awakenings

I’m not nearly as strong as you.  I can’t leave.

Oh darling.  My sweet, wonderful, intensely brave darling.  Sit down with me here, cross legged, face to face. Take a deep breath.  I want to lift your chin and look deep into your eyes and tell you some things.

It is not the leaving that makes you strong.  Endings do not mark you as brave.  Courage does not only lie in being the one who initiates destruction.

Yes, all of those things require strength.   And oh, if you have ever been the one to leave, or end or destruct, I want to cradle you in my arms and tell you I know your pain.  But the other choices- when the only thing to mark the difference between before and after is your own quiet resolve – those also require strength beyond comprehension.

We are all on a path.   Day by day we decide if we’ll follow that path, or forage a new one.  Sometimes the choices are not clear, and everything seems twisted and painful.  But moment by moment we choose, because we have to.  That’s how life goes.  The big bold stuff gets the attention.  The tearing down, the crashing and banging and wailing and starting anew.  And we all say ‘Isn’t she brave?  Isn’t she strong?  Isn’t she courageous?’

And she is.  Of course she is.  But you are too.

Oh how strong and brave and courageous you are.

Sometimes stillness takes far more strength than movement.  There are times when choosing to stay requires a level of fierce tenacity you wouldn’t need if you decided to leave.  Boldness does not always declare itself to the world and demand attention, but rather lives steady and small in the spaces we choose to continue inhabiting, even though we are called elsewhere.

There is no shame, no lack of strength inherent in your decision.  To rebuild instead of tearing down.  To recognize that perfection is not always found in novelty, and that all the answers lie within, not without.  To know that what you have is precious, and to not be willing to risk it.  To look it all in the eye and say “I choose this.  Not what might be, but what I have now”.   This is nothing to ever be ashamed of.  It is not the lesser choice.

It is not weak.  It is not cowardly.  It is not less authentic.  No less worthy of respect and admiration than my choice, or her choice or their choices.    We often measure our choices with words like good and bad, right and wrong, strong and weak.  And they are all of those things, and none of those things.  They just are.

No matter which road we choose, it will always require a profound and audacious level of guts.  It will be a testament to our spirit and our faith, and it will push us to our edges and pull us to our center.  It will be the embodiment of love and heart and soul and inspiring commitment.   And it will be brave, and strong and true.

Because living is courageous.  Every single moment of it.

{on my desk sits a black fabric journal.  it is a plain, ordinary, nondescript book. from the outside, it looks as if it could not possibly hold anything important.  only I know that it holds the most valuable thing I possess. my story.}

5.20.09

Ever since I read these words they have been swirling through my mind.  How I wish I had this one and a half years ago and could have sent it out into the cosmos to the people that mattered.

I would have taken those words and wrapped them in layers of my heart and dropped them like fairy dust over the houses of my loves.  I would have attached words of my own so my voice could have whispered through the wind and lodged in their hearts so they would know what I could not say.

I have to go away now, for a little bit. I wish I didn’t, but I have to.  This is a lonely journey, you see, and it is impossible for me to be lonely with you in my life.

Please understand (I would plead) Please don’t leave me, even though I am leaving you.  I could not bear it if you did.  I need you so much, especially right now, when I am not able to accept any of the loveliness you have to give.

I cannot take for granted that you will be here when I return.  I cannot be so arrogant as to assume that once tucked away on a shelf you’ll be willing to be brought back out on my timeline.  And oh, how that frightens me.

But, you see, I’m going to be doing things that I don’t want witnessed. Chasing and facing demons that are mine alone.  I’m going to be flying and lying and climbing and crashing and dismantling and I cannot bear your kind eyes on me while I do.  I cannot know you are watching while I bring forth self destruction and devastation in the name of survival.  I love you too much.

I am not strong enough to walk this any way but alone.  I need to know that I can walk it alone.

I will be back.  I pray I will be back.  All I can do is hope, with everything I have, that you will be here when I return.

~~~

The relationships I walked away from then, the most precious of my life, are still being rebuilt.  They are – in many spots – still tender, and tentative, and there is much trust to regain.  Every now and then something happens, and I realize how much I still have to make up for.  I hope that I can.

He comes to pick up the girls a few times each week, often arriving right at dinnertime.  I cannot seem to let go of the feeling that I am still responsible for feeding him, so I offer him some food.  Minestrone and crusty rosemary bread, pork and pineapple stir-fry with jasmine rice.  Food made for a family that is his, and isn’t is.  He always says no before he says yes.

Just a small bowl, he eventually agrees, and stands at the corner of the table to eat.  He never sits.  Somehow I think it would be too much for any of us to bear.

We talk about everything, and nothing, like it’s really all okay.  And it is okay.  Except that it isn’t, cannot be, not really.

And I am aware, in those moments, that there is no finite end to a breaking heart.

ten years today
and I love him.
truly
still
always
no less than I did then
really, I will love him
Forever

I didn’t know what that word meant
not really
until well after the end
now Forever has a context
that I can grasp

Forever is wedged
like an ache in my heart
between the memories
of his tears at the end
of the red carpeted aisle
and his tears the nights
our daughters were
born
and his tears the day
i choose to stay away
instead of coming when he called.

you know,  love has nothing to do
with gay or straight or
the number i select to represent myself
on some scientifically proposed
continuum of sexuality
or whether this is my definition of
intrinsically right
or someone else’s definition of
inherently wrong

because love lives in
an entirely different
place than dogma
and structure
and schemes of classification
and division
and it even lives in a place
beyond time

today i balance
the need to honor this love
for him
without dishonoring
her
because
both are a part of me
now

you see
regret is not always a synonym
for mistake
and it is true that
self-inflicted wounds
often take the longest
to heal

and so today
ten years later
there is no celebration
no sappy love cards
no declarations
but there is the memory
and those exquisitely beautiful girls
who are the reason for everything

and the love
there will always be the love
Forever.

You were never going to be my forever.  I knew that.  No happily ever after.  No gentle transition.  No promises, no commitment.  It was what it was, and that is all it ever could be.

No, you were never going to be my forever, but you were exactly what I needed you to be, when I needed it.  And I think I was the same for you.  Some of it was shitty, and some of it was blissful, and all of it took me places I’d never been.

Our lives crossed at pivotal moments, times that brought us both face to face with the darkness and light within, nights where we encountered strength we didn’t know we had, and weakness we didn’t want to claim as our own.  As crazy and mixed up and painful as it sometimes was, for that brief period of time there was a purpose to us – to what we were and were not to each other.

What you give to the world is such a small part of what you are. You hide your heart under layers of bravado and attitude and edge.  It protects you, keeps you safe.  I know that, because I know you.   But I also know – from the times I saw you cracked open – that underneath that facade there is gentleness, and kindness and loyalty.   Your truth does not always lie in your words, your body language or your actions, but it is always there in your eyes.  I promise you that I will always remember to look there first, and to trust in what I see.

When I hugged you tonight, I wanted to cling a little longer to the moment.  We have seen each other so infrequently over the past year and a half that I didn’t anticipate it being difficult, but I was overcome by a fierce tenderness that took me by surprise.   Somehow, saying goodbye to you felt like saying goodbye to that time, to the months that carried me from that life to this one.  It was harder than I expected.

I wish you only goodness and love and growth in your new life far away.  Face your fears, stand up tall and take that city by storm, in the way that only you can.

Only good things, little one, the very best of good, good things.

You were important, and I will never forget you.

It’s a funny thing about comin’ home. Looks the same, smells the same, feels the same. You’ll realize what’s changed is you.

~ Benjamin Button

~~~

He always told me that the freckles scattered across my legs and arms were worm holes, and I believed him.  After all, they did look suspiciously like the dark spots on the crab apples littering the ground beneath the trees in the lower field.  I worried about this, about when the worms got in, and how on earth they would ever get out. He teased me mercilessly on my summer visits, nabbing me as I ran through the room and trapping me between his legs – in what he called a bear trap – tickling me until I gasped for breath.

He was a woodsman, like his father before him.  I remember the softness of his worn flannel work shirts, the way the scent of the forest clung to his skin, and how his fingers seemed permanently stained with dirt and tractor grease.

He was somehow different from the rest of our noisy crew. He mostly held himself outside the fray, observing the chaos with quiet amusement, chewing on a bit of wheat or a tall piece of field grass plucked outside.  I had a sense, even as a young child, that he was far more comfortable in a quiet stand of trees than he would ever be in the midst of his highly social family.

Today word came, traveling as it does amongst family, from aunt to aunt to mother and finally to me.

You know how your uncle feels about gays and lesbians? He doesn’t think it is right at all.  Your aunt says it would be best if you didn’t come up to visit.

I’m still for a moment, blinking back surprise and sudden tears.  My throat is tight and I summon a bit of bravado that I don’t really feel.

Fine.  His loss.

Yes. My mother agrees quietly.

~~~

On my last visit home this was all just beginning to make its slow, painful ascent to the surface.  After six weeks of idyllic vacation I returned to the desert and within days the foundation gave way beneath my feet, beginning a free fall that lasted for almost two years.  I was nervous about coming home, about finding the courage to present myself to those who have known me since birth, and to stand without apology before them.

I’ve been here for two weeks, and it’s been so uneventful so far as to be anticlimactic.  I had an idea that my differences – that sense of otherness that has been my companion often on this journey - would be more profound here.  Instead it’s been elusive, so much so that I have to remind myself that anything has changed at all.

At home now, amongst the green and the water and the earth that seems infinitely more solid beneath my feet, I’m reduced to my essence.  All the rest swirls out of my grasp and all that’s left is me.

It’s a lesson in layers, in all that I carry with me by choice, all that I hold on to, to protect and comfort and make fierce.  All of that belongs in the desert, it seems.  It has no footing here by the sea.

Without all those labels and identities and protective spells wound tight around me, I am open and simplified.  My breaths are drawn deeper and I can allow the moments to steal over me and make me still. The drive to go-go-go eases up, and all that is left is to be.

From the nomadic childhood existence of a preacher’s daughter, I drew comfort in the eternal sameness of my summer home in the country, nestled along a rutted country road in a protected curve of the Bay of Fundy. No matter what happened elsewhere during the year, this place remained untouched.  It is only now, having changed more than I ever thought possible, that I realize the root of that comfort lies in the knowledge that I haven’t really changed at all.

The crashing waves and the green grass and the ancient trees will greet me and accept me as they always have.  The air, electric with the buzzing of thousands of insects, will touch my face and find that I am no different than I was before.  And when I raise my eyes upward at night in the darkness only found deep in the country, the thick blanket of stars will not wonder who I am. They’ve known me forever already.

Nothing changes, really.  Like the rocks on the beach, we are broken down, carried places, placed in new formations, but always, at the heart of it, exactly the same as we began.  Even if we don’t at first recognize ourselves, we still belong, still exist, are still a part of the same infinite whole.

~~~

His loss?

Not really.  Our loss.  All of us.  His and mine and theirs and yours.

Don’t you see? I want to scream. Don’t you understand? I’m the same girl I was then.

Worm holes and all.

one year
since
you came up
behind me
in a random dark bar
and it’s been easy
(so easy)
and it’s been hard
(so hard)
and we’ve floated
and we’ve struggled
and we’ve laughed, and cried
and lived
and lived
and lived
a million years it seems
although
only one
has passed

but what is time,
really?
just a convenient
way to measure
the complex
activity of our
hearts
and if that is all
that matters
(and I believe
that this is
so)
then perhaps we
should expand
our discussion of
time to include
other measures
like the number of times
my hair has brushed
softly across
your face
or how often your teeth have
closed on my
skin
or the numerous tracks
my tears have left
on your shoulders
or maybe even
(if we blow our minds wide open)
how salty those tears
tasted when our
lips joined to
intercept their fall
(because who says time
must be discussed in terms
that can be counted, perhaps
time is just another sense
like touch
and smell
and the sound of your laughter)

we have encompassed
rush
and reality
and burden
and bliss
and fullness
and emptiness
and have been each
of these things
to one another
and everything to one
another
and sometimes
(in the darkest moments)
nothing to one
another
we have swung
from understanding
to questioning
to accepting
to rejecting
to knowing
but somehow
we have always
swung back
together

we know
with the certainty
of two who
understand that love
is not always
enough
(not nearly enough)
that we don’t get a
guarantee
and we push against
cynicism and yearn for
blind optimism
because we want
to believe
in the notion of forever
the way we did
before

but I think sometimes
our doubts are
our biggest gifts
because they keep us working
keep us from our blindness
keep us from expecting too
much
and accepting too
little
keep us seeking
and striving
and stretching
beyond the surface
and into the depths
of us.
and most of all
they keep us saying
yes
yes to the insanity
and yes to the chaos
and yes to uncertainty
and even yes to ugliness and heartache
and resentment and dismay
(because those emotions
must be honored too)
and then yes to
laughter
and family
and future
and home

yes
yes to time
(in all it’s
complex measures)
yes to future
and what it brings
yes to not knowing
to working
to bliss and floating and melting
yes to yelling and crying and pouting
yes to ecstasy and agony
and all the in crazy
mixed up in between
and certainly
yes to trying

Yes to one year
Yes to us.

there was this one night
just last week
when i saw these
at trader joes

b. thought they were
b-o-r-i-n-g
(being all one colour
and pink at that)
and so tried to
direct my attention
to some
brightly coloured
daisies

but these
for some reason
in their softness and
strength
captured my attention
and so I bought them for
her

(and to make b. happy
we got the
daisies
too)

and much to my surprise
when we got home
we found that sometimes
love and flowers go
hand and hand
and there was
another bouquet
waiting for
us
(because she
wanted to give flowers
to her girls).

isn’t it nice
when things just
come together
like that?

when she rested
her head
on my stomach
and looked up to say
“lay back,
tonight
i want to focus
on you”
her face was a poem

and that night
when i watched
as her eyes closed
and her neck
arched
and the ecstasy coursed…
well
the closing
and the arching
and the ecstasy
they were all poems too

yesterday
when my words
burned and she
snapped and
went outside to work off the fire and
i sat silently on
the edge of our bed,
her voice
and the sound of the door sliding closed
and my silence
were also poems

of course,
the first time I saw her in glasses
was definitely poetry
as was the hot chai
(with vanilla and soy)
in the earth-brown mug
she made me before work this morning

and don’t forget the patterns our feet make
when we dance in the
living room.
that poem is one
of my
favorites.

you wouldn’t necessarily
think it but
the fact that we both hang our bras
on the handle of the
closet door
and the fact that
her virgo-self constantly needs to reorganize
the tupperware
are just as poetic as
the way she likes to watch
me when i read
or the feeling of her arms
around mine three nights
ago when i had used up
every last ounce
of myself taking care
of others and just
needed so badly
to have someone
take care of
me

and because all
those moments are
poetry
it is understandable
that sometimes they
flow from our hearts
like ink on smooth
paper
and other times they come in
fits and starts
and with lots
and lots
of deleting and
that sometimes we choose
all the wrong words
(but don’t quite realize
until the poem is
completed what
was not quite
right about them)
or that sometimes we begin
what we think
could be a
great poem
but it fizzles out somewhere
and never really comes
together and we want to crumple up
the paper
and use it to play
basketball
in the garbage can.

but the
thing
about poetry
is that
there are no rules
or at least
that you get to make
your own
(like the way
i cut up my
sentences however
i want
and don’t use
capitalization
even when spellcheck
gets upset
with me)

and so our
poems
can be what we want
them to be
(or not be)
and nobody can tell us
how many verses
or where the climax should occur
or get angry because our sentences run on
or that we’re not doing things
in the correct order
or edit it to fit into
some predetermined
form

and so
we’re free to
keep right on
making poems
when we make love
and when we fight
and when we wash dishes
and watch movies
and clean toilets
and when we dive deep
and when we release
and when we live.

and so its
okay that
this poem didn’t really
get finished
because I’m running late
and have to pick up
my wee girlie
at school
because
i don’t think
that this kind of
poem
ever really
ends.

you see
it’s like this…

it’s like
some nameless, faceless doctor
sat me down
in a cold white room
surrounded by windows
and said

here’s the deal…
i can either cut off
your right leg,
or your left

you get to choose
but one of them has
got to go
now

because your two legs
,though both strong
and beautiful
and necessary,
can’t balance your life anymore

so tell me which
right now please
because people are waiting
on your decision
(don’t you feel them watching you
through all those windows?)
and your legs are
quite anxious
(understandable really)
to know which one
will be left
behind

but you must know this
and know in the deepest part
of yourself
he said,
(as he looked me in the eye
and in the heart)
that even though you have the
power
to make this choice
(and not everyone does – so
consider yourself lucky)
you are still going
to feel
for the rest of your life
like a part of you is missing.

…..

don’t you see?
it’s been a year now
more than that really
since this all began
and being with her
is like finding home
and our bodies fit
and our hearts fit
and i fit
and this is right
and i love her
and us
and this life

truly.

but i still miss him
ache for him
ache for us
ache for our children
for our life and the unmet potential
and that third child
(i always pictured another little girl)
we were pretty sure we would
one day have

and when I see an elderly couple
eating together at a
restaurant
or a young family
together doing family things
i feel something inside me
crumple
and hear this sound bubble up
from deep
inside of me
this keening, primal, animalistic sound
of mourning
of grief
of anger
for what can never be
because we won’t ever be
again

and i won’t know what his hand feels
like in mine
when we are both eighty years old
and how can that not feel like a tragedy?
and after breaking that promise
i don’t know if any other promise
can ever count
really, really count
again

because i made a choice
that wasn’t a choice at all

and i have to accept
in the deepest part of myself
that always knows the truth
that although i belong is this life
there is a huge part of me that will always belong
to that life
to him

and to be perfectly honest,
i don’t quite know what
to do about that.