Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

All the stars twinkle

in the vastness beyond me, 

but also in

every corner within.
It is the birthplace of my sorrows, 

my overwhelm,
and my underwhelm. 

I forgot to hand in
that paperwork which will 

surely ruin 

my daughter's future

I am not put together neatly, 

more haphazard
sophisticatedly disorganized, 

but hopeful.

I watch myself dazzled by the twinkle, 

instead of attending
to where the holes are disguised by the Dark.

So, I step in shit constantly 

and continue to love myself 

a little bit more for the bruises,

yet reproachful,
lest I forget, again, 

where to step next time.

I just want to lay down on 

the soft moss of evening, nestled
against the warmth of 

what contains us all.
I also want to push my fingers 

through the surface of what 

MUST BE 

a moreness to discover.

I am not looking for the Light 

right now.
But, goddamn it!
I wish the nighttime could be 

more haven 

than it is.
It's like I can't get close enough to the real 

darkness of comfort to rest.

In Light of the Metaphor

when I push on the pedals in rhythm, the wind seemingly carries me like a magic carpet

effort is but a word, more a state of awareness 

pumping legs, pushing pedals, scanning the tires of cars and their lights

wondering if and hoping that none 

make thoughtless human lurches into the current I am already joyfully careening through

when it's dark, it's the hardest

for them to see me but it seems easier for me to see 

unless without illumination, like silent roving burglars, they steal out of parking spaces and into the road

I think to myself that it's a full moon and folks are crazy

there were 5 ambulances that drove past me on my way to class offering

a prayer to those inside hoping

"may you be ok, may you heal, may you find ease"

I haven't been able to write at all, not here

mornings are now too cold and dark to sit in my favorite space on the porch

my coffee getting cold by the second

the leaves have turned and fallen

the birds' morning conversation quieted to a whisper that doesn't demand my full attention

Yesterday, I awoke in the light of morning

when I checked the time seemed wrong

I forget the days on the calendar remind me when I look

that we are bartering, haggling an hour here and there

balancing the days like weights on a scale until Solstice

the light propelled me to rise and greet her fully 

with her beauty and warmth in my eyes, my nose, and on my skin

she blew softly into my hair and ears 

remembering me

Dreams #2

All I can remember now is that last night I saw Bindhi and their hair was all black

longer even, like mine 

"you look so much like your mom now" 

and they said 

"I think I look more like you now" 

I waited too long and wrote about the 1st dream this morning, 

in the morning cold

in the light of waking morning like walking through it again 

but last night's dream has only left a ghostly vapor in its wake and I can't recall any more than Bindhi's sweet face 

and a look I can trace down the line of our shared ancestry

Dreams #1

2 nights ago

in a reversal of nightly events brought on by 

the chill in the air that crept through the window 

up the foot of my bed and breathed heavily on my face and neck

I dreamt so clearly

Not something I have had the pleasure of in so long

Walking into a narrow dim hallway, a disaster of 

shoes out of cubbies and stuffies 

on the path forward 

there were little altars on the wall

missing their icons 

the kids, my sister's younger then 

handing me their precious gods without order 

disagreement where that huge worn teddy should bear 

witness to the comings and goings of occasional visitors 

The house was huge, unlike where my sister has ever lived 

So spacious, that I had to walk to the 3rd floor to find her sitting with Bindhi watching tv 

Bindhi was thinner, and more feminine than I have seen them in years 

glowing skin shiny and hair white 

shoulder length (they do not have hair now due to chemo) 

I went to hug them and they let me, even 

sinking into my embrace with ease 

not something that is easy or familiar  

I giggled and ran my hands through their hair....

ooooohhhhhing and ahhhhhing 

at the color

I cried to see them and hold them, not 

having held them for ages 

not like this 

They coyly turned towards us: "I wonder how good it would look purple?" 

with a wink and a twinkle 

After 

I was on the grass in the backyard watching the kids

as a pack carry my daughter in arms 

down the spiral steel fire escape 

lifeless and heavy 

Me, I was yelling

in my head or out loud? 

"why is her body so hot, her flesh heavy and squishy like there were no bones inside her 

and where is her breath????"

I woke in a panic 

before 

I could remember how to perform CPR or the necessary measures of saving someone you desperately love with all your heart

Book Review

Ten short pages from the end of the story 

Luz and David are discovered in the utility closet, 

predictably, her fiance, Avel, kicks down the door of impropriety 

a scene that ends with the same delivery of brokenhearted goodbye

as was delivered in the daily practice of love, 

Avel leaves forever.

I wondered about the placement there, 

of this ending before the ending, 

too quick and undeveloped

irritating, incomplete, injurious

not the betrayal, for isn't that just life? 

But, this sloppy rushing into what the reader knows is coming to an end, anyway!  

I put the book down right then

caught in that moment of love's betrayal 

it was too hard to continue to look at, intense, charged with electric energy 

in hindsight, probably because I, too, have stood at that liminal moment

a portal in time, forced open by the convergence of choices and fate 

Eventually, picking up to finish, 

I felt let down by the writer, 

having held her hand tightly all the way until then

It's not that her decision was unsavory or hard 

it's because of what always happens to me

I hold tight and with abandon to the hopeful, 

the possible potentiality, the wish of what there might be yet

It's me who I'm disappointed with

for we rarely fulfill what we are destined for,

until we are ready 

we won't do it for anyone

until we do it for ourselves

Time

The view from this porch hasn't changed that much in 20 years early summer mornings, the crickets still sing their melody, the dew drops still plops with heavy longing, the bird feeders have grown in number and avian visitors, absent this morning are usually performing center stage for what seems our singular pleasure maybe, the feed is soggy and wet or I've overslept past the debut and they are now on break having retreated, knowing the main act will be ever more magical for the wait Over the years, audience has changed slightly, the matriach having departed in the chill of springtime leaving a deep well of sadness in usually brighter eyes We move on, don't we? After someone we love passes at least, do our best to live our full lives their memories, like of all loss, become the coverings we wrap ourselves in night after night holding us in embrace

love is hot coffee in the mornings

I remember the few times, we awoke together in your apartment you'd never bemoan getting up to make coffee just rolled about and on, contented and happy to have me in your bed finally after too long and not often enough you always said "it's okay, I understand" until it wasn't and you didn't that seems a long time ago moments that are left in memory, that make me both smile and sad I found such comfort in your arms you have that way about you when you hug, it's like a bear or a blanket fully enveloping you from shoulder to feet you even remembered to hug me lighter so it didn't FEEL like a trap until it did there were the times you'd lift me up, until there were the times you'd cut me down I'd like to find someone who holds out their arms' embrace just so I can run and jump into twirled around giggling and soft, that tendermost part of myself welcome home As for all the other parts, they'd be welcome too embraced and held tendermost in arms that know to love someone else deeply one must love themselves completely

In between sleep and remembering

Next time I wake up to feed the cat upon her insistence at 3 in the morning, and then can't find my way back to restful sleep I will try to remember long lost memories, blurred and faded at the edges unrecalled for quite some time stored in the vault of the heart, where they lay banished and yearning the images I can recall easily are few and specific simple things like sitting watching tv on the couch, in the crook of my dad's folded legs, like a birdie in a nest "you STILL want to cuddle with your dad" he said shyly the unexpectedness of my gesture making him so happy in that moment later, stopping by the station where he was well into his day, fixing cars, cigarette dangling from his lips listening to the radio bringing him a coffee before I caught the bus to work a surprise offering I fancy I have his eyes, dark pools that I always wished were brighter but, like him was born into the ancestral line of deep stories of suffering moving to foreign lands, struggling, disatisfied and always looking for a way to come home My daugheter's eyes, glow warm and clear when the sun catches them flooded with new possibilities and the brightness of being alive She knows what I have only learned through age Home is where the heart lives

Prayers for healing

I have thought on how I've come to miss you the ways you cared, attended, caressed the calls of my heart how you asked me shyly to come out into the great field of love hand in hand with that shy smile and look of hope in your eyes it disarmed me I took your hand so eagerly even though open spaces make me nervous the longer I stand in them even though I knew I might not be finished breaking all the way open the oil spill of certain kinds of loss sticks a long while the water, sun, earth and air do their work in their own time lapping up bits as offering until there is nothing more to let go of time heals only if you can allow yourself to

BREATHING SPACE

For a few days each summer, I make the bold decision to gift myself some time off. Partly because we've always been kinda broke, the simple pleasures like camping in the outdoors is the default choice of getting away. Years ago, when we were all still families, tired, yet hopeful, we tagged along with the tribe of BarbaraMaxRenate. There were camping trips to Maine, NH, Western MA and Vermont. Those years taught me a lot about friendship, and the necessary return to the basics of living and breathing and being immersed in water. When those collaborative trips came to an end, almost 7 or 8 years ago, I continued to point my compass North to the land of green sunshine and puffy clouds, with the 3 of us, until it became just 2. Our tribe name has changed since; we've subtracted and added members each summer, and still continue to point our compass in the direction where it's quieter, cleaner, and more glorious. If your jam is not sleeping on mats on the ground under nylon, the campfires and the reward of a night sky afire in celestial diamonds might be. Maybe what appeals is the daily baptism in the holy waters of the mountain lakes and streams. The lonely call of owls, the haunting cries of the loon, and the shadows of hawks soaring overhead remind you that you are a small earth-bound creature afraid of the dark and yet pulled by the mysteries of being. Last night, back in my own bed, yet fretful with sleeplessness and tossing with worry, I clung to the memory of my feet dangling, immersed in the silk of water, as I paddle-boarded across Elmore Lake alone. The current kept turning me around, so I'd have to sit down, using my paddle to turn a hard right until I righted myself in the direction of the shore. It wasn't to rush back, but to keep from staying stuck, pointed in the opposite direction. Maybe the lake knew that it was not yet time to go. Maybe the lake has its own compass. She knows whom she carries and where they might need to go, even if they don't recognize the path worth exploring. Maybe she was trying to teach me, over and over: linger, breathe, be quiet, listen, linger, breathe, be quiet, listen....

Knitted Zen

There seemed to be a time, somewhere in the 2000somethings, when hipsters resurrected knitting.  Saving it from the fate of extinction that befalls so many of our crafty ancestral traditions. Hipsters were picking up grandma's needles and making it "cool" to be serene. The images of young people, in comfy oversized sweaters, unshaved legs, socks with sandals, and canvas bags of knitting supplies seated next to them, sort of strewn about comfortably, like they were. As if they were comfortably in repose on their couch. What a sight to behold. 

They were not a loud presence, but quiet, unassuming, and probably like the 1st spacecraft to land upon the Earth in full view of millions of people, sort of hard to identify. Sometimes it takes a while to see something that is unfamiliar and unassuming in the everyday world of the matrix. 

I'm not sure that many of those kids ever finished any a whole sweater, or if they just knit and purled, knit and purled, and then unknit and uncurled. Stockinette, Garter, Cable, Lace. 

I've only witnessed those committed types get to the part of the tink, arriving at an actual satisfactory ending. Those bitches were the truly "realized" of the bunch, it seemed to me. Knitting is the kind of repetitive work of chanting the name of the Goddess over and over until you come home to your own sense of self and find Zen. I am not particularly surprised that I do not knit. That road to liberation always seemed boring and too introspective and I wanted to avoid it like you might avoid taking certain bus routes or streets because you knew something interesting was going to befall you. When I say interesting, I do not mean to imply you would like it. Even if you did, the outcome might not ultimately arc in your favor. Sitting in meditation has never been easy for me either, at least not the kind where I am left to my own devices to roam about freely in my mind. I tend to prefer the gentle coaxing of someone else's voice with an ethereal soundtrack in the background to usher me through the liminal spaces of my own resistance. 

If I am honest, I might admit that I am a little jealous and sad that I was too cowardly to pick up those needles and start putting stitches together. It looked like such a cathartic process-but I do things my own way. Don't we all take the substances of our own lives, in some form, and do our own kind of knitting, anyway? We knit the yarn of our stories and fashion them into garments that we wear: itchy, sloppy sweaters, too-tight vests, and a million fucking hats and scarves because they are the patterns we are most familiar with. We might never graduate to more complex items, never refining the technique or sustaining the effort. If I had taken up the tools, those tiny swords might have saved me the mental anguish and heartache. Instead, I took to tools less precise and more prone to suffering: the repetitive loop of worries, old memories, and future's fantasies - not the worsted yarn of reality. Those implements that you hold in your hand allow for more accurate practice: knit, purl, unravel, knit, purl, unravel, knit, purl, unravel... you are aware when errors cross your path - you see them and recognize them. 

Like when you finally SEE the knitting hipster on the bus, in the cafe, in the breakroom...OMG, they are everywhere! 

Maybe I should finally take up knitting with needles.

Boom X Zoom

Something that Alix told me, about Donny, Jill's ex. Hearing the news that he up and married that young woman, who he left their marriage for, in the sneakiest way possible. As if the states that divided them weren't enough unconventiality to keep his attention. As if all that fucking freedom to move and be weren't enough room, he demanded more. Using the coverings and cloaks of a deep inner void just getting bigger that points fingers of the notenoughness at the ones you love dearly: "you didn't sexually desire me enough, our lifestyles are so different, you weren't this enough or that enough." I've heard that same demon of the void, whispered secretly with it, crouched tiny in the corners of my being, just the two of us, thick as theives, conspiring my exit strategies fueled by my own discontent. Btw, I love me some discontent. It's just as good a play fellow as content might be, but since discontent wears a leather jacket, rides a motorcycle [insert your sexiest version of your discontent here], is able to call my attention more readily-especially, when something is not going quite right in one of my houses of home, work, love or money. The demon never points the finger, rightly so, at the speaker of the woes but instead, points outside into the circumstances and notenoughness of others. Ruin and Change are his gifts. I am grateful for every one of them, trying to remain clear eyed about which was ruin and which was necessary change. Alix and I commiserate. I wonder, I tell her, if this is the paradigm of the mid life, the other one that no one tells you about (the first being "true love will solve everything"), but this other one, that you find out for yourdamnself, that feeds you the story that women our age, upon ending long love relationships (or having them end us), can only hope to find happiness is turning the compass back into ourselves, to do the inner work, to do Art, Dance and Expressive movements and read all the fucking books about Attachment Theory and Intimacy and to G-R-O-W and be happy in the intimacy of friends and family, while the men that leave us get to continue to not look inwards ever, but continue to take aim out there, riding the fucking stallion of discontent, to date or marry someone way the fuck younger and hold onto that hipness, cultural relevance, that moving and shaking in the world that already tells them that they are THE SHIT. And women, entering this phase of our lives, more wise and introspective and tending to the fires of our wisdom and power that we disconnected from willingly in our youth, get to sit here and confront the reality that the world will continue to tell us that we MEAN SHIT, just like it did before, but now more rudely, because it dismisses us, our sexuality and our vitality because that is what the world of men does, especially to older women. I watch them as they fade into the peripheral places, alone. I read this silly but poignant article...from some online version of a fashion mag. I get the sneer and suspicion on your face, dear reader. It spoke of Gen Zers [Zoomers] as the harbingers of change, affecting the beauty industry. Announcing that Zoomers use beauty products, not to enhance their outsides to be more sexually attractive like the Boomers, Gen Xers or the Millenials (fuck that), but to pay tribute to their inherent diversity and uniqueness. To literally, S-L-A-Y those patriarchical demons that tell us we are nothing but playthings of others, before we become worn out and useless. That the outsides are a work of art of expression of the inner QUEEN, whoever she might be, and whatever sex, sexual preference or identification she chooses to done on that particular day. I "think" that's what we did (say fuck that and slay, before it was a thing your whole being did, and not just in relationship to dragons and demons), the punk rockers when I was a kid in the 80s, the second coming. More muted and affected than the original, because those guys had real change fueling their heels. The 80s kids were already disenfranchised and lazy from living in the Reagen and 1st Bush years already too soft from the financial privilege, if just enough, of our Boomer parents. Well, that went the way of the rant, rather than the blog entry! So finally, at the last paragraph, I admit that I am in that particular place right now. Confronting my relevance, sexuality and importance because TRUE LOVE did not solve anything, any of those times. It did teach me about me and the places where the void got so loud and big that it swallowed me up and ruin happened. And those places where change became the fecund soil of growth. And I am so much wiser now and still not a Zoomer, who 100% believes that I can still S-L-A-Y those patriarchical demons insides my own self so I am free to do the expressing the shit out of my own uniqueness because I am THE SHIT. This morning, maybe I am working with 40%, and sometimes more, and sometimes less. I am, daily, walking to the edge of the void, to peer into it and be changed, not ruined.