Just a random thought about language

I came up as a military dependent. I've lived around the world though truthfully, most of that traveling was done when I was a young child. Even so, you can't spend a lot of time on military bases without learning some language. And, in the right time and place, I can, and do, speak most of it quite fluently. I don't just mean German. Language is a toy for me, I find myself laughing at the ironies of forbidden words, and I love it when just the right adjective comes to my lips. I get a nice little jolt out of surprise words that change meanings, or reveal something hidden. And yet....and yet...now that I grow older, I often wonder about our choice of words.

I am not afraid of that big, bad, "F" word. When I've lost that last twenty dollar bills that I was sure had been tucked away in my pocket, that word is just perfect. I've whispered and screamed that word, sometimes these spontaneous utterances might have been best left unsaid. A couple of times I've either backspaced or deleted entire posts and status updates because "that word" just wanted to slip past my fingertips. So, I understand. And yet....and yet...

Why is it everywhere? Seems to me that it's kind of lost it's punch and shock value. I'm not always sure how I feel about it outside of private spaces, and then once in awhile, I'm quite sure how I feel. Today, a new friend introduced me to a social networking site. I've been having loads of fun there looking at exquisite art. Lovely, serene images of mountains and sunsets, peaceful and ferocious animals and mothers nursing. Picture poetry. So, I was a little surprised to find the screen names of these posters things like, "fuckyeah....." or "fuckyes........" Tells me a lot about the poster don't you think? Or am I being the judgmental self that I try so hard not to be? Am I judging others for the use of language which I often employ myself? Here are some of the thoughts I had about these posters:

• Either they are too young to practice some self-restraint or old enough and successful enough so that they do not care about limiting their audience. Nor do they care that some future, coveted employer might not approve. Maybe I wish I didn't care so much myself?
• Maybe they're not young, maybe they are old and still stuck in that rebellious stage which most of use didn't weather so gracefully and wish that our family and friends would forget.
• Maybe they're angry. It's an angry word to me.
• Perhaps they want the art to speak for itself without a title that sets the observer in a certain direction

There are other maybes, perhaps all of them are wrong. The word doesn't quite offend me, it certainly doesn't shock me. I'm not sure why it just feels so pointless, boring and unoriginal. It seems like a word that's supposed to come from thoughtlessness, from spontaneity, from exhaustion or overwhelm. It doesn't somehow seem appropriate to me in a place devoted to getting to know one another, to developing audience and relationship - community.

When we choose names for ourselves online, when we type blog posts and pretty much even when we create status messages, we have time to think. If that F word is really what we mean, if no other word will suffice, then on with it. If not, perhaps there are other colorful, demanding, exciting and even angry words that can be used - and perhaps it's time we learned some new language.

What do you think?

~Lee

Something I want you to know - or - Notes from Therapy

It was never my intent to write about the dark. When I first imagined writing a blog, I intended to write about being a solo librarian, I intended to write about my little crafts, about my broken spinning wheel and learning to meditate as my needles clicked away little gifts for everyone I love. And now, each time I sit to write, all that will come out of me is dark and gloomy, the sorts of details that we do not often share publicly. I visit here, often many evenings in sequence and will myself to write of sweet things; probably so that this image I wish to have of myself, as a woman of sweetness, a woman of the Light, a woman of love and wisdom, will be confirmed. And yet, nothing rushes out of me but those things I had thought to keep secret. Despite my earning to write of the Light, I find that I must submit myself to the process and write at least a little bit of the dark. As I sat struggling with myself this afternoon, I realized, that there is a bit of the light concealed, nestled in the dark, and this little bit of the Light, surrounded by so much dark, I wish to share with you. For any that may have found themselves in the same darkness I have visited, I wish you to know this:

You did nothing to create this.

Those simple words fly in the face of so much which we know, so much of which some of us even hold sacred. But if I could give you any gift, the same gift which I would give to myself; it is to know the truth of those words. The words have variations, they go like this:

It is not your fault

You did not choose him

You are not blind

You are not dumb

You are not weak

You do not have a victim's mentality

You have been his victim, and you did nothing to deserve it save that he was quicker, bigger, badder, darker, even sometimes braver, even sometimes smarter than you have been. He is crafty and cunning and he can outwit you. Your only failing, have you been ensnared by him, is that you were not Omniscient. Please believe me.

Something happened yesterday in my therapy hour which hammered this home to me and I want to share it with you. My daughter had located a new house for us to rent. It's a sweet little house, filled with light and surrounded by gardens. I love this house and you would too! But! The landlord made my hair stand on end. He wanted to visit our home, he insisted that he have permission to visit his garage workshop behind the house, at will, he asked personal questions, he discussed lifestyle information which I found inappropriate. I spoke to my therapist of all these disturbances. My words were to proudly show her how keen my senses had become. My intent was to confirm, to myself, that what happened to me, will never happen to me again. "I see this one coming," I said.

I was not keen about her response. "What," she said, "If he's just a landlord who has been previously burned by dishonest tenants?" I must have glared at her. Damn. She did not need to ask her next several questions to drive home her point. "What will you do now, Lee? Will you lock yourself away from the world and hide from the what ifs?" Well, it's been working pretty well not for almost a year! Unless you count the silence, unless you count the unending nights of tears, unless you count this demanding ache for company. Okay.

Make no mistake; there are some who will be lucky, but most who encounter those such as I have encountered, will not see him coming until it's too late. Whatever goodness there is in you, he will manipulate and pervert. Are you forgiving? He will exploit that, are you unforgiving and deeply shielded? This too he can distort. He is an expert at taking whatever it is that you are, and manipulating and entangling until you are lost. And you cannot prepare for him. There is nothing you could have done.

And, when you know this, really know this, not just as words, but deep inside your bone marrow, you can begin healing. Until you know this, your healing will be focused on your own innocence. You will look for all that you might have done, all that you should have seen, all that should have cried out to you and yet, in the end of it all, all that you might have done, seen, heard or asserted, would only have become another card for him to play in his endless game of pursuit. I can assure you, that had you done the opposite of what you did do, this would only have encouraged him, only have prolonged his gleeful hunt.

I promised at the beginning that I would bring you some light. How can this be light? To know that there is danger and to know that there is nothing you can do to escape it? But it is. Because you can know what you will do. You cannot avoid this storm but you can build yourself a nice little storm cellar. You can plan, even while all around you is healthy and light, for possible retreat into your safe place. There, you will have stored nourishment for your body and your soul, you will have a means of contacting someone trusted and wise and you will never, for anyone, give up the keys and the path to this place. Mother, brother, sister, Priest, friend, god-parent, someone else will wait for you in your safe place and there you will store whatever it is that gives you strength, reading, writing, food, trinkets of meaning, talismans if you will. Visit this safe place often, hold it dear and keep it alive. You need not live always in your safe place, but you must know that it is there - even while there is no pressing need to retreat there.

And she asked me, "What will you do if....." And I think I know. Be sure that you know also.

Wishcasting Wednesday - What do you wish to know?

This week, Jamie's question seems pretty innocent. Ha!



I routinely have these conversations with Bear. I catch himstaring at me and I swear I can hear him thinking, "Wacha gone do now?" I tell him I don't know and then I'm pretty sure I can hear him sigh. He's thinking that a decision to take a walk, or toss the ball shouldn't take so long and that I should get on with it. I wish that were so. I stand mute, stare back at him and sigh myself. Whatcha gonna do? I'd sure like to know.

If Jamie had posed this question several weeks ago I'd have said that I want to know what the last ten years of my life has been about. I'd have stomped and declared that I want to understand WHY this had to happen to me? I want to know what I did to create this? I want to make sense of it! Maybe it's a good sign that most of these questions are dripping away from me, sliding just beyond my grasp, but enough so that I am at peace with their passing. I'm even able to smile a little bit as I watch the deluge recede. Good ridance, take a lot of black, murky stuff with you as you go. Good! Be gone, see you next time - NOT!

And still....what next?


For the first time in years, I'm feeling pretty good. That's a very big deal that I can say I'm feeling good. It's really amazing; my ten year relationship just ended in death, I'm in a job that's really isn't all that, I don't have enough money, I have this groovy tumor in my back and I feel great! I feel happiness like I'd forgotten, I feel that clean that I so wished for a few weeks back, dancing just around the corner. But I still want to know WHAT NOW?! What shall I do next? Where shall I go? What should I do - I was trying so hard to avoid that "should." But there it is - what should I do next? That's what I want to know.

How about you? Join us over at Jamie's Wishcasting - it really is illuminating!
~Lee

Greens

Occasionally, I find that I need to remind myself of things which I once loved; things deep inside of me. After any great trauma, I find that I sometimes feel a stranger in my world, as if I'm not quite sure who I am or where I came from. Little by little, small things capture my attention and seem almost unfamiliar until I look a bit closer and then I remember once having an intimate relationship with much of my world that has been left behind. This morning on my walk, I intended to capture the mountain and instead, found myself drawn to the weeds in my yard. Bits and pieces came rolling back to me, so slowly, with a soft voice that said, "pay attention." And this morning, I did.

Here I found Borage. Borage is a sweet little plant, she seems so feminine to me. Those tiny little purple flowers always make me imagine the voice of some soft soprano lilting in the air round where she grows. The saying goes, "Borage giveth courage." And for all her tiny, sweetness, that she does. She makes a pleasant tea, is good for lifting the spirits, driving away sorrow and also, for use in treating bronchitis. The leaves can be added to salad and I've occasionally used the flowers as well. No one will even notice.

Right next to the Borage grows Burdock. We're all familiar with those sticky seed pods that torture our pets, and our clothing in the fall. Can you just hear that deep voice calling out?

I've never actually used wild-growing burdock, and I'm not sure quite why. He's useful for all sorts of ailments of the blood, said to act on slow-growing cancers and in some places throughout the world, is considered a vegetable. I've always purchased burdock, but this year, I think I might do a test run as a dinner vegetable. I think I'm a little intimidated by what always feels to me like a very powerful plant and somehow it's a little less intimidating to find some concoction on the shelf at the healthfood store. The taproot is enormous and if nothing else, you'll find the soil around where you've banished this strong plant, to be well aerated and easy to work - that's if you can ever find the end of the root.



A few friends who have read my little blog for a very long time will remember how I rejoiced to find comfrey growing in my yard. Are you laughing now? It's everywhere and it will NOT be contained. I'm not exactly dancing with joy anymore as comfrey is part of the reason that bed where he stands has not been turned and planted. Thankfully, comfrey has so many medicinal uses it can make your head spin. Referred to as "knit bone" nothing surpasses comfrey as a healing agent. Cuts, bruises, sprains - run for comfrey and make yourself a poultice. Some dispute whether or not comfrey should be taken internally as some suggest that comfrey is a carcinogen. Thus, I'd never encourage anyone else to ingest comfrey, but I make a right fine tea from the leaves. I believe his greatest power lies in those long, foreboding roots. He's sure hard work though and I have to laugh now that once upon a time I purchased comfrey plants for my harb garden!

And last for today, this sweet little bit. I know this is a galium, but I'm going to confess that I'm not sure now if it's bedstraw or cleavers, but I'm inspired to find out and confirm that little bit of knowledge swimming somewhere in the back of my mind. Cleavers is a diuretic, and makes a sweet and pleasant tea. The delight of this plant, for me, though, is not in it's medicinal uses. Perhaps it's a bit of a waste but I love picking a strand of it and tossing it at my closest friend - it sticks right to almost anything. Some call it stickywilly for this reason. It just makes me smile. Cleaver's is another herb which I have always purchased but I think now, I'll give the wild-growing gift a little try.

I have to marvel at these particular plants, growing right here in my yard without any invitation from me - but of course I invited them, yes? Plants to drive away sorrow and bring gladness, plants for cleansing and detoxing. You really think that's an accident? I don't.

I took more photos, HorseTail Rush, and a really nice, new Mullein - but I'll save those for another time. Today, I just wanted to dance with myself and share the dance with you.

The holiday is upon us now and I do hope that you all have a perfect Memorial Day Weekend.

Cheers!

~Lee

Wishcasting Wednesday

This Wednesday, Jamie, our Wishcasting Wizard, asks, "What do you wish for your space?" This answer came quickly. I wish for my space to be my space! My wish is not exactly to fully own my space - that's a pretty big dream! But this is the second year in which I have not planted the garden my soul requires because I wasn't certain that I would be living in this space long enough to reap the rewards of my effort. Each year, as my lease-end approaches, I contemplate going home. The trouble is, just where is home? My children are in Indiana, well, except for the Texas nut, and Indiana is in my bone marrow. But dayum, would you just look at that mountain right over there? How can I leave that? And then, there's that ocean just "over there." And we can't skip over the social and political climate that I love so much here. But the truth is, I haven't much taken advantage of it, have I? Yet, Indiana calls me. Is it possible to have two homes? My heart is certainly in two places.


I thought, first, when he died, when it all ended, when my freedom was so clearly mine for the taking, that I would just head for home. But oddly, I find now that he was not the only reason I am here. Of course he was not. But he overshadowed all of my reasons for being here. And so, if this is to be my home, I'd like to settle in, do the digging and make it my home!

This is, for now, my space and I wish to claim it. That's what I wish for my space!

Join us - cast your own wish, here.

Cheers! ~Lee

5 Really Good Things

Been awhile since I did this one, eh? I've been thinking about it all morning. For a minute or two, I felt awful; all five things were really self-centered. Then I had to smile - I think that's just fine. I'm discovering things all over again, I'm remembering, and I've grown thristy for more of life. Feels almost giddy.

• I actually listened to the music of a band called Meatloaf today. Wow. How'd I miss that? I must have dismissed this on the basis of name only because I really like it!
• At 6 A.M. my house is so peaceful and quiet - no TV, no worry about saying the wrong thing to anyone and sending the day reeling in the wrong direction.
• On April 15th I quit drinking soda pop. It just felt like the right time to initiate a change in habits. My body has been catapulted into a dramatic detox - so while it's not pretty, I have faith in the coming rewards. If it's possible to feel really good and really awful at the same time, I do! The meter is teetering closer to really good all the time.
  
• I spent a night and part of the next day this weekend with my grandson - was that a joy or what! And no one else took control or told me how to act or what to say. And we had a fine time!
• There are lilacs filling up my workspace today - a simple, beautiful treat.

How about you? Do you have five really good things in your life? I'm betting you do!

Cheers

~Lee

Wishcasting Wedneday - What do you wish to have?

Me? You mean me? I can have something? All mine? Something like ummmm to have something means you can feel it, hold it in your hand, touch, taste, understand. Wow. Really, I can have something. Let this sink deep inside; I don't want to waste this one. Oh this is fun. Closing my eyes, all sorts of cool stuff starts drifting by: airline tickets home for the 4th of July. Nice, new tennis shoes. Oh yeah, new sewing machine. Oh...hmmm a lawn mower. Some yellow fiestaware. Oh yeah - it's like a virtual candy-store in my head, the stuff just floating by on a treble clef line of musical notes. A regular commercial in my head. Oh wait, there's a couple more, I need a new printer, and really, yeah, I'd like some surround sound. I bet I could go on and on. Yoga class, membership to the Community Center. What should I pick!

Yeah - I'd like to have all that stuff and then there would just be more stuff that I'd want, tickets home for Christmas, now a weedeater and a rottotiller. Oh yeah - let's not forget about that tumbling composter. I don't want to waste this wish on fleeting stuff that just leads to more fleeting stuff. So what is it that I want, something I can have, all my own? Ahhhhhhhhhhh. Yeah............ Got it.

I want to have the ability to get all that stuff, and let it go when I'm ready. I want to hold within me the power to achieve my own little want list. I thought for a moment this might be self-sufficiency, but that's not quite it. I'm frustrated now with thinking about this and tempted just to stomp my feet and say, "I just want to have everything I want!"

Then, I realize that's not such a stupid thought as it might sound, is it? Is't that really what we all want? We aren't exactly the fisherman's wife, we don't want to be Pope, and we don't want to think that we are greedy and just start expecting "things" to fall from the sky. But these "things" that I want, usually represent some other "Thing" inside of me. I want to have beanty, order and harmony in my world. That means, being able to mow my yard and plant a little garden, see my children, bliss out to music so that I can relax and meditate, stretch, exercise and play. It means being able to sew my little projects. All of those "things" are really about only a very few things, and it's knowing that those things inside me will be nurtured and made manifest in the material world that I want to have. What is that word then, for this Thing that I want to have? Grace? Faith? Balance? Trust? I want to stop wanting that yoga class and just have it. I want the lawnmower to appear because small children are easily lost in my yard the grass is so tall.

OH! I am just frustrated this week and I want something and I don't even know what it is! So maybe that's a good place to start - I want to have an understanding of what it is that I want. There. So. Fine!


If you'd like to join our wishcasting circle, please visit Jamie's page, cast your wishes with us. It's an amazing exercize - you'll love it!
~Lee

I finally finished something

I promise, that Zune pouch is next. The pincushion was fun to work. I found myself approaching the project differently; when I got tired, or felt bored, I stopped. Simple. I didn't let myself feel pressured by a deadline, or just by the need to "get 'er done!' It took me nearly a month to get this little project completed. I've been allowing myself plenty of time to just sit and stare out the window, or drop my hands and do nothing. Thinking back to Jamie's post about being gentle and letting it seep into my life.

For the first time in nearly ten years, I can do as I choose. I can work a pincushion, or not. I can choose TV, or knitting, or walking. I can eat broccoli or peanuts if I want. I'm surprised how often I find myself without a clue about what I want to do, what I'd like to eat, or where I'd like to go. At first, I chastised myself - yet another opportunity to beat myself up, "You really lost yourself that far that you have no idea what to do with yourself on a rainy evening? Geeze, Lee, how dumb have you been!" Little by little, I became aware that this was not my voice in my head, but someone else's. And so, I learned to wink back at the faceless voice and says, "yeah, maybe and it's gonna be some fun figuring it out again." And then.....I sit and do nothing if I want. Absolutely nothing, in absolute silence.

Go me!

And I've been saying that a lot too. Go me!

Once in awhile, not often quite yet, I can hear another voice. This other voice is still a little soft, and still brings me quiet tears. But there's a slight, twisted grin at the end of the tears; and I discover, that I think I like that voice. It's a sweet voice, a kind voice, and a very familiar one. I think we're going to become good friends.

~Lee

What do you wish to experience?

As usual, Jamie asks the perfect question of the day. She just never misses. Jamie's question sent me off into fantasy land this morning, oh man oh man are there some experiences I hope to have yet, again, for the first time, now! next year. Oh yeah. And I suppose that's a very good sign, I'm crawling out of this hole little by little.

I can see myself coming over the top of the hole, there's a ladder that has helped me to reach the top. Looking at myself from over here, as I crawl out, I realize that I am caked in mud, covered in grime. My fingernails are black and my hair is in knots. Then, when I get back "over there" and I'm actually in my body and not looking at it, "I want it off, get it off me!" Then, I realize what I want to experience most.

I want to experience clean. Clean. Dirt washed away. Clean, fresh, sweet-smelling

I want to experience clean, like being baptized, washed in the blood and filled with grace

I want to experience clean, purity, crisp, clear, without duplicity, without doubt

I want to experience clean, bright, shiny, soft and cool like summer sheets against my skin

I want to experience the clean that comes after a hard night's rain, when the drops still shimmer, and even the worms look perfect

I want to experience clean so that when my voice passes my lips, it is mine, without the echoes of other uninvited speakers, mine, and mine alone, clear and sharp, certain.

Let me be clean, pure, honest.


Okay, and after that, I'll like all your experiences too! Warm beaches, creative, art-filled afternoons, abundance, love, bliss, dancing! I want all those things too, but I want to great them clean.

I think maybe I want to wear one giant silver earring today :)

~Lee

Please be sure to use the oxygen mask first before attempting to assist others

When I sent him away 6 months ago with the edict that he not return until he could return sober, I knew that he would not, could not return. Without the haze of alcoholism to distract and disorient, the lies would have stood stark and demanded attention. But, since lies and the shrewd fun of telling them supported all else that existed in our lives, there could be no exposure, either to me, or those gathered round us with clucking, worried murmurs. He knew that without the excuse of his alcoholism, the lies could no longer be brushed away as forgetfulness, playfulness, drunkenness or confusion. I think he knew also that he could not any longer sustain the lies, and have little bites of the truth.



I knew then, when I sent him away, that I placed his life in danger; what would he do without all those lies to keep him company? I knew then that I danced with dangerous consequences but I choose to believe it worth the risk to find my own way out of that dark, slimey hole where I'd been living. And I think I also knew that no other end could come save the end which finally has come. The real end, the final end. The end which he created, leaving behind the myth of his own heroic death, and the villain, played by me, who deserted him in his hour of need.

I'm leaving the theater.


Each moment of each day now is that same moment when I leave the darkness of the matinae movie and must adjust my eyesight to the brightness of day. And now I stand, in the harsh light of day and find myself to have become two women. There is the woman that wishes to cry out for loss of him, the woman who must banish tears every few moments. I am also the woman who can breath, sing, speak, write, and who suddenly wishes to finish a pincushion.


I like to imagine that the loving and good parts of he and I were pieces of truth which he treasured. I know that is likely a wishful hope of mine, but amidst truth and lie, it seems that I should be able to pick and choose a bit of what might have been true as much as I cannot prove any of it was true or false. I will choose to believe that one little thing and I will laugh just a bit at the irony of knowing just how many other women there are right about now doing the same bit of choosing. Maybe they make pincushions too.


Lee

Wishcasting Wednesday

This week Jamie's question is:what rules do you wish to make or break?


Wow

I have always felt like Jamie's questions speak right to my heart - every single time I check out Wishcasting I am touched, I am amazed, I have been awestruck and I've even been a little teary. This is the first time I've laughed.

Really Loud!

Because this answer required no thought, no contemplation. It is not necessary to wonder and edit and read everyone else's posts before composing my own. Nope.

This one was simple, no hesitation. Would you like to hear the answer?


Any Rule I Damned Well Choose!

So there.

Love and a snickery smile, ~Lee

Eulogy for a not quite dead girl

Have you ever read stories, fictionalized, or real, about a widow, standing at her husband's grave, only to discover, as she raises teary eyes, that across the way stands another woman, also claming to be the deceased's widow? With some slight twists, this is how the last many years of my life have been spent. There is no other widow, but had there been, I would not have been surprised. Actually, I am not his widow either, I'm not sure there is a name for what I am, or was to him, and I'm not sure I'd much like the name if it existed. Perhaps I am just another in a long line of women who believed lies. Somedays I want to have been more than that, somedays I am sure that I was, and still other days, I wish I were only that and that my life had not been so ensnared as I must finally face that it has been. The layers upon layers of lies are still being revealed to me. The lies and mysteries encompass everything from dead brothers who show up quite alive to memorial services, to the whispers shared by nervous speakers with batting eyelids as they inquire about my ill health. My health is in such danger that I had not even known the perils and did not feel the prayers of those far and away from me as they worried for my sanity.


I would like to tell you that the other women who are also not his widows came as a surprise to me. I have to confess that I wasn't even surprised by the rumors of my failing health, or the fortune which I am supposed to have spent these last several years. I'd love to pretend that all of these things, and the many more which I will not speak, shocked and surprised me. I cannot claim surprise, though over and over again I have lost my breath as yet some new unreal reality damands my attention. I think I knew from the beginning, I think I understood and walked, eyes wide open down that dark, twisting passage and into the belly of the beast. So, I only pretend to be surprised when the truth is, nothing surprises me. I knew about the lies, and I co-signeded the documents. The note has come due though, and I am willing to pay my share of the debt, as long as I can pay from this side of the prison bars.



I know now that it is possible to both know, and not know a thing, and I think I am beginning to understand why. I see now that the incomprehensible does not cease to exist just because I have declared it well, incomprehensible! That reality still exists despite my most brillant and capable new age declarations that it not! Watching The Secret just one more time won't make him any less of a liar and a cheat, and it won't make my life into the pretty little life that I conjured and insisted that it be. It sure would have been some life if all my efforts had born fruit. Alas, we cannot choose life, nor the hour of death, for another.


I was about to make imagry, the image of an onion came immediately to mind, one lie exposed after peeling away the last and then, I couldn't make the oinion work because I wanted next to say something about being swallowed up whole. And of course, I had to accept that onions don't swallow anything, not even me. As I breath deeply, releasing the onion metaphor with a bit of a laugh, I realize that I am not being swallowed up anymore! In fact, I am being regurgitated from the deep, dark belly of some beast which only now I can recognize as having been my prison cell.



Every few days I realize that I am reveling in some new priviledge, some new delight, much as a child delights in the discovery of new treasures. And I must tell you, depite the sorrows and laments, the deep, wretching pain and silent wailing of grief, that this feeling, this feeling of escape, sings to me louder and clear, with a piercing trill that I cannot ignore. Some might find me unkind. I can live with that. Today, I ate what I wished, spoke to whom I felt inclined to speak and I sang at the top of my voice in the car. Yes, I can live with being thought unkind. I can.

Wishcasting Wednesday

Well...I didn't just take a little break from blogging; I fell off the blogging planet. I hope someone still remembers me! Some very kind people have emailed asking about me; and I'm sorry to say that I ignored them. What follows is a little bit of why.

I have, for the last ten years of my life, been involved in what we shall call for the moment, a difficult, challenging relationship. This relationship, in any of its hundreds of mutations, has simply drained me of all that I have. I suspect that I'm going to talk about that some in the days to come. For now, I will share briefly this news; my partner has passed on.

This reality leaves me with such extremes of emotion that I have a great deal of difficulty navigating the poles. One moment I am filled with great sorrow, the next with anger, even fury. I had sent him from my home with the words, "Don't come back until you check into rehab!" Each day since then has been a constant struggle with my will. Each day held the potential that I would succumb to his pleas, and my own loneliness and sorrow and return, initiating, again, an unending cycle. The day of his death ended that cycle and I am oh so very empty...well, empty that is, when I'm not filled with wild passionate feeling. Today, I will not race to his side, today, I will not receive words, the words which say, "I get it baby, I'm headed to rehab right now, wait for me!"

And so, Jamie's tender question, "What do you wish to be gentle with?" arrives at the least gentle of times. Today, and for likely many days to come, I want to be gentle with myself (someone made a bet this would be the most prolific of answers to Jamie's question). I need to be gentle with everyone around me. I need to be gentle with small children and large buildings. I need not clang everyone over the head with the truth, and while being gentle with the feelings of everyone around me, I need to remember to be gentle with me, because I know the truth. I have been living this awful truth for ten years. When I blow it, and scream the truth to those who will not hear, I need to forgive myself for not being more tender with their feelings and learn to live with my own truth. I cannot do so silently, I know the deadly danger in that path, instead I must find gentle ways of living my truth, and gently sort out when it is important to speak, and important to remain silent.

I plead for gentle steering ahead, to softly glide around the rocks, and to navigate from the rocky shoals without the crash and burn which looms so starkly ahead.

I hope that I can write more now. The obstacles to my writing have been cleared and I find that the reasons I must write, are the very same reason why I have not written. The truth is sometimes not so gentle; but I can gently sit with what is not gentle.