broad arms.

There are times when there seems to be little to say. I know there's nothing to say, you reassure everyone. The path is long and you don't always know where it will lead you. The path is long and sometimes you must go it alone. The path is long and it is also very short.

I don't know terribly much about Natasha Trethewey, but that she is the new poet laureaute, comparatively young, and has something beautiful to say about patience and art.

"I turned to poetry to make sense of what had happened and started writing what I knew, even then, were really bad poems. It took me nearly 20 years to find the right language, to write poems that were successful enough to explain my own feelings to me and that might also be meaningful to others."

Love is good and compassion makes the broad arms that hold us all. I am quite guilty of forgetting that. Sometimes we need to be those arms and sometimes we need to let them hold us. Say I love you. Say it again, again, again, again, again. Never stop.

expect.

I have come to believe in knowing what you love. What I mean is that each of us knows, deep down, the things that bring us happiness. These are things we read or eat or talk about or do. And we know them.

We are here and alive now, are we not?

I have just finished reading An Everlasting Meal by Tamar Adler and it is one of the most beautiful books I've read in awhile. It's the kind of beautiful that makes your heart feel a little swollen, a little fuller. The kind that makes you think I'm alive, I'm alive, I'm alive. It is full of the simplest pleasures and the reality we find deep inside our survival, in the food we grow, prepare, and put inside our bodies. But the pleasure runs beyond survival, and so it is precious.

You know the things that make you happy, I think. You know the things that you love. You know the moments when you're alive. It has taken me some poverty and heartbreak and hard work to realize that I know these things too. This might be very silly advice for me to give, but there it is: take, live, do these things now. Do them now. Find the things, especially the small and simple things, and fill your life up with them.

I'm reading The Gift right now, by Lewis Hyde, and he has a thoughtful section devoted to gift economies and the ways that scarcity and market systems breed constant, ever-growing discontent. There's an old tradition of deep satisfaction and happiness to be found among people who live with very little and who have a generous spirit.

My point is only that life has a way of getting very full of things that don't mean much. Some of it is necessary. Jobs to pay the rent and obligations to be met. But it's worthwhile to combat some of the empty things with the things that make you happy.

It's worth remembering.

It's also worth remembering that you will only be capable of what you expect of yourself, so expect a great deal. I am saying this to myself quite a bit lately. I expect something big will come of it.

lessons.

Many years ago, I read Wendell Berry's novel, Hannah Coulter. There was a lot to the story and a lot I don't remember. I do remember the title character reflecting on some lesson that someone in her life had taught her. And from there on, I began to note what lessons there were in my life, who was teaching them to me and whether or not I was hanging on to them.

Write about that.

Someone who loves me has been saying those words to me, and often. I have resisted them. I have resisted. I mean, I'm resisting them right now. I can't tell you why, or maybe I can. There are a lot of things that can make you freeze. Fear and doubt are two things.

And what is there to be afraid of? Someone asks me. And I answer, but the answer said out loud is much less believable. So maybe there is nothing at all. Nothing to be afraid of. No reason to resist. No more excuses. No more.

leaps.

This is what it's like to be an independent lady.

I got to work this morning, wearing one of my four hipster-cool professional outfits. I wore a belt over my shirt in another attempt to make it look like I have more than four hipster-cool professional outfits. Got to work, looked in the mirror, belt looked dumb, took it off. And then I realized my shirt had a hole in it. Not a hole in the armpit or the seam or a tiny hole no one will see. It's a big ass hole right on my stomach where a tiny patch of stomach skin is shining through. It's the kind of hole you get when you wear a shirt over and over and over because you're an independent lady who is out in the world making not-much-money.

The beautiful thing about this day is that I don't care.

Some people love to plan life out. They imagine a big picture and the various twists and turns they hope their lives will take. While I'm a planner to my very core, I hate the big plans. Hate isn't even exactly the right word - I am incapable of planning my life in this way. I have no desire.

You want me to plan a vacation? A grocery list? An independent ladies' dinner? Done.
You want me to plan my life? Not gonna happen.

the well isn't dry.

I read your pages and I lingered. Fingers tracing words from top to bottom.
You laughed. I smiled. It hurt a little bit.

Sometimes the tedium of looking at my life, over and over again, looking at the details the sounds the light the people....... Sometimes it gets annoying. The sound of my own voice is grating and somewhere inside my head, my brain is saying Shut up shut up shut up.

I have very little to say because I can't nail my thoughts down anywhere. I can write until I get that weird little cramp in my palm, somewhere under my knuckles, but nothing is really coming out. The old fight will never end, will never be won in any sense. Some days inspiration will come rushing out of you and spill out everywhere before you can hold it in. Some days the well runs dry.

This well isn't dry. It's confused about whether or not it's a well. It has the echo.

It helps to believe in something or someone. It's good to hope for something that is bigger than yourself. I practice awe like religion, each day staring at the sun as it rises and sets, filling my lungs up with the sky, cracking my chest open with the wind and a song. Feel it and appreciate it.

be here.

Some while ago I read something, I can't remember where. A post on a blog or maybe an essay. It was about fear and this reassurance: Anything could happen, but it usually doesn't. I've been letting my brain chew on this thought for a few weeks now.

I carry a lot of fear around with me. I don't usually acknowledge it to myself, or even anyone else. I am afraid of losing things and people that I love, afraid of people dying or abandoning me, afraid of them abandoning themselves, afraid of change and the unknown and feeling out of control. Usually my fear is something I push back when it surfaces. But lately it has been fighting it's way through, sharp pricks and wet eyes. I am forced to confront it every day and I am confronting it now head on. I am tired of living with the constant expectation that something evil is just around the corner.

Over the weekend, I read a piece in the latest issue of Poets & Writers that was about writing as healing and discovery in the face of a spouse's death. I read the first sentence, "On the night my husband died..." and immediately the black hole opened up in the pit of my stomach. Death, there it is, looming over me and everyone else I love.

funerals & clasped hands.

I walk by a funeral home every day. At least twice a week, there's a crowd outside, gathered after a funeral. I stare those people down. I can feel loss and death on that corner, underneath my fingernails, creaking in my elbows and knees. I dwell on those people, perhaps too much. The loss of another human being, a life, someone who was loved. I don't want to see, but I can't turn away.

In return, I also devote myself to beautiful things,

Such as this wonderful wire sculpture by Gavin Worth,

different kinds.

I read some beautiful writing today. The kind that makes your palms tingly. The kind that makes you unconsciously hold your breath. I live for those moments. I can't tell you why, exactly, other than this: in those moments there's a wholeness in the universe and myself that is complete. It is the closest thing I can imagine to the absolute. And I know it's real when I read something and say to myself, Someday I'll write like that.

There are different kinds of writing in my life.

There's journal writing, which I have done on and off since I was 13 or 14. It's self-absorbed fear and heartbreak and mad love.

There's notebook writing, writing practice. I've really only been doing it for the past 3 or 4 years. And even then, I've really only been dedicated to it for a year or less. This is usually where I plug in freewriting, make lists and let ideas gather some energy.

voluntarily lost.

I am afraid of being lost.

I mean this in the physical sense. I look at maps and they make me feel safe. I study directions before I even have my shoes on. I don't usually wander, especially not in a car. Rarely on foot.

This is on a long list of things about myself that I am constantly denying and/or trying to change. I often claim to love spontaneity and adventure, but the real truth is I appreciate spontaneity and adventure, I don't often regret it, but I rarely long for it. What I long for is comfort, safety and familiarity. Is that so bad? I don't know. Do I wish I was different? Yes. Sure, I find contentment easily. It doesn't take much to make me happy. But what about excitement? I don't know.

Well, I'm thinking about this today after reading this post and wondering at the joy of being voluntarily lost. When I'm on my own, I am never voluntarily lost. And sometimes I struggle to be lost when I write. But I try to practice. I force myself to write even when I hate it (except sometimes I clean the kitchen and read a book instead). But slowly I'm loving it more, loving the freedom that comes from writing each word without knowing what comes next.

freewriting on friday, #2.

For the last two days I have been thinking and writing about the year I turned twelve.  It's strange to write your way into memories - things you have forgotten that keep rising up from the well.  There's a lot to say: understanding of self-awareness, social hierarchies, perceptions of the world.  And there is more writing before it can be anything.

I realized today that I was trying too hard.  I was trying to find a theme in what I had written, some underlying message, maybe even a loose moral lesson.  I have killed a great many things by over thinking them, so as soon as I realized what I was doing, I stopped.

To make a break in my mind and catch my creativity again, I did some freewriting on other topics.  The piece of freewriting that I am going to copy here is the real thing.  I just let it go.  When I freewrite with a computer, I have a hard time keeping up with my thoughts by typing.  Hence the (many, many) typos.  I have to work hard to get to the place where I can just let words come out of me without any rules.  Every bone in my body wants to correct the mistakes and delete the things that are uncomfortable to say or to read.  But I'm just going to lay it out there and let it be.

The prompt: Write about a time you felt spiritual.

I felt spiritual during the church choir in Brewster. I can't remember what the song was or when the choir sang it, but it was beautiful and big inside and I fell right into it and felt something of god all around me. I had goosebumps across my arms and tears in the corner of my eyes. I was playing the organ and I felt so full inside, like something was flowing in me, like the waterfall that is so big and loud you can't hear the person speaking right next to you and I didn't have the power to even listen, just to take it in through my ears (almost wrote eyes, music in through the eyes, I like it). I think it's so interesting to reflect on the spiritual experiences I have had in church and what that means for me, someone who is struggling very hard to figure out where I land. I don't believe in god, but...? The question is big and hard. I have had spiritual experiences in church, moments were I felt surrounded by something larger than myself. I have felt it in the familiar hymns during Christmas eve. I have felt it in familiar Bible verses being read, hearing united voices reciting a creed or prayer. And I felt it in the song that the choir sang. I don't understand spiritual or what it means. I know what it used to mean to me and it was actually something to be fought I think. I was raised to elieve we aren't supposed to feel things about our faith, it's just given to us and just shut up and take it. It's so weird: Luther rejects logic and reason (as the Devil's whore) but demands this cold, emotionless faith from us. Well he understood (I guess) and so do I that emotions and feelings are fickle and sometimes perplexing - not always available to guide us to the truth. I understand that. I have feelings that I don't understand every single day. Spiritual in church spiritual in church I completely lost my train of thought can't rememb erwhere I was going Ok right I remember thinking about what SPIRITUAL means I guess I always think ofit as being something very large or something that makes me feel very small. I get the exact same feeling from a susnet and the ocean. Especialy the ocean. Looking out onto something so big so much bigger than myself I look out and I'm in it and I cant type fast enough to connect workds to my thoughts I am making typos left and right and even backspacing a lot still so the ocean and bigness and I'm swallowed up and somehow that makes us feel safe and maybe that's a place every human being is longing for and hoping to understand. we get the same thing from love, love of people, love of family, we get that feeling from what what else? maybe people who seek adventure, mountain climbing, rock climbing, sea kayaking, skydiving, all of those things make us feel small and somehow that feels good. Or maybe it isn't at all to do with bigness and smallness but being surrounded. You are surrounded by the sky at the top of a mountain. You are surrounded by the light in a sunset and the w aves catch your feet again again again. And in church, you are surrounded by people who are supposed to be your people. But more and more I realize that church and faith, well that's a gathering place for people looking for the thing we want and need as human beings. i don't know what that thing is but the church It's a place for looking, you can't find anything there. It's just a lot of people who are all desperately looking looking looking. It's ag ethering place for the the looking people. They have to amek things for themselves to find.  I have too much baggage and too much to sort through in my mind, too much influence from those around me. I just need people to talk to me about it, I need to talk about it. I need to sit down with every person I know and say, Tell me what you think about god. even people i don't know, every person I see I just want to ask them, TELL me how you do this how do you figure out god and life tell me how you do it we're all people in this together and i need to know how everyone else is doing it I need to understand how we as human beings make these choices (10 minutes).

Finally, a thought for this weekend.

Love me when I least deserve it because that is when I really need it. - Swedish Proverb