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....