Moments in the Woods

"Passion has little to do with euphoria and everything to do with patience. It is not about feeling good. It is about endurance. Like patience, passion comes from the same Latin root: pati. It does not mean to flow with exuberance. It means to suffer."

— Mark Z. Danielewski (House of Leaves)

It's easy for me to get lost in the moments. It's easy to feel like I'm living in the "now," and that's what the sages tell us to do, right? But it's not living in the now, it's trying to hold on to a single now, which very quickly becomes the past. And in holding on to it, I'm trying ot make it the future. I'm learning that in life, the past doesn't really care, and the future is having none of it. The Fates will spin the strings they damn well please and there's naught I can do about it.

I suppose there is still a part of me that's afraid that when I find something good, it might be the last bit for who knows how long and I want to hold on with both hands closed. When things are good, I let my guard get all droppy, and that's where the bad comes in. Or rather, where it did. When there were still people I allowed in my life who would look for openings and attack. Those people are gone and I'm slowly learning to trust that there is always more good, always more love, more happiness, more joy.

I know that there is a bigger picture. I'm learning to trust that my insights and dreams are not thwarted by temporary measures. That Now is just a moment, and good or bad that moment will pass and others will come. I get small glimpses of how it will be, I don't get a road map and a script. Trying to make things happen the way they make sense to me limits the possibilities of the Universe only to what I know, and that's a very small playing field indeed.

There are times when "bad" actions are a mercy. There are times when "good" actions can cause harm. As I say, comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. There is someone I would like to thank. This person's actions and intent have caused quite a bit of disruption in my life. I was very put out at the time. I wanted my moment to last as long as I wanted, I wanted to hold on to my little space of time. The Norns chuckled to themselves and kept on spinning.
In disrupting my moment, this person shook the siren song out of my ears, and I was able to swim back to shore. Once I found my feet, I realized they have done me a service. To get to my moment, there were bits I skipped over in haste and frenzy. I now have time to look at each moment with clear eyes. I now have time to see the beauty and the joy around me. I now have time to see that far from taking love away, she has given me space to grow the love planted all around me, to cherish each moment and the patience to let things grow at their own pace. I can no more force love than I can force my flowers to open early without injuring or destroying them. I'm sure this was not her intent, nor was it mine. But in doing what we need to do, things do seem to work out. As I cannot do so without causing harm, or at least without knowing I'm causing good, I thank her here.

If I try to hold on to the thread, it frays and kinks and tangles. If I let the Fates spin their magic, and let it flow over both hands, open, then all the beauty and joy and love in the world will flow freely to, through and by me. And there is always more.

To each, according to his need....

When I lived in Hawaii, one of the memories that sticks with the the most is the pier. About two miles down the road from my house at the end of Singer Blvd, the base, the island and the state, there was an officer's club that had seen better days. The club proper was still in use from time to time, and it wasn't uncommon to see the tennis courts in use, but the pool had been drained for years and some of the grounds were looking neglected. Behind the club was the bend of a beachfront running trail, a gravel patch and large concrete blocks designed ot keep the sea at bay when she was excited. I would walk through the parking lot, stepping over the bumps at the end of each parking space. I can remember the feel of my sneakers. I was usually in sneakers, because I had to claim to be exercising to get a moment's peace. I was encouraged to be thinner, but not too thin, and this was an approved moment of time to myself.

It was usually twilight when I arrived, and I'd sit on the blocks at the edge of the water letting the wind wrap his fingers through my hair, the smell of diesel fuel, jet fuel, salt and creosote heavy in my lungs. It was usually warm and cooling, but not too much of either. As the sun would set and the stars came out, I would angle myself so i could see out the narrow opening of the harbor into nothing. Staring out into the end of the world, listening to the waves gently slapping onto the shore with a rhythm my bones have known since the water formed out of stardust I would sink into the stone, the world would fall away around me and the infinity of space would absorb me. The ocean would sing her song to me, and teach me things about the universe, about myself, about what I was doing here.
I don't spend much time at the shore anymore. Even where there is water, there is land on the other side, land i can see. I've not seen the edge of the world in a long time. That kind of distance puts a perspective on things.

Yesterday I spent some time by the water. I walked along a rocky beach, let the ocean cover my hand, picked up pieces of glass and bottle caps so little feet wouldn't get cut when the weather warms a bit. farther up there was a grassy hill with a bench, and I sat there in the quiet and with words, watching the sun creep down to sneak behind the planet again. Once more I felt the neverending waves, the depth, the secrets, the songs of my mother. She reminded me of mr. Bucky Fuller, or pattern integrities, of the water that has waves, but once the wave is gone, the water is still there. Of ropes with knots, as real and solid as anything else, but slide the knot to the end of the rope, and it disappears. Where did it go? Was it ever there at all? Does it matter?
How can you tell where the rope ends and the knot begins?

If i can see patterns, if I know how they will end, if I know they can end, if I know that this will hurt, that i will be crushed and heart broken again and again, do I protect my heart? Do i put it away? Do I keep it from things that might put knots in my rope? If there's no knot, then I can't miss it when it's worked its way through. But then, all the usefulness of the pattern, the time when an anchor would have been useful will be lost or passed by. I think the best course is to know that pain is coming, to know that someday I'll lose everything I gain, and to keep trying anyway. I am here so that through my eyes the universe can express and experience love.
I am transient. I am fragile meatstuff whose time and troubles are fleeting. Everything I'm given is taken away, but it leaves a little part of itself with me. it makes me more.

I wish I'd had just a little more. I wish I'd had a proper goodbye. I wish I could have anchored one more time to a moment that smells like ocean and flows like waves. I wish I could have let go on my terms, honored the past with the present, had one. more. time.

But time isn't mine. it's just time. And so I will stay here in this space, thinking of the ocean until the tears stop running down my face. I seem to have a lot of them. I keep finding new depths. I know that when I finally reach the end of them.....I don't have a second part of that thought. I don't even know that I will reach the end of them. I assume I will, I'm pretty sure I will, but I honestly don't know what happens then. I don't know what to hope for, there are too many pieces not in place. I don't know what to look for, I don't know where I'm going, or even if I'll be invited. I don't know how to let go of my dreams without letting go of them all.
With both hands open, I've nothing to hold on to.

Requiem for a Dream

The problem with being the door, is that after people cross through, they're off, and I'm still here.

I try to convince myself that I'm projecting, that I'm letting my imagination get away with me, that I'm hormonal or emotional. And while these things might be true, they don't stop me from also being completely right. I might not get the "why" at that very moment, but I'm really good at the what, even from different zip codes.

A few months ago, I found something. It was in rough shape, but part of my talent has always been being handed a dead stick in a pot and breathing life into a thriving plant. I coaxed it, nurtured it, I saw our timeline together grow long and beautiful. And then something came up. I thought I was being irrationally jealous, that the narrative in my head was paranoia and that I should really just get over it because everything was fine.
People who want to be right all the time should try it.

And now it's gone. Not completely, not yet. I'll have it for a few more months, until another gardener moves in, and then I'll get to see my plant less and less, because whatever assurances, I'll always be the one who did a thing that they didn't, and they'll never feel quite at ease around me. I'll be able to visit my plant when other people are around, but really, that will be it for a while.

There's a fork in that timeline, one way, they sprout, and for seven years tend the garden until it doesn't work anymore. That has a fork, one the other gardener feels that the new sprout, and my new sprout will secure our positions enough to feel comfortable. I'm not sure what Future Me will do with that, because Present Me's heart feels ripped out in that spot. You see, in my original timeline, I was the one with that sprout. I'd even named the wee thing. The other fork simply wanders farther and farther away from my path until I can't even hear their sprout chattering anymore.
The other way, they don't sprout, and the garden becomes too difficult to work in about a year and a half. At that time, there's a small possibility I'll get my plant back. More likely, my plant will feel that its roots have been too long out of the garden, it'll see that I have a sprout of my own and set out to find another patch of earth. Future Me will have to see what happens when we get there.

Either way, what I had is gone now, and the only thing left to do is clear my presence from that patch of earth I'd come to call home and step aside like a lady.

A year ago today

I woke up early and wasn't allowed to have breakfast. My stomach had to be empty so that when they put me under, unpleasantness wouldn't follow.

I'm sorry we didn't quite connect there, little one. so very much has happened since then. so much that couldn't have if you'd stayed. you dropped in to say hello, and left again, courtesy of general anesthesia and a latex free OR so I wouldn't have to wait again to see when nature would take it's course. You have a friend now to keep you company. When your time is right, I hope you'll come back.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

When you learn there's a baby that looks like a baby in your BFF on Facebook, it's safe to assume that your relationship status has officially changed to "friend."

Also, To Jeremy, Jason, Sushi, Deacon, I miss you.
Melissa and Suzanne, you were just wee babes, I'm sorry I never got to meet you.
Kyle Aaron Huff, I don't have anything left but sorrow for your family. I know that no matter what I feel, their confusion and anger and grief at what you did will always be greater. I pray that they find peace, and that when the next time comes around, you can get what you need with compassion, grace and beauty. I wish that I had met you before you broke, before you decided that there was nothing but pain in the world. I don't know that it would have changed anything. I wish my friends were still alive.

Life at home....

Him: I need to shower. I'm covered in invisible hospital cooties

Me: well if they ever become visible cooties, we're fucked

Him: we'll just have to train special attack rats to kill the giant cooties.

Me: You're just trying to get back into breeding sentient raccoons again, aren't you?

Him: they don't have to be sentient.

Me: have you ever tried to train a rat dear?

Him: No, but if we want to train them to do anything but fuck and escape it might not work.

Me: *facepalm*

Quote of the Day

"I find that as I get older, my brain requires as much stimulation as the rest of my body.

So, yes, when I say talk nerdy to me? That's fucking foreplay. Do it right."