100% Crisis and Here We Are

I am crazy-brained and cranky today. I have cussed out every driver on the street and cast unmentionable spells against anyone who gives me the remotest of dirty looks. I realize this feeling has lingered from yesterday, and though I know some of this has to do with the fact that the caffeine I have been devotedly consuming the past couple of days has not really absorbed into my body the way it normally does, I know the majority of my rotten mood is resulting from the seeds of hopelessness once again scattered over my sadly receptive soil.

I feel like there are weights hanging from my eyelids, and my forehead is host to a bag of sand so full it is bursting at the seams. I just want a job. Whine, whine. I just want to have my own one-room apartment with a few flowers in a vase by the window and some coffee that actually conjures some resemblance of vitality in my body. I just want a simple existence that's relatively stable. I feel selfish for this. But I don't care, anymore. Whine.

I think it's not so much not having the job, and so forth, but simply that I'm afraid I'll NEVER have a job. I'll NEVER move out and live on my own experiencing peace solidly for over a month. I'm afraid I'll NEVER feel remotely secure.

As I wrote that I realized something. A few months ago I told my friend Elizabeth on the phone that I doubted I would ever meet a man I thought worthwhile. That I'd never find someone truly interesting, and appealing in the whole romantic avenue. Truth is I have quite the crush at present, and so far, I find this person quite appealing.

When I told Elizabeth how I would NEVER meet someone I liked, she said, "Michelle! Hold on! Right now, write that down. Write down what you just said!"

I said, "Why?"

She replied, "Because, I know you're going to be proved wrong."

Thus, I have come to a new verdict, that it is simply foolish to believe in such absolute terms that nothing good is on it's way to you. It's foolish to believe that good is never ever never never in the wings. Somewhere something is hanging out, waiting for us to turn the corner, waiting for us to start down the road.

Earlier a friend was in the coffee shop and she was telling me about how her life has been in 100% crisis for the last year. And yes, TERRIBLE things happened. Things had gone to hell in a handbasket. All at once. But, as she said that: "100% Crisis," I thought, "and here you are, leaning over the counter, small coffee in hand, cell phone ringing, talking about graduate school and a new job, and all of the languages you plan to learn."

The shit is going down everywhere, and maybe there's no light at the end of the tunnel as far as we can see. Truth is, though hope seems far off, the tunnel isn't so bad. I'm still here, meeting people, making friends, developing unexpected crushes, feeling the warmth of generous strangers, and attempting creativity and peace despite potential crisis. Things will change. They always do.

I want to begin leaning into the notion that there are no absolute negatives. There are terrible things that happen; unspeakable awful things. But there are always bedside flowers, cups of tea, kind faces, offers of forgiveness, a ten dollar bill hidden by a friend in the glovebox, coupons, second and third and fourth chances, moments for prayer or meditation or silence. Time can't be filled so much that on a single breath we can't pull focus (an idea I got from Julia Cameron), we can't slip out into a more open space, and let our spirits spread out. There are opportunities for good, for small acts of generosity or appreciation, for closeness, for affection, and peace.

May you and I find something in the dry spell.

This Christmas: Walking the Walls Down

Today I am sitting in one of my favorite coffee houses, trying to conjure a sense of hope, trying to lift my own spirits and connect with whatever magic it would take to make some of the people I love, and myself, feel secure. I remembered Daisy May's music, particularly songs like, "Like This," and "Simple Secrets of My Heart." They are making their way through the winding tunnels of my spirit, digging down into the sore spots.

I feel like everyone's taking a beating. So much good is running through the air, leaping into our lives, and at the same time, we can't claim it, because there's so much worry, so much insanity, so much that must be cleaned up, repaired, financially supported. It is unfair.

And just as I typed that, one of my best friends and favorite people in the universe came up behind me, and hugged me, and wow...it is so good to know I am loved, and to know that I love so deeply and freely. It's amazing how much love can change you, as cliche as that phrase is. It's true. I am very different, and revel in how many doors have opened beneath my skin.

Which reminds me of why I wanted to write this post in the first place. I've been scanning blogs, specifically maganda.org, where she wrote a letter to her baby son, and at the end, she wrote something about how she loves this holiday because it's when God expresses his big love for us. I don't know why, but my eyes kind of welled up. I don't think I was thinking about God's love. But just the warmth of love in general.

Like, despite all the hardship and restriction, we can still share, and we do. We keep moving, and hopefully we keep moving nearer, exploring and opening ourselves to the gift of other people: their views, thoughts, scars, feelings. Within the past couple of years, after breaking off a rather serious relationship, the word share became such a vibrant, deep, breathing word. It was something I couldn't really do with the person I was with. And so, now, I love that word.

It explains exactly what I want most. To share moments, words, couches, glasses of water, blankets, hugs, bodies, stories, pain, hope. I usually think of it in the future tense as if I'm excited to share, someday. But the truth is, I'm sharing now. In this moment, with Chase, at a coffee shop. Last night with a bunch of charming strangers. With my sister when we both get home late. Sharing stories and poems and questions with David. Car rides and tears and a giant pile of blankets for a meteor shower with Paula. Scrabble boards and hookah and good wine with Laura. Three hour phone conversations with Elizabeth.

I have something magical right now. My life is full and wide and it is so terrifying and unpredictable. But what I know is, I am so happy with what it is right now. I hope for more. I want security and things to keep evolving and becoming more exciting, and more financially stable, but right now, it is still good.

And perhaps Christmas can still mean something for me this year, when I think of it this way. That this abstract concept of getting close, sharing life, risking a little more than usual, really trying to see deeply into another, is something I can't explain without spirituality.

Lately I have felt this huge discomfort with my beliefs. Not the beliefs themselves. I can't even begin to think about them, because I'm trying to stay outside. It's like I'm pressing my arms out, trying to feel my way around these ideas, and I try and keep my heart as far from it as possible. I'm not so good at breaking open. And whenever I begin thinking about my spirituality, give way to the first moments of prayer, begin to disclose some sore spot to someone else, some tender insecurity, I quickly urge the walls up. I lock. I can't get close.

This Christmas, maybe for a few moments, I hope to let myself open up. Whenever I enter prayer, actually go there, lay open and listen, the unexpected happens. I am never berated, and I am often urged, deep in my spirit, not to feel guilty, but to feel strong and able, to feel soft and accepted and lovely. So with God, with some people too, this is what I hope to do: when the stone begins building in my back, muscles stacking like bricks, I hope to breathe slower, walk the walls down with slow sweet silent words, and remember what I want most: to share life, to allow love to move back and forth as it should.

Kitchen Experiments and Remebering Who I Am

Tonight I am finding my people pleasing attitude exhausting, as I'm rather tired of always trying to figure out the geometry of what people want, straining my body and brain and spirit and soul to make myself into that shape, and fit perfectly. I'm realizing that though it is exhausting, while it's happening, I almost want to perpetuate it. As long as I'm not quite the person yet, there's work to be done. I can avoid my life: my art, my writing, my heart, my soul, the time to stand in my body and be still there, the time to know that this is alright and okay and even nice. It is difficult to stop and do what I should do, and what, deep down, I most want to. It is difficult to give up on the game, to trust that some people see through your bullshit and shape-shifting, and just like you. They don't care. They just want to sit with you. Get comfortable. Get cozy. Be.

So, tonight, driving home from the coffee shop, I began playing Deb Talan, my usual favorite when these thoughts come on, when I begin thinking about loving myself, as corny as that may sound. I begin playing her and Daisy May and Rosie Thomas whenever it's time to speak my words to no one but myself. To write the silly big hard truths as plain as they exist in my head. To not doctor everything up, not even tell the complex story of it all. It is the feeling I become interested in. The big worries. The hopes. The fears. What's rooted deep.

I'm sitting in the dark, now, typing this while listening to my little potato dish simmer on the stove. I soaked it in soy sauce, of course, and spices. I love the slicing vegetables. I miss that. I miss that about living in my duplex, having enough money, earlier this summer. I would buy produce, tons of it, and I'd slice everything up. I experiemented, mostly. I learned that I love red peppers. And I love onions. A lot.

I love how calming simple acts can be. I love the slower motion my brain moves in when I'm doing something like slicing a potato, turning it on its side, slicing it again. I love using my palm to slide the whole mess of cubes and odd shapes into the pan. I love pouring olive oil, and the careful sprinkling of garlic.

I soften when I'm cooking. I get quiet. I remember who I am, and that nobody can hear my thoughts. Nobody's watching. I can be unsexy. I can be uncool. I can be boring and rather unintelligent. But I do develop a sense that I am good. I am worthy and once again, I like myself. I can enjoy my own company. Time cooking by myself, time making art, time writing out the truths as messy and simple as they may be, is time very well spent.

Tonight I remember after quite some time of forgetting that I like this place. I can forgive myself for getting caught up in the taxing acrobatics of trying to be what he or she or they might want. I am myself as ridiculous and soft and delicate as I sometimes am. I stand in my skin and enjoy being here.

Winter: Hemmed In

All this sudden snow has hemmed me in, and surprisingly, I feel warm. Typically, I enjoy the roominess of summer; that I am able to go out, lay out on grass, spread. Spring and summer allow me leave the stiff geometry of ordinary living and feel shapeless, large, as if my spirit cannot be contained by my body and needs the wideness of beaches or blankets in the park.

But, as this first snow came down, I felt different. I felt hemmed in, containted. I wasn't slammed with claustrophobia. I am confident the world will spring to life again. But for now, this place, this new shape I find myself in is homey. It feels more like I've been wrapped up, and am still warm in some sort of embrace. This winter room, my spirit, isn't grey, dark, thick with depression, but it is clean, buzzing with a slow kind of energy, and there are lights (lamps and candles and strands of dripping bulbs) dispelling shadows from the corners, compelling them to dance toward the center.

Perhaps part of this "hemmed in" feeling is also coming from considering not applying to graduate school this winter, but waiting. I realized the other day while driving with a friend that deciding to wait to apply, to go off somewhere else and get caught up in writing constantly, trying to fit the program's formula, trying to figure out how to conform to the shape, the style that professors like, that publishers like, feels so right. I am always looking into the future, my mind frantically probing for what will get me to where everyone might think I should be. I am reaching always.

Considering not going to graduate school yet makes me come home. I have to be present, because I have to start living for me, now. Not when I've achieved this or that. But now. As I am. I have to apply for jobs. I have things I need to do. I have writing to continue honing. I have creating to do. BUT, my creating, my art won't be geared for a program. It will be mine. Perhaps I'll get it published. I will try. But, I won't be basing my worth on my acceptance, yet. And perhaps I'll make room for being me for no reason at all. I can lay out my art supplies, play in the words and the paint and the characters and the ink, and just be.

I love the thought that we are valuable regardless of our achievements. Yes, it is good to be active, and to take care of business. It is good to be responsible. I love these things. I like taking care of myself. But, I don't like hanging my worth, my life's worth on whether or not I'm impressing people, whether or not I'm making the grade.

I think of doing things on my own, like taking a bath, or stretching on the floor with a few candles lit listening to music, or painting something random, journaling, going for a walk, and how time spent on such things is not wasted. I am good, still, in my everyday living.

Truth is, I love the adventure, but I don't want the adventure all the time. I want it sometimes. But lately, I just want home. I want curling in warm spaces. I want closeness with sweet people. I want hot chocolate, and a long sweater, and work that doesn't have my muscles contorting, doing unnatural acrobatics beneath my skin. I want books, and baths, and cutting vegetables and smelling them in the oven, their scents breathing into other scents: oregano, garlic, olive oil. I want calmness. I want to feel somewhat enclosed. At least for a few months.

And so this is what has happened: the snow has fallen, winter cupped her cool hands around us and it is not crippling. It is not terrible. It is another opportunity to find something sweet, to stretch blankets around each other, to talk quietly, and appreciate what warmth we are able to find or make. Even this is a gift.

Locked Rooms

Rainer Maria Rilke once wrote, "You are so young. You stand before beginnings. I would like to beg of you, dear Friend, as well as I can, to have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms, like books written in a foreign language."

I am standing before many many locked doors, at present. And yes, it is terrifying. My hands run along the handles, how many times? I think of rooms in my old house, my parents' house, the house I grew up in. I think of rooms I rarely entered. I think of the front hall with the oak chest, and the pictures my mother had setting up on top. The pictures of her mother who died before any of us could know her at all. I think of the pictures of the family that has since abandoned us, and the family that is still firm at our sides. I remember my mother's bookshelf to the side, and a dresser full of random odds and ends. I rarely entered the room, and so it seemed to me this magical place. There was an old hat rack in there with my grandfather's hats that sometimes we would try on. The room was full of antiquity, and yet, with all mysteries so near to our hearts, the real intrigue is how these old objects, these photos, and more importantly the records of these people, enhance and change and hold meaning in our lives.

The locked rooms, the rooms rarely entered, or not at all, might speak the most into our lives, might tell us the stories of our pasts, our presents, or futures. I run my finger along the doors I look at now: careers, future artistic projects, future friendships, a current spirit lifting crush, and I feel all this energy coursing. And at the same time, immense dread.

What will happen? Which doors do I open, and which doors can I? How long until someone comes to the other side and pops the lock, pulls the chain, removes the chair wedged firmly under the knob. And is there a way to speak to that someone, to change the course of things. And who holds the big wand. Who is at the controls?

I want, I want, so many things. I want mind crushing kisses. I want to lay deep into another human being and not feel like I'm wrong, not have to try and keep my eyes from darting for escape. I want to know what my hands will make. I want to know where I'll be so I can orchestrate the rest of it.

Rainer Maria Rilke goes on to write, "Do not now look for the answers. They could not be given to you, because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything...You need to live the questions. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer some distant day."

I'm glad there are doors at all. Questions. Big mysteries hanging around in our lives, waiting to surprise us. There are doors we HAVE to open. Only our touch will do the trick. There are choices WE must make, which no one can make for us, and steps only our feet can take if we are to move at all, move anywhere.

The doors say to me, Sweetheart, there is a story. There are rooms you have not seen, but will see. You are walking through new rooms already, and Wow, the windows cast so much light.

Here it is. Cheers. We're standing on so many threshholds, and one day we will pass into new spaces, and we will find at least a few of our answers there.

Back to Myself

It's amazing how far I can get from me. I can spend so much time jumping into other peoples' heads, playing all the guessing games that get you no where, that keep you lost and losing.

Today has been wonderful. Truly. I am me. Yes, again, I have fallen back into this body, and I can feel the weight of it. I know the weight of it. It is familiar to me, and it is good. It is a good body. I am not ashamed of myself, today. I have no eyes watching, but for the two professors I met with today, and though one of them always tends to make me feel a bit intimidated--a bit lost and unprepared like I need to start winding up for the big race--the other was so kind and encouraging. I felt very warm leaving her office.

I spent some time at Grand Valley's library, while I was on campus, and found my favorite spot on the third floor. Whenever I have set foot in that library, even while I went to school there, I always would go straight for this very old tattered Carl Sandburg collection. I love it. I love it with my whole heart. His poems have touched me, deep. I run my finger over them and I feel him writing them, I feel him looking out on waves, women, his wife. I feel his words, homey, like the one he uses to refer to his wife, his Pal. Because I can't paste them here, for some reason, look up, "Clean Hands," and "Let Love Go On," and "Mag."

I feel quiet today. Quiet and warm and at home. I am at Lemonjello's in Holland, headphones full of Melody Gardot, Carla Bruni, Great Lake Swimmers. I like to go slow. I was made for slow. I have needed to have this time. To be.

I'm wondering if another factor in me feeling very much myself, very comfortable and real, as if my edges have rounded over and I am less jumping into heads, but resting in my own, seeing out my eyes, enjoying the atmosphere in a calm, organic sort of way, is that I've just finished writing twelve pages in my jouranl. Yes, I wrote everything. Every detail. I did my overanalyzing and wrote about my new feeling that overanalyzing is a big waste of my time and energy, and has lost me some good moments in exchange for wild eyed crazy-brain activity.

I wrote about losing myself by feeling insecure, by being adamant that I am no good. I feel like in my crazy-brainedness lately, I kept jumping between trying to feel worthy, and falling incredibly short of that. As all people seem to do, I wish I could go back. I wish I could go back to that brain and say, "Hey Sweetheart. It's alright. You're good, right now. Let yourself."

I'm glad to be back, and still feel a little foolish about my foolishness. But still, I came back. And I feel good now. I'm worrying about things. I'm researching jobs, internships, graduate school programs. I've been spending hours with my eyes wide as fear, working the computer screen up and down, reminding myself to breathe, reminding myself that this is not the end, that there are years ahead, and big chances ahead, and that hope is still here, and maybe some things are attainable. Maybe I haven't missed the boat. And if I have, it'll be back around in time.

Sometimes I feel like God is after me. I called about some jobs I'd applied for, and I had connections, and the positions apparently had been filled just as I turned in my application. I looked up any job possibilities online and nothing seems remotely promising, or even legitimate. I'm looking at graduate schools, thinking about the people I know who've gotten in and how they were so much more involved with things on campus, and I was always so busy working multiple jobs. Sometimes I feel screwed.

Truth be told, I may not have really tried yet. I know I'm scared. I'm really scared of taking a path, and missing out on a bunch of other paths; missing out on the other landscapes, cities, people, friends, lovers. I don't want to take the wrong path.

But I was thinking about this on my drive out to Holland. Is it possible, if we believe in any sort of diety, the Christian God perhaps, that we could take the wrong path? And what is predestination after all--how far does it extend? Are God's hands at my shoulders always, when I'm meeting my friends by accident at a coffee shop, when some stranger and I click, when my poem finally works, when I make the big mistake of losing myself in worry and fear and insecurity? Where is God? And what is he doing? I've asked these questions before. I've gotten answers.

I just don't want to choose wrong, you know. I don't want to miss out. I really don't want to miss out.

Amidst the questions, the deep swelling worried hope that I will take some course that will meet me with some sort of good life, maybe not perfect, maybe not bright and cheery, but organically beautiful, smelling of earth, smelling like morning breath and nasty cars, and good, like morning bodies, open as broken seeds, vibrant as the first stem of grass lifting her forefinger to the air.

For the Weaklings Like Me

I'm once again inside my coffee shop, playing Ingrid Michaelson, trying not to be bogged by my instinct to jump into other people's business. I want to shine a big spotlight and say, "You are okay." To say, "Yes, I see that and that, those sickly sour scars and how far you've fallen. But who cares? Somehow you were woven; there's a strand that came winding up through all of those things, all of the rips and tears and sweet soft stretches of fabric, and they have made you. And wow, the totality, the complete project, the whole of you is worthy. It is good."

I know too many people who need to hear this. Every five seconds, they need to know this. And they need to know this in the real, in the deep, in the dirt and earthy guts of themselves. They need to know not that they are OH MY GOD SO AMAZING. They don't need worship. And that is what they will feel when they are complimented, and they will shrug it off, and it will be meaningless. But, what if it is real, and meant, and true, and leaves room for deep screwy faults?

I am pained by people who cannot accept love. Who prepare not to accept it. I'm one of them.

I'm reading this book my psychologist insisted I read for two years called, Surrender to Love. It seems incredibly cheesy, and it is incredibly cheesy. It is too nice. It is too sweet. But, sometimes I wonder if what we most deeply desire is easily discarded in our minds as, "too cheesy. Too nice." I wonder if it is our deep shame, our rich knowledge of our own shortcomings, that makes us discard these things; that makes us cringe and quit reading. We don't allow the words to burrow. We don't allow them to balloon into sizeable shapes in our lives, our souls.

And we do this with people. And we do this with God. We do this with anything that might get too close to the wound, and expose us for what we are: repulsive and marred, disgusting and torn and weak and cowardly.

It's amazing that some people do this. That they eventually lay open, and allow themselves to be seen. It's even more amazing to know that other people love us, that perhaps some kind of divinity is constantly and consistently reaching in, pressing on the walls of the wound, attempting entrance, despite the ugliness, despite what is. It's amazing that we can be loved for our wounds, not despite them. That what we have found repulsive for ages, is what intrigues another, draws another in.

I pray that all of us who ride in this boat develop a knowledge that we are accepted now, and that we can live in this: in this body, this screwed up mind, this low and sagging and broken heart. We can do things. We can go places. We can make mistakes, and take risks, and be, and live and live and live. We can live in our wounds, until they don't matter. Until they are a part of us, but do not inhibit us.

Maybe our strength does not come from ridding ourselves of weakness, but our strength is born in allowing our weakness to exist, and simply ridding ourselves of our incredible shame, that has so long kept us from jumping into our lives, singing loud, saying the words we have pressed so far down our throats.

Love Poem

I have always written love poems, and often keep them hidden, only to be revealed to a few individuals who will not think me oldschool and unsophisticated for writing them. I'm deciding not to hide this one, as I just put it together (within the last ten minutes or so), and it has really captured something I have felt. I'm hoping that some of you can relate to it, or feel it in some way. I also hope that when I wake up tomorrow morning and re-read it, I'm not embarrassed for having posted it, as I often am with my own work.

A Joining

I do not need to touch you--
but near you my ribs open and stretch like tree
hands, lobed fingers walking for sky--
not to take, no, but to comb the clouds to say:
Here, my leaf, here, your pilling white.
I run my finger down your nose
like a slow sliding capsule of rain and watch
your eyes draw down like distant thunder,
your mouth the burnt, parting earth.
It is a sharing, yes, a swollen lung
bonding us, of which we someday say
delicate and trembling: we.
And this is the word for it always--
not the taking or giving or even knowing.
The word makes its breath in the slow of one
motion--a joining, my finger now homed
in the valley of your neck.

Over the Moon

Autumn is raw, a short stretch of skin rubbed until it burnt up. I don't want the cold. Desperately. I am looking out th window and it has begun to rain, and unless I get to find your hands and take you out in it, go nuts in it, feel full and risen in it, I'd rather it just go away.

I could use the sun right now. I could use it ripping right through me. I could use that burn. I could sit on the beach with my friends waiting for the sun to split on water, bust open. We would trip over ourselves with glee. Skirts and dresses and no-sleeves and bathing suits and water bouying our hair into mushrooms of brown and red and blonde. Spinny-wild-open summer. God, I miss you already.

But, I have found things now, in autumn, November having stuck its fingers through the open doorway, my birthday on its way, possibilities with the most frighteningly beautiful palms lying wide for me.

I was thinking on my drive today about how I always feel unallowed. I feel like I need to ask permission. I see an open hand and I say in my stomach, "Can I? Please?" And it's not needy. It's not weird. It's the question, "What do you want?" And the answer, "Yes."

I'm really tired of staying behind the door, waiting for someone else to open it. I feel like so much of my childhood was so out of my hands. I was taught to be polite, and I took that lesson to heart. I never asked for anything. Not ever. And if I did, I felt terrible for that. In a lot of senses, I was made to feel terrible for that. I was made to feel childish, stupid, ashamed.

Even now, I imagine reaching out and though my reaching might seem welcomed, I'm waiting for the grimace, the, "I didn't think you'd actually do it."

At the same time, I have so often become the person who reaches and reaches and reaches and wants to give and help and help and nothing. No mutuality. That terrifies me. That terrifies me deep. That dives into my stomach with the yearning and the two mix and a paralysis ensues and what do I do?

I am thankful for the question, "What do you want?"

What an important question. What a way to live. Asking people and asking ourselves, "What do we want? Where shall we go, and what shall we do, and what will be our first big or small or teensy tiny step?"

Perhaps someday, muscles aching, emotions stretched, courage swollen and bright, spirit broken and mended, we will make our way over the moon.

I've wanted to write these things...

here for a while now, but kept forgetting when I came to the keyboard. Tonight, candles lit, catching their golden fingers round threads of smoke, headphones firmly clamping my ears, and a new song, a new artist I am suddenly floored by, awaking my spirit to old thoughts, and renewed passion for real, tangible growth. Yes, a friend of mine insisted Kelly Clarkson is talented, and I, basing my decision entirely on radio hits, said that I just didn't really get anything from her music, didn't find it exceptional in any way. Today my friend posted a thousand Kelly Clarkson videos to my facebook, and I listened first to, "Sober," and have to say that this song is going to be playing on my ipod nonstop. This is going to be my background song. This is the song that sends me back in my rocking chair, knees tucking excitedly into my chest, smile breaking my face open, spirit flying up. I will wear this song out.

The reason I love this song is not necessarily because of Kelly's vocal talents, but I feeeel this song. This song is sticking in my skin like summer sun, like something long missed. I feel like I am finding a letter in a box, a secret joy that was always waiting somewhere beneath a shadow. The aspect I love most is simply the three months.

It reminds me of a time, during my senior year of high school, my youth pastor called me because a girl I knew was considering giving up, ending her life. When I met her in a room at the church she showed me the pills, she rolled them in her hands. I didn't know what to tell her.

It came to me somehow to get up and literally walk forward in the room, and have her walk with me. And it was the simplest thing. We talked about taking one step forward. That was all. She gleamed. I don't remember entirely what went on in that room, but I remember that, this discussion of steps. I asked her to, every time she felt like ending it all, stepping back, stepping out, to try and inch forward. Literally, I told her to feel it, feel it with her toes, get up, and inch forward. And if she had to step back sometimes, she could, and that was okay, because someday she'd move farther again. She would go somewhere. And that was the point. That we get somewhere. We go places. We change, and we do it so slow sometimes, we have to look back, we have to force our eyes over our shoulders and see the distance. She called me to tell me when she moved forward. Honestly, it was so simple. So simple. But sometimes, that's all we need, I guess. To feel like somebody is willing to stand beside us and inch and tell us it's okay if we have to take a few steps back sometimes, and that they know, they trust our goodness, our possibilities, our potential enough, the Bigger world enough, that we will go forward again, we will not be stuck forever.

I fall into depression every so often, particularly when the world grows colder and I begin to feel forgettable, unworthy, unlovable, even repulsive. It's painful. Physically. And in those moments where every fear, every worst thought comes stabbing (I literally think of that scene in Lord of The Rings where the wraiths plunge their swords into the feathery beds), I feel the deep plunges, the incredible voids making themselves in my stomach, spreading their weight onto my spine.

Today, I felt this. I took a nap, and snap, as soon as the alarm sounded I felt the deep churning, the terrible shadow coming down. I couldn't stop the thoughts--the joblessness (despite the fact that my seasonal job only ended a few days ago and I still do have one job), the masks I wear in different environments to keep people pleased, the pain that I haven't just let the joy out (let myself laugh and joke and play like I want to because I'm too busy playing the game in my head, worrying and controlling and feeling my way, trying to stay one step ahead), the dependence of my situation, the looming of graduate school deadlines and I've done nothing, the incredible weight of potential failure arriving in soft light envelopes in a few months, my inability to just be brave and live what I have always wanted to live.

I read this thing once, I believe in The Artist's Way, (and this is what I've wanted to write here for so long), about imagining yourself five years from now looking on yourself now. In the exercise, you're supposed to consider what you would say to that self? What would you do to that self?

And Wow. I hear that question ring in my head, I think of myself five years from now wherever the hell I am, single, married, still struggling in the job market, dealing with all sorts of strife, and not giving a damn. I think of that self seeing this self who is so scared and sad and worried and crazy and I think of rushing to her and holding her to my chest and just whispering to her that I don't want her to worry, that I want her to be free, that I wish to free her. My God, the compassion I would feel, the compassion I do feel, thinking this way. It's amazing. I want to rush myself and save me. I want to say, let's go, let's do this, let's get up, let's walk around this room, let's walk out, let's walk around the city and sing OUT LOUD. MY GOD LET'S SING FOR SOMEONE RIGHT NOW.

I am listening to this song on repeat, joining Kelly near the end, my spirit-voice scream-singing that three months thinking, Wow, thinking, how long can I keep this. KEEP THIS. I think of goals to make. Small small forward steps. Like making my bed in the morning. Like, staying off of facebook for a while. Like writing in my journal. Making art. Singing. Singing all the time. Setting out to really find a good job. Really finally putting that portfolio together that I've been planning for some time. Really finishing jobs. Really being honest and brave and just bulldozing terror as if fear isn't worth my time anymore. Who cares? Who cares? I have places to go, people to kiss, hands to take, hearts to accept and love and remain open to. I have poems to write, books to write, letters to write, songs to write. I have things to do. And I won't stay pinned in the sweat and toil depression takes.

Cheers to counting steps and looking back with immense pride. I have come a long long way already, and I am so proud.

Alchemy

I am practicing alchemy at the coffee shop. Trying to spin gold from rain, trying to make some kind of sun explosion, glint in my palm, from this damp, dark day. Patty Griffin raises something, a flag of organic, earthy hope, with her song, "I Don't Ever Give Up," thumping through the small speakers perched up near the menu boards.

The place was empty a few minutes ago, so I started singing, and it echoed, my voice, it echoed and that echo, the thunder of my own sound coming back toward my spine, climbing it back up to its origin, helped me out. It pointed my spirit up, again. It felt creative, and it was loud. Singing sometimes feels like the bravest thing, especially on these days, even when there's no audience. Just belting it, bringing force to it, attaining new heights with it--that feels like triumph.

I have this gorgeous fairy-esque friend, who has the biggest, most magical eyes you've ever seen. She and I always end up talking on the phone for hours in the middle of the night and she always brings such an interesting new shade of light to what I am going crazy over, and a few nights ago she said this, "In order to live, we must lose our fear of being wrong." Then we began to talk about how, as children, we were so brave. We were limitless. Our imaginations stretched their palms to the edges of everything, and nothing was impossible. And though some things were improbable, everything was worthy of testing, of trying out. We didn't assume we were right about situations, we simply didn't care, the experience being worth so much.

It is a wonder how many people are hiding their dreams in boxes, three ring binders, their heads. It is a wonder how many people only speak to themselves of high hopes, and great expectations.

I found something I had written on a piece of paper about a year ago. I'm guessing I got it off of a movie or something. And though it's somewhat cheesy, I am strengthened by it. I feel more capable after reading it, hearing it in my head as it should sound, this great noble question, "Is this the woman who doesn't give up?"

I want to be that woman. I want to learn the art of shutting up the surpressive voices in my head, to say with vigor, "Enough! I have had enough."

Because I was bored tonight I went here and read this:

http://www.mattlogelin.com/archives/2008/04/13/what-happened/

Then, I read this...and looked at the pictures...particularly the one where the mom is seeing her daughter for the first time:

http://www.mattlogelin.com/archives/2008/03/24/update-715pm/

READ THE ABOVE BEFORE MOVING ON.




And now, after three glasses of wine especially,

I am bawling my eyes out over the keyboard

thinking of how everyone says that people are in a better place

when they die, and all theological arguments about heaven and hell aside,

I imagine being in Heaven,

having just given birth to a baby girl

crawling on the golden streets looking at God with such bitterness

crying, "I just wanted to watch her sleep for one fucking night."



Reading this makes me feel incredibly hopeless about the future. I don't know if I could ever deal with grief. Not that immediate. Not when someone so close to me is taken away so soon.

Loaded Guns: Some Thoughts on Vulnerability

It is fall and cold and numb and unproductive and lonely and drifting. Sometimes I am able to romanticize this and for an hour, life has potential--even in this Blah-Dee-Blah--this cloud soaked ceiling and grey floor, I can hear a sweet red secret leaving lips and I think--yes--I think there is something pressing in with fire in his hands.



I am listening to Damien Rice, one of my new favorite fall-ish musicians. My recent favorite has been the song, "Dogs," because I fantacise about being the beloved girl who does yoga. But today, it is, "9 Crimes." I never understand the lyrics entirely. It seems to be about cheating on a spouse or partner who really isn't there anyway. The chorus is beautiful and strong and the words are, "It's a small crime, and I got no excuse. Is it alright, yeah, to give my gun away when it's loaded? If you don't shoot it, how am I supposed to hold it? That alright? Yeah, with you."



I'm always fascinated by the inclusion of a loaded gun. I was taking a bath the other day, submerging myself in warm water, because the house was too cold, and sometimes a bath, making myself stay there with music and no other sounds, bubbles cracking at the air, the occasional re-situation of water around the body, can pull my mind back down into my bones, into the organic thing I am, the organic reality of my life I so often forget about, when I jump all the way to my forehead and run frantically in that space for weeks. I was listening to this song, as a part of a playlist, and I kept trying to figure it out.



Of course, the gun could be sexual. And that's probably part of it. Maybe. But today, I happen to be thinking about vulnerability, of laying cards out on a table, or stepping forward not taking into account anything, just reaching from the gut and not stopping that soft hand from grasping. A gun is dangerous, something to be held carefully, cautiously. It can destroy, easily, simply. And in a way, it could be fragile, it has the potential of indicating the fragility of whatever it is aimed at.

I think about relationships, such as the one exhibited in this song, and how, when you hand your loaded gun to someone, you're giving them power, you are entrusting them with something, and in essence, you want them to shoot it, to make you that fragile thing, that rests entirely in their arms. It may not be as unhealthy as it sounds, as in, the person you choose to take you out, take you as their, "kill," I guess, to put it as cheesily as possible, should be trustworthy. And it sounds like in this relationship, each has this loaded gun that they have given to the other, but the other doesn't seem interested in owning or declaring or committing to the relationship. If they shoot that gun, they're in it. They've chosen something.

Terrifying. But, in essence, lovely. I admire those who can hand over their loaded guns, who are smart enough to know who to hand them to and when, or eventually take the risk despite not knowing fully. I know a few success stories, and hope, someday, to be among them. To be a part of the brave fold, the hardest working fold, I know.

Twenty Facts (Because Everyone Else Has Already Done This)

1. I have a birth mark that looked much like a four-leaf clover as a child. It's on my ankle, and I used to show other kids, as if I were telling them a secret. I remember thinking it looked like a three-leaf clover, but the stem was transforming into a fourth leaf, and I remember believing that this meant I was becoming special, becoming lucky.

2. I am not a crazy animal person. As a child I loved the various dogs I grew up with, and actually started bawling on a friend's shoulder one day leaving school because I had learned that our beagle had been hit by a car. I remember feeling ashamed of the sadness, actually, and held it in and told no one, and this friend happened to hug me as we were leaving school and I just fell apart. Anyway, the real point of this fact is that when I was six years old, (my mom verified this information for me last night), my mom brought home a cat named Toby for me for my birthday. I loved the cat, and was very excited. One night, my mom asked me if I would like Toby to sleep with me. My mother tells me that I looked at her as if she had lost her mind. She said I was careful to be nice and polite, and just asked her, "Why would I do that?" She said she actually felt rather dumb for suggesting it, as if it was totally illogical for children to want to sleep with their pets.

3. I find Helena Bonham Carter to be the most attractive actress. Honestly, I would begin batting for the other side, if I could be with this woman (though her ferocity in most of her films is rather sexy, it would probably actually be quite terrifying). I was thinking about this last night, and tried to think of which actors I find to be attractive, and I couldn't think of any right off the bat. None that I would be drawn to physically. As I am a heterosexual woman, I began to ponder why I find Helena Bonham Carter so attractive, and my conclusion is that I envy her ferocity, and very defined face, as these are physical features I lack. I always am terribly insecure about my jawline. So, apparently, I rarely find a man I'm physically attracted to because I'm so busy worrying about my unattractiveness. Ylechblech.

4. I hate wearing jeans. I don't know how to describe my dislike for them. I would rather be wearing a dress or linen, or something. I just don't feel myself in them.

5. I also don't wear shorts, often. I wear them when I'm by myself, but never in public. I have knock-knees, and feel like I look like a chicken or something. I'm starting to get over that, though.

6. I love driving through snow. I find it thrilling, unless I'm late for something.

7. Sometimes I listen to country music.

8. When I get really stressed out. I mean REALLY, I forget to eat. This is how I keep a steady weight. I gain a couple of pounds for a couple of months, and then something stresses me out (oddly in the spring, somethimes in the fall), and I don't eat anything for a week or so.

9. I love potatoes. And I mix tuna fish with thousand island dressing and eat it...just like that...in a bowl. My old roommates used to love my eating habits, and even used them as part of their way of introducing me to new friends.

10. I always jump to the conclusion, when people are MIA, that they have died. Specifically in a car wreck. Morbid, right? I don't know what it is, but my youngest sister seems to have similar ideas, in that both of us get really freaked out if we can't get a hold of our mom. She calls me, or I call her, and we both wait in agony for Mom to call us back. I'm living with my mom right now, and if she goes to visit her boyfriend, an hour and a half drive away, for a Saturday, and it's two in the morning and she isn't back yet, I imagine this one particular stretch of highway I once drove with her to his house that has these really high cement barriers around it, and I worry that something terrible has happened. I can never sleep when I know she's driving home, late. And if I know any of my friends are driving late at night, the same thought will typically cross my mind, though I usually talk myself immediately out of the worry.

11. I love mornings, though I don't get out of bed early. I love to wait in my sheets, and just feel them, and see the sun laying on the floor. I get soo blissed out just lying there, softness stretching around everywhere, I feel almost foolish.

12. I enjoy singing more than writing, or anything, really. But I am terrified of sharing my voice, though sharing my writing doesn't faze me all that much.

13. This summer, I developed an interest in cooking. Not by recipes, but just experimenting with spices and sauces in vegetables and so forth. I've discovered that when I cook, alone in the kitchen, I get very hushed and accepting of all that is, and isn't. It's like meditation.

14. I grew up with a farm across the street from my house and got up early every morning, before my mother, and went to help the farmer with the cows. I remembered recently that I've actually taught calves to walk, and remember feeding them with bottles. I've always admired cow eyes, soft and wide, and almost terrified looking, their long lashes framing them like eccentric curtains.

15. I love water. The house I grew up in (until I was 20), has a giant pond beside it. My sisters and I used to put on goggles and submerge ourselves into the fields of bluegills beneath the surface.

16. Despite my love of water, and wanting to be in it or near it, I think I would be quite afraid to take my first step into the ocean. Because I've never been there, all I know of the ocean I see on television. So, my first thought, when dropping my big toe into the ocean would be that somewhere in there rested enormous monstrous creatures which produce their own light and have teeth two feet long which stick out of their mouth like spider legs. But, if I ever make it to the ocean, I will try my very best to brave it.

17. I want to see a giant whale before I die. I've never seen one, and I think that it would kick all the depression I could ever have's ass. I can't imagine ever really feeling truly meaningless or suicidally sad if I see a creature that large alive, functioning.

18. I have also never seen a snow capped mountain.

19. I often feel like there are things that will never happen in my life. For instance, I feel like I may never get married or have a baby. I think I accept these things as impossibilities because I don't want to get my hopes up. I've always been so interested in people who talk about their future husband, and future life, when I can't assume that any of those things will ever happen. I want them, too, and I feel like part of me should start living as if they are a possibility, as if I am totally as capable as these other people of having a good future relationship which would result in marriage.

20. If I ever get married, I want it to be a backyard potluck wedding. No expenses, really. Just mothers making meatballs and rolls and potlucky foods, and dancing, of course, in the yard, late into the night after a brief ceremony. I also would not want a pastor to give a sermon or anything. I would just want friends to read things. I told my friend Andrew this idea once, and he said, "Michelle, that sounds like the happiest wedding, ever." I agree.



I'm hoping at least one of these was a new to you.

New Poems

I just wrote this first poem today. I don't know how it happened, and once again, it's from a man's perspective (perhaps I'm in need of some serious psychoanalysis).

A Turning

You have changed direction
in the kitchen, bird
slipping on the green
tile, as if figure
skating, and I remember
your yoga class stories, the cunning
of your tongue
conspicuously tipping on your right
canine, as if to say also, and not to
say what you could do
in bed.

This is your language—
the non-language language
which keeps our small mouthed relationship
eventful,
and uneventful; the way you
stroke your forth finger,
left hand, while we are
eating pizza in the living room,
and after we make
love on the orange couch, sagging as if it has just
given birth and its womb is full
of nothing.

You have signals, and yes,
I read you.
We watch movies,
my movies, and you fall asleep
twenty minutes in.
When I ask you how
you liked the show
you say, always you say, you
did, sort of. I say,
You would have liked it if you were awake,
and you— soft and broken,
lax as fabric just out
of the dryer—
whisper, I was awake.


And I thought I'd include the poems that have been accepted to be published in Weave Magazine:


Only Transactions

I.
It was the question in your head why certain people
will not look you in the eyes. It was the man turning apricots
on his thumb, pressing into bruises, looking the kiss of skin
as if a wound. You had asked him, making the usual words:
How are you, today? And either he spoke another language,
or he did not want to turn his face up to your sound.

When he finally looked up, he saw your hands,
and stayed with them, and that was fine—the soft green bills
unfolding between you, the plastic bag whipping up,
opening like a new yellow lung, sweeping back to the table.


II.
After that, a day of men keeping their eyes down—
taking only transactions, fruit, testing everything, you needed
pouring coffee beans into a grinder, your sister speaking in her large
eyed way, and even the conversation, however it started, of when
your mother would die, and how could either of you handle that.

She said, I want to go first. You told her you wanted a husband by then,
to sit on the floor with you, who would hold the pictures up in his
hands of your mother, and her mother, the pictures taken before you
lived, the pictures in black and white, yellowing.


III.
Another man came in today and he said he was not going
to buy anything, but he wanted to talk, looking you
straight, he smiled, told his story: Missle testing sites in July,
tucking the nose of jets into their bellies, lowering docks,
firing and watching how many colors you can make

out of sand in Northern Texas, out of atoms split wide, the oily ocean
at the shore of hell. He said, he lost that job, he lost everything.
You notice, in the silence after, how hard it is to keep your gaze
steady on the weighted water of his.


In Spirit



We are afraid she is not touching the bed,
our mother, levitating again,
lifting in her old bones lying
there, her mothballed nightgown
inflating as if it were a great
lung, her whole body pitching itself
to the slope of her voice, coming up
out of her like the fin of a fish
cutting the dark surface of water:
Do not kill me.

Our tongues are stuck to our teeth
while her voice stretches to us,
standing around her in suits, black,
we were tired, until she came at us
in spirit, yes,
is she here?

Her body lies on the bed, and I think of sliding
my hand beneath her shoulder blades just to see,
just to see if she has died yet.




Thanks for reading!

Some Help

I don't often write posts like this. It is more of an inquiry than anything else.

Tonight I read a story in Sex God, by Rob Bell about a wedding where the couple walks out into a field and lets go of balloons. The gesture symbolized them letting go of their pasts in order to create a new future together. A couple of years later, the couple divorced.

I have probably read this story more times than any other passage in this book. It crushes me. It twists in the deep and I want to press my hand against the story and make it new, let it end with balloons bouncing against the bottoms of clouds, finding their way through a great maze of atmosphere.

But the story doesn't end that way.

I look at my story, my head lost in the clouds for a few moments, hope snuggling in the soft stem of me, and a few moments later the realization that everything is still a mess--my room strewn with clothing and records and books and glasses where water used to sit and gradually evaporate; the passenger side of my car splashed in mud; one job ending soon; the world growing cold and desperate; my inability to focus on anything; how very empty and cold my hands are and how my time seems not to have done a thing about that.

But then, some days, with good organic stories, lovers still choosing one another, delicious kitchen experiments to long winding road songs, smiling strangers, art on the street, a look caught before it was too late, a honest word spilt finally despite the risk, a walk in the leaves, a rocking chair, sitting in the mess and being okay, small successes, surprising conversations that last forever and stay fresh, slow movements, coffee-some days these things make me wonder how far down or up we really are.

And is it really discipline that gets us there? What about us hopeless cases? What about the ones who despair so quickly? What about the ones who live so far down in their minds that even the light hurts when it finds them, and it is so much easier to shrink back, to fall away?

I don't want to say that we should all just lay in bed and wait for God to come to us with breakfast on a tray, an invitation to work at our dream job folded nicely next to the orange juice, a flower from some idealistic boyfriend smilingly perched in a vase. I know that to live is to risk. To get anywhere implies jumping from enormous terrifying heights.

But, is there room for Something to help us fall, help us make our beds in the morning and actually apply for jobs, be strong enough to risk relationship, meet the world and test the soft skin of its wounds with our trembling fingers? I've often asked God for help but never believed he/she/whatever would really be interested in lending a hand. In fact, I doubt I've ever believed he/she/whatever felt that I needed help.

When I think about it, I find it fascinating when people say, "We could only have accomplished ____ with God's help," or, "God, we need you to help us be _________ and _______ kind of person."

I know that it is in desperation that we realize a lot of things--that we delve into the dark waters to find the ropes that might (just might) lead to something important, something that would make us feel okay about coming up for air.

I feel like I need something to help me along. I don't trust life, anymore. I don't "believe" in life. And in a way, I don't "believe" in myself. I want to learn to like myself, and to trust myself in some senses, but to rely entirely on myself is beginning to feel impossible. I know many of you might not agree with that statement. Perhaps we'd have to discuss it in person, for me to really make my point. But, I am terribly fallible. And I'm trying to believe in Something or Someone, who might not be as crazy as me.

It's fascinating how the mere thought of setting some of this weight into God's hands makes me feel more capable. I still can't logically explain it, because I can't prove God, but for me, right now, this is what has to be. I have to hand it over, because otherwise, I will drown.

Better Story

I felt like such a rage-aholic today. Such a ferocious wet blanket. And I indulged this, yes, with Natalie Merchant songs about resigning, stepping down from the task it is sometimes to keep moving on a dark day. I threw things around my room--paintings, drawings, piles of books, sweaters. And I swore in such a way that would make Eminem hide in my closet whispering prayers that the storm would calm and I would light a joint or take a sleeping pill.

Why, you might ask, was I such a hurricane of a human being? Honestly, it's difficult remembering. I have the slightest cold. I was going to have to work outside in the rain with my disgusting cold cinching my sinuses and clouding my brain, my hands numb and achey. The internet went out at my house, and I didn't do all the things I wanted to (like putting together portfolios, improving cover letters and resumes, finding businesses to actually approach about positions). I think that last reason was most of it. And the fact that I am so deeply disappointed in myself ninety-two percent of the time.

It was the lack of doing those things I had planned on doing, and the sudden leap from my not finishing those things to the thought that I am an entirely irresponsible human being, that I am ugly--my hair making sloppy shapes in the humid air, and the thought that my ugliness coupled with my irresponsibility tripleted with my terror of approaching men would inevitably lead me to a life of loneliness and poverty.

And I packed my things, loudly. I drove depressed and gray and full of self-pity out to Grand Rapids, to the Bitter End. I listened to Natalie Merchant, and I didn't feel so alone. I remembered a moment when the girls I used to work with at the cafe in Zeeland hugged me in the back room and started crying when they saw my tears about something my dad had done. I felt a little warmer. I remembered other moments where people were super-humanly empathetic.

Those memories redeemed life for me, despite Natalie Merchant (who only has one remotely positive/hopeful song on that whole album). And then The Bitter End coffee house. Looking now through the front windows, rain settled in luminescent drops, leaves limp and wet, green as ever against the dark oak of this place, I feel settled. Danielle called me and told me that she can't imagine me enraged (though she's such a wonderful friend that she really listened and believed that I am capable of rage). She told me what she knows of me. She was very kind, for the most part. I actually surprised myself by not contesting the nice things she was saying. I listened. I studied her words, and took them like water.

Chase told me a few days ago that he thinks most of what I think are my problems, are merely perceptions I have of myself that are entirely incorrect. Nobody apparently sees what I see of myself. This fascinates me, because I've always thought I was good at knowing myself. Apparently, I'm wrong. I'm glad I'm wrong.

Sometimes, we have to listen to our friends. And we have to believe people. Really believe them. We have to sit in their words and let them come into our skin. We so often are lost in our misconceptions of ourselves, that we don't live in the great goodness that lives in us--we don't use our gifts, because we deny them.

I just finished Donald Miller's new book, A Million Miles in a Hundred Years, about our lives as stories--about living them as if we are "graceful participants," rather than, "unwilling victims."

At one point he writes, "Not living a beter story would be like deciding to die, deciding to walk around numb until you die, and it's not normal to want to die."

In all honesty, there have been quite a few times within the past few years that I have wanted to die. I have wanted, sometimes desperately, to be out of it. To be done. To have the pressure off, the burden lifted. Even though I'm terrified to say that because I'm afraid of how I'll be percieved, I say it, because I know there are plenty of people who feel the same. Don's book, as well as my beautiful, generous friends, have really made me want to live the better story, which may simply mean living into me, into whatever good I am bestowed with.

I love thinking that perhaps the better story is here, and we are already the better characters, we just don't know it yet.

Space

I am imagining the ideal, now. If I could make my life into whatever I wanted it to be at this moment, this is what it would look like. It would be very very quiet. Still. I imagine very vibrant grass. Grass and feet, and wind sounds, and maybe the soft buzz of traffic--of life around, maybe a slider door opening or closing. But no words. I imagine a very clean apartment, all white walls and wood floor. I imagine curling my knees into my chest in my rocking chair near a window and not having to talk my shoulders down--not having to make myself learn how to love who I am, how to accept any goodness, how to believe that it is okay for me to be fallible.

I wrote in the margin of some book recently that it is awful being a perfectionist who is so goddam imperfect. It is painful. It feels like suffering (while I write that, I feel guilty, because my brain is rushing into images of people who are truly suffering. And the next thought is: WOW, am I capable of not being hard on myself?)

I want my own apartment--my OWN--like nothing else in this world right now. I want it like a lover. I want it like something that's always there--by my side--available for me to fall into, fold into, find myself in. I want cleanliness and SPACE. Any space. Space for me. For my voice. Space for becoming new.

The past two days have brought that thought into focus as well. Becoming new. I need to be new. Fresh. I need to make who I am. I need to choose who I am. I think I have victimized myself so much lately. I feel victimized by my financial situations. I feel victimized by the job market. I blame everything. I feel strung out. I feel wound. And I am so depleted. But I also feel guilty. I know I'm to blame for the place I'm in. But, I also want to concede that it is hard. It is super hard to be everything you want to be, and to find a "real" job in this economy, and to change a lot of habits that you've functioned in for years and years and basically your entire life.

I want to be new, though. I want to stop feeling victimized or guilty. I want to start feeling in control--feeling vibrant--feeling energized. I want to want to be around people. I want to feel even remotely free.

And I really really would like to start engaging spirituality. I want to pray. I want to want to pray, and really open myself to the possibility that I am worth anything at all. I want to believe that God is the opposite of all of my skewed perceptions. I want to believe that he/she/it is trustworthy. I want to believe that there is a better plan, a better way than the one I've been on--the one that has me hopeless, dark, exhausted, and furious.

For example, I went nuts this morning because my dog puked on the floor. Seriously, if I were a parent right now, I would be terrified that I would go nuts, get angry, and my kids would become seriously anxious people like me, always waiting for the ax to fall. Just so you know...I did not even yell at my dog. I just wanted to. I wanted to scream and rip the curtains and stomp holes in the floor. And of course, anger is always indicative of something deeper. It wasn't the dog. It's this place I'm in. This scary, unpredictable, guilt-ridden, place I'm in.

I want to get out. I want it. I want respite and hope and light and silence and strength and time and space to fail and grow and heal and explore.

I want to not feel immature for it either. I don't think I want to run from the real world. I want to work hard. I want to care. I want to be active. But I want to stop running in circles. I want my brain to take on calmer waves. I want to make changes. I want to engage in whatever's beneath or above or invisibly active in this world.

May you all find hope and silence and time and lightness.



P.S. I had an interview this week. I'm trying desperately not to bank on this as my way out of crazyness.

Pulling Focus

Can I keep the clouds and rain and grey suspended here, over Michigan, please? Just a few more days? I am at Nosh, mocha half-empty, Bon Iver sweeping in my ears, mind moving in to focus on the words, "You're love will be, safe with me,"...and moving out again, to the parking lot, the book open beneath my elbows.

I am reading The Artist's Way. Slowing down this time to really take this in. To take these words on as if an identity, a new, more active, fresh, name. I just read this line that really reached into the swirling chaos of myself for a moment. It reads, "In movie terms, we slowly pull focus, lifting up and away from being embedded in our lives until we attain an overview."

Last night I opened the two art journals I've made over the past couple of years. I read the sloppy ink spotted scrawles of, "Today is sun strung--light linking everything. Today is my sister laughing just inside and the thought of building a fire for lunch. It is free. I feel that--YES. Free slipping around in tank tops, through paint. There is some pain--some soft dark lingering. But for now, this: the paint, sun, Bonnie Prince Billy, some hope, is enough."

I read over other pages, examined the pictures I glued in, the spray paint spattering, the lists of places to go, of things to see: whales, cacti, a real snow topped mountain.

I felt like I was looking at myself, from far away. And I was smiling. I was proud of this person. I did not consider her job situation or her level of discipline, or whether she can maintain a clean and organized closet. I did not consider how she might be terribly absent minded and worn out and even awful at taking care of valuable things. I simply liked her, because she was this fresh, wide, lit-up, person.

It was nice. It was very good for me, because I've felt incredibly inadequate lately. It's been impossible for me to finish cover letters or resumes. It's been so hard for me to actually doooooo these things, because I'm terrified. I've accidentally gone to work at the wrong fruit stands. I've forgotten I had to work at all. I feel like I'm losing it. Like I'm just falling out. But, last night, as I struggled to sleep, feeling like I'll never get anything right, like I'm on a downward spiral and I have no idea if I can regain footing, or if I have the will, I picked up these journals, and I found myself in them.

Today I sent out my resume and cover letter at last to one organization. And I started reading this book again. And I wrote a draft of a poem, and I'll be going into work in an hour. And I am proud of myself.

I hope you have the chance, a slice of time to pull back from the present, and look at it all, and love it in a silly, deep way. May you find that you are alight, and that all of these terrifying, risky things are gifts. Right now, they are gifts. And here you are, their wrapping crinkling in the palm of your hand.

Reaching In

I didn't like this post. :)

Heroism

The view right now out these windows is almost pixilated. Rain is on it's way--is so close to bursting right out of the air. I am dreaming up things. I am making plans to accomplish these things. I want to buy a web design book. I want to expand my areas of knowledge. I want to write some very influential people in my life (and out of it--one, I hardly know, but I feel like writing her anyway).

I'm reading this book (which you should definitely pick up whether you are artistic or not at all) called The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. This book is recovering me from a lot of destructive, negative thinking and is taking me into the mindset that I am allowed to create, and that my creativity (my art, my life, my personality) brings about good. This book is empowering me to find the roots of some of my more depressing feelings and beliefs and put those un-worked-through experiences to bed so I can wake up and move on.

These new notions are also causing me to really appreciate spirituality even more. I like the idea of the "New Country," Henri Nouwen writes about in his masterpiece, The Inner Voice of Love. He describes the place we need to get to in our lives: a place of peace, of acceptance and love for ourselves and others, a deep appreciation of the good all around us, and a striving to bring light to spaces that are suffering terribly from deep darkness. Most of all, I suppose the "New Country" is really a place of trust. It becomes a reality for those who learn to trust that there is good somewhere inside of them, that perhaps there is a good God who is active and trustworthy.

I think the most difficult thing for me to do is trust. I just can't. I have friends who have massaged my shoulders before and could tell you about the massive knots that make themselves in my muscles, in my soft, tensing fabric. I am not always active in my life--pursuing things that would boost my financial situation or bring me peace of mind. Instead, I am always worrying. I don't believe in anything. I apply for positions half-heartedly because I don't believe any good will come of it anyway. I am terrified. And I am exhausted from what being terrified most of the time (even subconsciously--hence the bazillions of knots in my back I am typically unaware of until someone touches my shoulders) does to me. And I need time alone. But I feel guilty wanting that because I still don't have a full-time job, and I still haven't paid back all my debts, and I am not the best friend in the world and feel like I should be laying down my life for the people who are always there for me. But this is the trap. This is the scary place you get to where all of your muscles can't even knot up anymore because they've gotten so tense their material is unable to bind up, but exists more like concrete plates mashing up and down and side to side. I need to rest. I need to believe in Something. I need to believe in Something that I can trust--and deep down--deep deep--I know that this is possible. I need to believe in myself--that I am equipped with incredible power. I need to trust myself.

So, I write this not only for myself--because I haven't vented in a while. I also write this because I know a lot of people are feeling the same way. We are exhausted. In this economy it really feels like there is no hope. In this world...in this screwed up self...it often feels like there's no hope. I've been visiting sites of people I find incredibly inspiring this afternoon and they have taught me this: that I have company. That I am allowed to be a HUMAN. That it is heroic to believe in yourself--to say in one of those great movie-theatre resounding voices that you are GOOD, that your dreams are VALID, and that you have POWER. It is time for action, but action out of a spirit that says something good is on it's way, somewhere waiting for me to tap into it. Something is out there, and I can find it.

Good luck to all of you.

In Transition

I am in the process of moving into my mom's house. I'm not at all ashamed of moving in with her, as I don't feel entirely irresponsible and will be paying her some rent (about half of what I've paid for the past few years, but some). I also feel like her house, the house she bought after the divorce, is kind of a safe haven. I feel like it's got some kind of slow-dripping peace about it. A cool, soft evening peace about it.

I've been gradually moving things: one stack of books here, a load of clean laundry there. While I'm moving these things I have this distinct feeling that her house will help make me new. That, when I finally get my desk in there, in front of the lovely front window in the room she's giving me, I'll keep it uncluttered, spotless, excepting the occasional post-it which will list all sorts of things I will actually do. I really, deeply believe this. And at the same time, I have this awful gnawing that maybe I won't be perfect when I walk through these doors for the last time. I know that when I realize I have left my room a mess at my mom's during the first couple of months I'm there, I'm going to feel so disappointed in myself. Like, I'm totally incapable of ever cleaning up--of ever really being an adult.

And my mom is the best. I know my room won't be awful, and I know I clean up after myself in general areas of the house, but I think a lot of this is stemming from this terrible feeling that I'm not getting anywhere--that I won't get anywhere.

I know I'll likely have a decent career someday. And hopefully I'll get into graduate school. I'm already starting to prepare for that. I'm working on my writing again--scribbling everything that comes into my head, and I plan on sending some new poems out to literary magazines this summer. But, I feel like there are other areas in my life--other deep deep desires I have, that I'll never see actualized.

For instance, every time I come in contact with an individual who has a great marriage, I wonder when they met. I want to know, "Is there still time for me?" I really don't want to be married this instant, but, I want to know that I'm capable of that--that that's a possibility for me. That I may eventually find a real sweetheart to share this journey with.

And then, within this past year--more and more--I've felt that gut-wrenching maternal instinct. I finally love children. I want to hold them. I may not be overt about this. But I feel this very deep, welling tide inside me to have a child someday. Though I have plenty of time for that, and really do not feel as if I'll be prepared or will actually want to be in that sort of situation for ten years or so, I want to know that perhaps one day, I could be. I want to know that these dreams are not elaborate, fanciful things, but really are possible. And not only possible, but legitimate.

I want to know that I can want these things. I can hope for them.

I was reading Shauna Niequist's Cold Tangerines (a deliciously refreshing read--I'm worried I'll finish it so soon and I'll miss it terribly once it's over and not new anymore), and found this:

"I wear my ugly pants , the saggy yellow terry-cloth ones with the permanently dirty hems, and I walk around my house, looking at all the things that I should fix someday, but I don't fix them just yet, and I imagine God noticing all the things about me that should get fixed up one day, and lloving me anyway and being okay with the mess for the time being."

I loved reading that. It makes me want to spend more time with myself--just myself--appreciating my own art, and my own unique existence, and perhaps being really brave and talking to God about some of these big worries on my heart. I want to trust that maybe he does hear, and I am not sitting alone in a giant void that so happens to be hosting a very beautiful sunset at present.

I have so much to learn. I have so many rooms in my heart that need deep cleaning and turning over to Something that will love them better than I have been able to on my own. I think this will be a good year. A very hard year. I have a feeling it may feel like a very dark tunnel of a year. But I'm going to put all of my effort into it, praying that because of the darkness, I'll come up again fresher, and more at peace with what I've got.

Resolution

In the midst of some sweeping sad-ish spell, I noticed a painting I threw together on New Year's this year. On the back it says, "New Year's Resolution: Be Good to Me." That's what I've needed--simply put.

This week calls for quite a few quiet beach mornings, and time to myself because for some reason, time with myself is well spent.

Better Company (and other newer poems)

Better Company

Slicing into a tomato at the counter there is a question:

What language is strong enough? I remember my father,

and vegetables, and vegetable gardens—turning on

the sprinkler—turning it off—the soft fuzz of grass cut

days before swathing and sticking around my ankle bone.

Father, I think of you, yes. I wonder how much of your hair

has grayed, and if you remember how long it has been

and if you really were afraid of me when I raised my voice.

I still want to stick it to you, like the green painted spade,

a trellis the morning glories are climbing up. I want to take you

down, as far as I have been, your hand twisting my wrist

until I couldn’t feel my hand, had I been paying attention

to it, not combing the clear brown sea of your eyes for weeds

for things I was hoping I would find, floating, like kindness,

tenderness, some sign that you are human, that you have always

been made of something, but I never found any of that,

did I? I ask God if your eyes will ever make windows, and would

it be a good idea if I brought you over a dinner plate so,

for once, the beer in your belly, and the yellow sludge

from of other waste, will have better company?

Here's the piece that was in the recent issue of Fishladder:

Web

Sorry about the rabbit turds

that will inevitably smoosh themselves

into the tread of your shoe.

Because of the rain, the snow melted,

and because the snow melted,

the turds are there, and the air smells

the way that old cow barn across the street

did before they burned it to the ground.

The air smells like straw and mud,

like rabbit turds, but sometimes the air smells

like your hairspray, and when you turn

to look into the hands of that maple for the Blue Jay

you swore you saw fly up there, I am flooded

with the smell of your hairspray.

The smell of your hairspray pushes my breath

back into my throat, and it combs my throat

the way cigarette smoke combs my throat,

and I feel almost as if I am eating your hair,

but I can see your hair in front of me.

When your hair gets caught in the tree branches

while we are walking the sun hits it

and it looks like spider webs in the morning.

Your hair feels like spider webs, in the morning,

on my face. It feels like sticky spider webs when you

haven’t washed it the night before, and your hairspray

is still tangled in it, the way dew gets tangled in webs.

Your hair feels like spider webs, sticky with hair spray,

sprawling my left cheek, on the mornings when you haven’t washed

it the nights before. It sprawls my left cheek like a web

sprawls tree branches because you have moved so near to me.

When you have moved so near to me in the night, your hair

suffocating this day’s first breath, curling your thumb at the base

of my neck, the way a kitten taken from her mother too soon

curls her paws into any softness, I cannot help myself.

When you are curling your thumb at the base of my neck,

your breath so warm saturating the deepest well of my ear,

I lift my heavy hand and I take one long coil of hair

from your neck, and I wrap it and unwrap it in my fingers,

and I lift it to my nose, though I smell it already,

though it has already stopped my breath, I lay it across my mouth.

And I wrote this one...in between:

In Spirit

We are afraid she is not touching the bed,

our mother, levitating again,

lifting in her old bones lying

there, her mothballed nightgown

inflating as if it were a great

lung, her whole body pitching itself

to the slope of her voice, coming up

out of her like the fin of a fish

cutting the dark surface of water:

Do not kill me.

Our tongues are stuck to our teeth

while her voice stretches to us,

standing around her in suits, black,

we were tired, until she came at us

in spirit, yes,

is she here?

Her body lies on the bed, and I think of sliding

my hand beneath her shoulder blades just to see,

just to see if she has died yet.

I hope you enjoy them.

Spilling

I haven't written in a while. Been having this inner conflict about spilling the beans. When is it alright to bear it all? To open out, say, "Here's the struggle. Look at it. Touch it. Feel it. Know what I've known in the deep, deep--the dark--and whatever spots of intense light my spirit has recorded these last few days."

I've become incredibly self conscious recently. More than usual. But...something happened a couple of days ago, when a friend of mine sort of spilled to me a sad sad story that turned out very happily. We were in my car and he was beaming about how he suddenly felt so loved by God--he motioned toward the stars through my windshield and described how he didn't need anyone to tell him that they loved him anymore. Because the person who made the stars loved him. His face got so brilliant. I felt so soft, so grounded listening to his story. And I decided, when I got home, that I didn't need to be affirmed that night, I didn't need to feel accepted by other people, I just needed to rest.

It was wonderful. It was a great wide night, and I've felt so much better since.

I know that often, when I get scared, uncomfortable, whatever, I begin entertaining people a lot. I become funny. I am really really extroverted. Sometimes I'm being myself in those moments. Sometimes I'm generally just laughing hard, spinning into the joy of the people I'm with. But, sometimes, when I feel like I'm the only one, like I'm the one entertaining, like I'm in front of the eyes, I begin slowly losing myself. I go away after that feeling really ashamed and isolated and needy. I think the whole show--my hilarity--my song and dance--in those moments were meant to try and bring me some sort of confirmation. I like to make people laugh. And sometimes I think I use that laughter as confirmation that I bring joy. That I am worthwhile. When I bring joy because I already am worthwhile.

It's crazy finding out how many people share this. The neediness, sometimes. The panic that perhaps life doesn't have space for them. That they aren't a part of it. They are somewhere outside, trying very hard to get in. Trying to give some kind of show, in order to gain entrance.

I love finding that we're already inside. I love seeing other people find that they are already inside. I love their faces when they find out. Their softness. Their depth. Their silliness.

I am hoping I can live into this more. I want to love myself. Deeply. I don't want to go on with this constant re-thinking everything I've done. I don't want to go on planning every move, being as cautious as possible so I don't get caught in a space that may not want me.

When I think of living this out, I feel good. I feel very very much myself. I feel smiley. I feel warm.

I hope that you have found this way of life. I am so happy thinking that there are people out there who have become tender toward themselves. Who can laugh--very freely--and are not trying to buy love in any way.


LATER TODAY:

I just was going through pictures on facebook and I found these pictures of me driving my dad's tractor that my mom got in the divorce away from the house I grew up in. It was rather hilarious at the time. We were all celebrating getting away from that place...or the person that had hurt us all so much for so many years. We took pictures. And there I am, posing on the tractor. It was the last thing I drove away from my dad's (only a few blocks...down dirt roads...to my aunt's house). There was this brigade of my mother's brother and sister, my great friend Paula (it was her BIRTHDAY...and she helped me move my mom's stuff out. She's amazing. I needed her so much that day), all driving behind me. Smiling. Beeping. Waving. Helping out.

Today was the first day I realized that that was the last time I saw my father. Driving away on his tractor. It was about one in the afternoon. He was already drunk. Had nearly hit someone when he sped it out of the area behind his barn. He wasn't very whole that day. His girlfriend was coming over later. He was trying to corner my mom all the time and tell her how greedy she was when she still has hardly anything and he seems to own every toy he's ever wanted.

One time, I went inside, stood in his way and firmly told him to "Shut the hell up. " To leave her alone. I said, "Where the hell are your trash bags?" I was so strong on the outside. That's how I've learned to be with him. And on the inside I'm shaking, scared to death he's going to come at me...he's going to pummel me to the ground...and I'm going to be left, voiceless, again.

Today, driving around a bend in 44th, on my way to work, my father popped into my head. The image of him hiding, clinking bottles, peeking above shelves to talk to my sister popped into my head. The cold eyes. The eyes I've never ever known to hold real warmth. I thought of the things he's called us. The nights he put us through. And I felt very sorry. For him. I have been angry. I have wanted to see him cry in front of me. I have wanted to stare at him with the coldest eyes, and have him fall open, bawling at my feet. I have wanted that. I mean it. But, today, I felt sorry. I felt that this man is a product of something very big and very dark. I have never known what is beneath those eyes. I've glorified him and been let down before. But ultimately, he is flesh, and he is blood. And I am feeling the sharp pain he has inflicted. And he is feeling the sharp pain inflicted upon him. And perhaps, unlike my mother and others dealt very hard hands, he has not been capable of seeing his way to a different life, a different way of seeing things.

I am not going to go see him very soon. He would make me feel like I deserved to be punished. For what? I'm not sure. I'm still trying to get over the feeling that I am deserving of everything bad. That I have done something wrong all the time. That I am not worthy of anything. Of love. Of affection. I need to find my way to that first. But it is good. It is amazing, thinking that God does love this man I find so terribly hard to love, who I often want to hurt soo soo badly.