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.