To write honestly
To see your eyes sideways and smile softly
To seek love no matter what
To feel the confusion, give it a friendly shrug, and to speak love no matter what
To bow my head and acknowledge the sacred
in you
in me
and in that guy at the laundromat
To hold your hand when someone, hopefully everyone, is looking
To cry a little when that song comes on
To listen to the drip drip drip for a moment before tightening the spigot
To keep my word
To laugh when I fuck up
To write a poem a week
To notice what earrings you’re wearing and how you take them off
To eat lunch today
To admire the miracle that is my office chair
To send more thank you notes
To smile at people at red lights
To hold you silently until we are both present again
To find peace in doing the dishes
To talk it out with God before closing my eyes
To stop looking at the clock so much
To make my Mom cry in a good way–heck, my Dad, too
To fly down East Rock on my bike
To want you to see this sky
To not be afraid
To sip my coffee and picture the rough hands of the person who picked my beans
To fold a piece of paper into a bird
To imagine life elsewhere
like California
or Saturn
To inhale four counts…and exhale four counts
To remember that the leaves fall and shrivel and disappear into the ground so that new leaves can come in the spring
To walk more slowly
To recognize gifts
To dance with you in that space of my apartment meant for dancing
To look up when it’s raining
To love
it’s not really a second chance. she might argue it’s a fifth or sixth chance. no, it’s much more like rounding the circle and, as my friend T.S. says, arriving where I started and knowing the place for the first time.
i have the chance for new eyes every moment, no matter how exhausted the situation. it starts with quiet mindfulness and the willingness to look in the dark places. i have that chance right now: to declare my love despite fear, to speak simply and honestly instead of vaguely for the sake of mysterious beauty.
i am in love. i just wanted you and you and you to know.
This has been a hard year. I’ve made some life-changing choices–some right, some not. I’ve let some people down. I’ve let me down a few times. The last few weeks have been the hardest of all. I’ve regretted everyday my decision not to go to Wyoming to see my family for Christmas. I thought I could do it by myself–these holidays, my birthday. I thought I could just face the sadness head-on, knock it down, and keep moving. That was the plan. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced the debilitating sadness that’s been rising in waves, sometimes cresting at work so that I have to shut my office door and hold my head in my hands. Sometimes at home where I just lay down and fall asleep in my bike gear because the effort to change clothes seemed so impossible.
Today, though, the morning caught some joy in a sunrise and a song for me, and I came home from my trip to the coffee shop filled with gratitude for everyone and every experience that has shaped me these hard months.
The humid morning air had frozen to my skin, so when I got to my apartment I stripped down to take a long, hot shower that would serve the dual purpose of warming both me and my tiny apartment. As the steaming water poured over my head, the song returned.
I am done with my graceless heart
So tonight I’m gonna cut it out and then restart
Because I like to keep my issues strong
It’s always darkest before the dawn
I closed my eyes and started to sing for the second time this morning, though this time I sang softly just for myself. As I soaped up, I paused at my forearm and stared at the tattoo I had done two months ago. I traced the perfect circle with my fingertip and remembered Four Quartets, the T.S. Eliot poem a friend gave me after she saw my tattoo and I told her the story behind it. The story reminded her of the poem, she said, especially Little Gidding.
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
I tilted my head down and let the water pour down my face. These months have been an exploration of sorts, of all the dark places I’ve tried to avoid, of the ways I love and all the ways I fail. As the hot shower streamed down, though, I sensed that I am soon coming back around to complete this circle. A warm, fluttering joy surged in my chest, and I laughed even as tears welled up in my eyes as I realized that I could arrive where I started and would have the chance to know myself again for the first time.
Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.
