6 degrees

Of Course the muse hits a bit after midnight...where I am in a box when I long to walk the wet dark pavement and know that I am real.

Gone are the days of anonymity, where you could go a mystery unsolved, where words were spoken and unregistered into the great electric mind - forever preserved in a screen shot and a save.

The days of 6 degrees are upon us.  Barely a challenge anymore for a girl who was once told by Mister Goldfinger that she was crafty and the Secret Service had nothing on her methods.  Back then defeat was defeat - an admittance to a formidable foe.

Now threads are so obvious you can navigate them in your sleep, barely a blip on the emotional EKG.  Goddamn it, where is the WORK, the HUNT, the primal scent of blood and the horns blowing in the deep woods.  The chase is gone - no skill afoot - it has made me dull.  A pair of baby blues looking 2 hours into the next state; show some originality, damn you.

Apathy is a form of bliss - the result of perceiving no challenge at all.  Disinterest I may tell you- but not in all capital letters.

In my mind, relationships have converged to meet in a recognition of mob mentality.  Not one individual stands out as we all stumble that same lost path, the same error in judgment.  Rats in a maze I grow tired of...such drivel set before a mind made from stars.

Literature has taught me a catalog of behaviors and species - It seems I am part of the problem.

I am bored to tears, yet i shed none.

'She went like one that hath been stunned and is a sense forlorn:

A sadder and a wiser man she rose the morrow morn'

Green

I awoke to the silent buzz of the forest,
windows open, the ancient chill caressed my bare skin.

everywhere my gaze touched green
undulating mounds and tufts of ground mixed with jutting dark earth.
trees in various migration toward fall, then snow.
vines begging for the sky.
moss drunk with a night now gone
images of green eyes seeing me - so rare.
Lips touched by Celtic things,
bruised by clouds;
lusty yet tender.

i desire more

What are you,
really?

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.