Treasure in Ruin

Brilliant blue sky, almost surreal - where you believe you can will time, itself, to stop.

Ancient Maples.  I took refuge under their page sized leaves and cried silently, often.

They gently swayed with the fullness of summer.

Solstice...it was to be all downhill toward the darkness from there.

Two babies.  Two years.  Too much for you.

I was finally remembering myself and getting a foothold.

Still plump but getting back to the me I had been, the me you wanted me to forget.

It was a perfect day for real estate - everything would show well.

You were going to swim in an over-sized Hollywood Azul Pool with them 

and 'allow' me to 'have something for myself'

I grabbed my briefcase, stepped into my heels and made it to the flats; a plateau of land that was the

 original dump when the farm land turned suburbia was young, when I was young, when we had 

made the move from Brooklyn to the 'boon docks'

I had forgotten...something?  

Was it my phone? I cannot recall now, all these years later but it was incidentally monumental;  

right up there with a wrong turn down the right road that leads you to your core.

I circled around.

Back across the rolling farms that had sold chunks of land off to build schools.

It truly was a lovely place.  A place where nothing could go wrong.

My grandmother always commented that the apple trees reminded her of Scotland.

I felt so lucky.  

I could see the fence within myself and was ready to climb back into a career, 

back into me, and into our future.

I climbed the long driveway to the house on the hill built by 2 sisters,

 at the foot of a watershed mountain.

Good Water.

Well Water.

Water that had nourished the farm and the ancient orchard in the front that sporadically bloomed.

I had won the personal lottery; out of a childhood of financial uncertainty... 

fighting, dissension, lean holidays and day trips but never vacations.

I parked and rounded the yard.  

I could see you on a pristine white lounger; one of four we had purchased.

My four year old next to you like a clone.

Both oiled, arms akimbo behind your heads - lazy afternoon ahead.

I couldn't see my little guy.  My two year old.  I walked closer, 

my heels sinking into the fertile yard, 

beads of sweat on my back, 

under my dress clothes - black and now stifling.

"Where is he?" I asked, my voice pitching away in a whispered shriek.

You sat up, startled, and glanced toward the pool then looked relieved - like a bullet dodged.

"He's fine!" You said far too enthusiastically, "He's in the boat, see? Fine!"

A smiling two year old.

Alone.

In a large, luxurious pool.  In blue trunks.  In a blow up boat.

Kicking off my shoes I jumped in.  He laughed and clapped and lunged into the water.  I caught him.

'MOMMA!' 

Oh such a game

A wicked game.

You stood up.  My older one looked puzzled, looked at you then at me - half a smile.  

Something wasn't quite right and he knew it, for he already had a greater compass 

and stronger stars than a man decades older. But that would prove to be part of his sacred contract.

You stopped walking toward me midway between the chair and pool.

To this day I wonder what it was you had seen in my face that planted you in that spot.

That kept you there while I held him fast and wrapped a towel around him.

I could no longer make a run for the fence, for I had to make sure I could clear it for three, 

and I just wasn't a strong enough runner...not yet anyway.

Plans changed.  My appointments would wait.  Finding me again, would wait...for 17 more years.

I felt cheated.

I felt trapped.

But I never looked back.

I couldn't see the future, but I knew you weren't in it.

Approximately 17 years later, almost to the day - the solstice to be exact - I heard of a drowning.  

A child.

It brought that day back with such lucidity it took my breath away.  

I could feel the sunlight through the swaying lush green maple leaves.  

The sun bouncing off my luxury sedan.

I tasted the decision to bypass what I needed and stay with that precious little man, 

to play, to nap, to hold him close.

I know now I regret nothing.

Time has assured me; slowly, patiently, delicately.

Even when this child, now a man, slights me (as young men can)

tells me he doesn't need me (as young men believe)

rolls his eyes when I remind him a mothers love is endless (as young men forget) 

I love him fiercely.

It's a knowing love, that angels intervened on our behalf to keep us safe to 

get us here, to arrive at this moment, and then the next.

This is a mothers love.

This is a warriors understanding.

These are selfless choices for life beyond our own.

And this precious young man is the truest wealth and most handsome of treasures 

for believing in those choices.

Oil on Water

Many things are going on right now under my roof.  Much shifting and movement and this most recent full moon had me only mumbling thanks and gratitude...not much of a draw down there.  I can't get to myself.

I've locked myself so far away into my body vessel that I no longer feel integrated, it's more...compartments.  I know enough about myself to understand that this happens as a result of a spike in depression or an undercurrent of stress that isn't being dealt with.

The other day a friend of mind had me in touch with myself on a physical level and it was like being splashed with cold water.  I also find pockets of this when I am in the 'moment' of walking my sons' magnificent dog through the woods, or paddling a deserted lake on my kayak.  I am fully aware that I need to do more of these things to unlock myself.  It's like trigger finger - but the entire being.

Knowing what to do and actually doing it in terms of self care are two very distant concepts right now.

So why the stale mate?  Answer, unknown.  All I can imagine is that the eternal me is trying to give ballast to my vessel.  Nothing feels solid; not me, nor those around me, not where I live, not my education or belief system...not the car I drive or even the cup of coffee I purchased this AM.

Honestly, what is most disturbing, is when these feelings have cropped up in the past, I've been able to triage, diagnose, and treat accordingly.  I'm leaving way too many options open when I really just want to nail doors shut.

There are things I want to do in my life, things I need to implement, want to implement, know to implement and yet I'm not willing to come out of my hiding spot yet...so I keep counting...ready or not here I come....but I won't find me on this round....count again.

If I had to liken it to something it would be like attending a huge buffet where everything looks delicious and you know you require sustenance - but on a subconscious level; you choose hunger.

My soul is starving and I'm plowing wheat back to seed.

I do what needs to be done.  I wake up everyday without fail and I get ready, grab a lunch I made the night before, put on clothes I've laid out on Sunday (yes, I lay my clothes out for the week), I never question the gas in my care (it never goes below half a tank).  I no longer question my bank account as it sits with a reserve.  I know where my adult grandchildren are, know the pets are fed, the bills paid on time, the bathroom left as I found it.  I have become Maquina (Spanish for machine) and frankly....I am bored out of my fucking mind.

When on earth did I become so task oriented? And as I write this I realize the auto pilot of tasks needs to be balanced with the moment.  For me tasks are tasks because although they are performed 'in the moment' they really only serve the future...like the paving stones of what you Need to do, not necessarily what your soul Needs or what You Want.  But perhaps the tasks are freeing up the brain power for the creativity that is roiling your insides - threatening to make you sick lest you let it out.

A few years ago I was out of control/yet bored - sort of in the same spot.

I had a very nice, very classy, very expensive care break down on a back road in Wantage.  I'm prone to taking odd roads on a whim, especially when the music is good - it's always represented a mile covert form of freedom for me.  So the car breaks down.  Dead.  I sit there in that moment of Oh My God...NO.  I stepped out of the care and didn't bother to pop the hood because I would've had not clue what I was looking at anyway.

I remember the sound of the crunch my shoes made on the oil and stone road, the dust had settled almost immediately as there was only a slight breeze.  I heard myself sigh.

I HEARD MYSELF.

There was a low bellow coming from a pasture beyond a thin treeline at the side of the road.  There were cows amongst scattered birds.  I could smell the road and the dirt and the faint manure that the chilly air had dulled.  I stood there for a long time.  Just breathing.  No one on earth knew where I was at that exact moment and the thought of that was beyond delicious.  Covert.  I didn't think about the car or it's dead battery.  I didn't think about tasks.

I was stuck...
I was also free.

I leaned against this metal gate that had been seemingly shut once and never again opened.  I felt the breeze.  Not one car went by.  I realized everything that I thought I had to do, that was on the running list in my head, would not get done and yet the clouds and the breeze and the cows would still be there.

There's something sensual about the breeze on your arms and neck - they remind you that you have skin and flesh and though your soul is eternal, your flesh is not.  Flesh is meant to be felt.  You are meant to be present.

I need to be present.  I will move toward that.

Your greatest wish

When we met we shared our pain.  I didn’t know that it would exasperate slowly and by the power of intention come home to roost.

So your father was a millionaire that was cast out of his family and you got to view it from afar,  if at all.  Then he met your mother…and then you guys came along.

A distant relative in a black hat flew in from an old money state with papers from an attorney.  Provisions had to be made for your sister and brother – because they came first and he had been shunned.  But you had HIM…should’ve taken the signatures….millions gone w a drop of ink.

Your mother was a meek farm girl from the south, but, damn…she looked good.  She clung to him as the acrid smell of tobacco drying in that oppressive southern heat was too much to deal with once she hit the big city.

Fathering the first time around was rough, the second time around proved impossible.  Then you went to a caring family so she could focus on her husband, because that’s what good Bible belt girls do. They were abusive in quiet ways that family…ways that no one could really discuss.

His shit got together for a stretch and a new house in suburbia would change everything.  In one car ride to the country any stability you had was gone.  Pretty roses planted around a split fence…that was all that stayed pretty.  The southern blushing belle faded and bottle after bottle got emptied.  He had a little repair shop…Tomorrows service Today….sometime next week….or when this bender was over.

Car after car smashed but those were the good old days, you could crash your car, slap your wife, humiliate the kids and the cops told you to sleep it off.

But time rolls into time – children grow up and only then learn what could’ve been done, what should’ve been done.  Mom was to blame, why didn’t she step in?  Why did she let him sign those provisions away?  That could’ve been YOU in law school…touring Europe…marrying old money…leaving provisions to the Mid-West University your whole family graduated from.   You resented your mother – she should’ve been strong and should’ve looked out for her children.

So you met a woman that did and you married her, but that destructive gene expressed itself.

And now you resent her for stepping in, stepping up, speaking out for your own flesh and blood.  After all…the kids have YOU, don’t they?  Not really.  You have a new family, new house, new life…

Recall….

You married a girl.

You divorced a warrior.

She will satisfy those longings.  She will step in and do what should be done and if you look deep enough, peel back enough, you’ll realize the universe has granted you your greatest wish. 

Thunder/Buck Moon

July 10, 2017 2:31AM

I woke up with a start and looked at my phone 2:31.  I still had a few hours before the M-F
 grind would start.  I had a good Sunday; kayaked, replenished the house supplies, cooked a few trays of food, loads of wash and cleaned.  And yet something was nagging me and the fact that I was up with a start ready to roll was a definite indication that there was far too much activity going on cerebrally.  My brain can be like an overactive child, afraid of the boogie man in the closet – only the closet happens to be a cluster of pockets in my brain that demand to have their say.   

The moon cares not of the inconvenience for it only follows its ancient path.

Up with a start with nowhere to hide, I could’ve lit some candles and retreated to an exhausting hot bath…but the damp cool swamp breeze tempted all of me.   Like a cat, I drifted down the stairs and out the door.  There is a secret way to open the oppressive front door that is completely silent.  It swung like a dream and the front grass and wet street were aglow with the archaic light of a Thunder/Buck Moon.

It’s amazing how your being can remove you immediately from civilization, as if it’s had enough and overrides your civilized self.  So there I was; barefoot on damp grass, blue eyes oddly catlike in their seeing and slowly savoring the night air.  As the sounds of the realm around me settled and triaged themselves in my brain, I was became aware of what many would think of as the screams of a woman being tortured.  I’m feral enough to understand that these were not punishing intermittent blows delivered by a jealous lover.  They were the rhythmic screams of a fox in mating.  I smiled in the night as the fox reveals itself quite readily to me at the oddest of times.  It was far off, behind the tumorous strip mall, beyond the house with no purpose and to the glen in the crook of the stream across the way.  I had the urge to call back, I also had the urge to walk naked in the shadows the moon had cast- both of which I viciously longed for, then vetoed.  

Still human.

I decided I needed a reason to be out should anyone see me, or mention it.  An alibi? How absolutely ridiculous and delicious – but it’s where my mind was.  There had recently been sightings of tow trucks in the development and at $300 a pop for 24 hours (should they take your vehicle) and the impound a mere 7 min walk from the development; I reasoned car keys would make sense.  Back in I went and grabbed my son’s keys – he is notorious for illegal parking.  Keys in hand like a shield, should anyone wonder what I was doing out at such an hour, I began to walk barefoot.  

The concrete walk illuminated under my bare feet from the moons reflection.  I fell in love with the way my feet looked under that light - sure, sturdy, wandering.  The sky was clear and the backbone of the mountain past the swamp visible.  I walked through the night, through the neighborhood.  I paused at the dark quarry, silent like a quagmire crater of dropped and fragmented dreams.  No movement; just black stones, black water, and a drab landscape.  I walked through the common yards and noticed the garish light of some forgotten TV’s.  I recalled the stations of snow from my childhood when the networks would log off, sadly nothing logs off anymore.  

But was I not doing just that? 

I felt so oddly alone, yet so unbelievably connected to the true realm; the billions of leaves that swayed an watched me, the ground with its varying dampness and light, the earthen smells rising from patches of dirt, the air and the intrinsic scent of still water, swamp water, dew, and rain.  The foxes tortured consistent cadence, like music, screaming into the night.  

I held the keys tight as I didn’t want to hear them clink.  I did not desire not one human sound.  

Earlier that evening I meditated with intention for the full moon.  Among the many things that I wished to draw down and into my life was a sense of strong connection to the earth.  

The night delivered.  

It would have been better had I obeyed my organic indigenous nature and bared not only my soul, but my white freckled body and lay naked in the damp grass under that moon and breathed.  I also intended land of my own one day.  I know that is on its way….

However…until its delivery…

Still Human