s life, all scheduled and strained and small. looking through people, over shoulders as they speak, holding my own tonsils still which swell and threaten some sudden surge of weeping. i watch my own thoughts, projected like a movie playing over every cell of me, and reluctantly practice not naming; just existing here.

but today i have raced through my senses, my history, on this bike. today i crawled inside of myself and lifted out of the fog, pushed my face into the air and made wind.
it is good to breathe a little.

it’s surprising how desensitized people are to distance. how practiced we are at condoning aloofness, witnessing each other move through the world without feeling, sharing, connecting. i realize that i am also guilty of this, of course, and think of my own integrity.
it is time for me to be more real. the friend i have always wanted.


i think of this as i tear through the evening on two wheels, a route i’ve never taken. cherry creek bike path all the way to the health center; i am mapping my way to work. the sun drips thickly, mocking time, and there are shadowy creeks and fractured stones and a thousand plodding bends littering my path. the air is wet and warm, the mutual breath of so many wandering animals, and wandering suburbanites, and very small wandering bugs. i want to take a picture each time i blink, and lay every image across the floor for strangers to see.
everything is beautiful.
i want to see the world.

but i suppose it isn’t possible, or even desirable, to witness beauty all the time. beauty that causes weakness and staggering. submersion in emotion, or disassociation in spirit, or creative exhilaration, constantly. i suppose it is important to come down once in a while in order to relate to the real world.
but there are lots of real worlds. because there are lots of different lenses. and a life that looks irresponsible/boring/chaotic to one, may seem liberating/tranquil/eccentric to another, with a million versions in between.

nevertheless,
i wonder if i prefer the idea of life, but not the reality. i have thought on this for a long time.
because i love both. but one is less threatening somehow, uncomplicated by the raw experience of work or pain.

i think i realized last night on my ride that since my world is turning, or rather, i am turning my world, i am not certain which reality i want to buy into. which ideas are mine. which behaviors i will exhibit out of fear, or love. what the difference really looks like anyway. then again, sometimes i believe that i’m not changing what i believe at all, but am instead becoming more open to contradictions and the experience of not deciding.
because i do know what i believe in. i just don’t always know what to do with it.




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when the night lulls.

Sunday, June 21, 2009 4:52:09 PM




i heard

that vulnerability is like raw tissue being exposed to the wind. the air both poisons and heals, like the growth of a scab, or the burning of wood into ash for the soil, or a vaccine coursing through the blood. faintly toxic. finally healing.

i want to live in this way, something risky. not the rush of candy or sunlight, but enduring and restorative. i want to face myself head on, knowing i can see in, feeling this is a gamble, and going for it. i want to be good in a way that is nourishing and lasts. i want to understand when the night lulls poetry and memories and secrets.




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delicate and brave.

Saturday, May 23, 2009 3:17:24 PM

there are three pink peonies that an old woman plucked from her garden and plopped in a champagne vase on my desk. pink isn’t really my color, but it’s the right one for petals like these, papery thin and dense and waving in the breeze off the open door. one of them was a tiny cabbage head yesterday, all clenched into a leafy ball and hiding. this morning when i arrived it was open like a velvet yawn, lush and light and gaping. just like that.

i am wondering how this happens, how things just bloom overnight, in an hour, in a moment. how at first there is a tightening, a twisted knot, a bud. and then there is the startling relief of growth and movement, and the air smells like sugar.

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commitments.

Monday, August 31, 2009 7:08:51 PM



march was not a good month for me, to put it lightly.

i had returned abruptly from an overambitious trip to mexico which ultimately defied my expectations, to discover winter still gripping each end of each day, idle and blurred and halfhearted. having no place in particular to go or be, i spent three weeks bouncing between hotels and hostels and the cold nostalgia of michigan, fragments of other people's homes. a relationship in which i had invested all of my energy and will and life was wretchedly dissolving, and i had no one and nothing to turn to in my despair, to my fault. i gave up on household chores, hating my temporary dwelling. smoked a lot of pot, needing sleep. wept on my bike and in lines and any time i found myself alone. at last, with the encouragement of my mother who had received a frightening email confessing my poetic wondering for suicide, i eventually made an effort for my own renewal and scheduled appointments with five therapists in one week.

i liked each one, and considered their questions and suggestions with important scrutiny. one of them wanted to know everything about my mother. another asked about my father. someone else spoke most of the time, spouting advice and explanations and eastern proverbs. i wasn't fond of him.
and after declaring all of my sorrow and suffering and woe, shifting in my chair and rolling my kleenex into a thousand shards of lint, one of the therapists asked pointedly: "so what are you committed to?"

i chose her.

and you have asked me. what are your commitments? and again, i paused, combing my complete past for answers. how can i not know? the question is about my love, my ideals, my life of course. what do i want on this journey? what will i ground myself in, and return to when i am lost or stuck or withdrawn? what do i want my partner to hold me accountable to? how shall i expect to grow?


these days are different now, i think. i'm trying to be a better person because i do not feel i have acted like one in much that i have done. i have quit jobs, deserting children and dear colleagues without delay. stolen people's wives, abandon all my family and friends. i have considered karma, the cosmic nature of the condition of my life, and thought on this (which was sent to me):

"The first Saturn Return is famous because it represents the first test of character and the structures a person has built their lives upon. According to traditions, should these structures be unsound or that a person is living out of touch with his or her true values, the Saturn Return will be a time of upheaval and limitations as Saturn forces him or her to jettison old concepts and worn out patterns of living. It is not uncommon for relationships and jobs to end during this time of life restructuring and reevaluation."

yes, a test of character and foundational values. a time of upheaval and strife. but i wasn't raised religiously; i have nothing prescribed to invest in. i haven't practiced specifics, defended my choices with essential convictions.

but, of course i have. it isn't so complicated, is it? we all act out of our own assumptions and beliefs whether we have named them or not. and we know when we have been true to ourselves and when we haven't, if we have any grasp of intuition.

what does my intuition want for me?

i once wrote a paper for school in which we were asked to define our "mantras" as teachers; what would we describe to our students mattered most? how would we rationalize our most vital learning? the professor explained how interesting the diversity of teacher mantras had been in each of his classes. some students have teachers who insist that organization and accuracy matters most; others defend curiosity and inquiry. some believed most in expeditionary and experiential learning, and others strive for the illusive mark of "rigor" and "excellence".

in believing that a true education is self-actualizing and contemplative, my mantra became "engage, reflect, transform". and although it was only a first effort and will likely develop alongside me, it was an eager attempt to merge school learning with life learning, my ultimate goal. authenticity. intentionality. truth.

i guess my point is that we are all on a trajectory of growth, and this is what i think it may look like. engagement with experience, reflection on it's meaning, transformation as a result. i want to welcome and witness my own growth. i want to be willing to evolve. to me, that is the most important thing: a willingness to respond to our own learning. to grow. to become more patient, more compassionate, more understanding, more thoughtful, more open, more reflective, more alive, more loving. more at peace. more connected. more human.
not perfect.
no, not perfect.
not even better, in the way that whoever we are in this moment is some failing of our selves, some fraction of what we could hope for, no. not in the way that we are less than what we should expect, inviting shame or diminishment. but only in the manner of acknowledging that we are becoming more whole.

but there is no absolute destination. i don't really believe in enlightenment.

there is something about love in all of this; the path is not a calculated process of self-improvement, but must fundamentally require the ability to love.

yes, love. what is love?
you have asked me, another question like a face at the window.

what do we do when we love ourselves, and each other?






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