everybodys changing and i don’t feel the same…

growing up is such a messy thing.  i just got off the phone with my father, and for a second now, am just realizing this new phase of my life i am in.  i have officially moved, for the first time, entirely on my own.  to a place of my choosing, with little or no input from my parents.  pursuing an education i am choosing, completely.  trying to figure out what i really like, what i want to do, what nurtures me, who fuels my desire to live and explore—and who takes it away.  what makes me glow, what makes me suffocate.  what i like to eat, what i don’t.  how i like to move my body, which ways i don’t.  what i like to wear, what i hate to wear.  what kind of energy i enjoy—what kind of energy turns me off. 

nannying is a huge step for me.  having the life of a ten month old in my hands, and having to respond to its every need and stay evermore present with the child is fairly new territory for me.  it is a great teaching and blessing though.  i witness the many moods anai’a goes through in even one hour.  the expressions she makes when she eats.  the time she takes with her food.  the curiosity that lights up her eyes when she is exploring and discovering me for the first time.  the way she looks deep into my eyes searching for security and love.

little babies don’t yet know what hurt and rejection is.  they don’t know how to run away from open arms, they don’t know how to numb themselves out.  and they aren’t afraid to communicate what they need.  they are quite assertive, in fact, with their every need…and if it isn’t met, they put up a fight.  anai’a is a beautiful mirror for me to realize the way i have stuffed down and not stood up for my needs, my emotions, and most obviously, how i’ve lost the gentleness and wonder of myself, my face, my body, my voice, my smell, my touch—everything we take great interest in when we are discovering it for the first time. 

last week, while taking tickets at 11:11, someone asked me why i had moved to boulder.  i thought about it for awhile before i gave the usual answer..”to finish school”, work, etc..  why DID i move to boulder?  my mind wants to give these usual reasons, but my heart sinks further into wanting to decipher the true answer.  to repair.  to relearn. to heal.  to relearn things i soaked in from my environment growing up.  what it means to be successful, happy, whole.  i used to think it would mean getting the part i wanted in the play, going to the best school, having a boyfriend.  looking perfect, being skinny, having it “together”.  i know now that none of these things can be used as a substitute for happiness. 

so, rebuilding the definition for myself:  i find new ingredients.  and what do they look like?

well, semester at sea definitely changed my ingredients. 

i feel a greater sense of global responsibility.  greater need to find authentic family.  desire for REAL relationships.  need to offer kindness.  be authentic.  slow things down.  enjoy life.  focus less on where i “should” be, and more on where i “am”.  more on the stories and lives of others, less on the story of my “mind”.  see what i can “give”, not what i can “take”.  test boundaries with myself, with others, become more curious about other cultures, other beliefs.  buy less, appreciate more.  send more postcards and letters, less emails. 

i came here for the mountains, for the sunshine, for the people who love being with the earth, for the movement masses where you can literally feel the pulsing of the worth and joy and pain, right beneath your feet.  for community, for new friends, for support, for giving, and forgiving myself for being so unkind to “me”.  to dig a little deeper for truth, and reach a little higher for the stars.

my dad’s voice sounded different.  time has, too, taken a toll on his back.  it’s harder for him to get through a day without pain.  he talked of being an empty-nester, and having the kids all gone. of selling the house.  of my baby, baby sister going to college.  and my brother “maybe visiting home sometime”, and now i’m halfway across the country.  it brings tears to my eyes that the nights of chaos and TV Dinners and berry picking and dog ruffling and swinging on that swing set are—gone…. and it isn’t my “home” anymore.  my home is no longer a set of walls and safety that i used to think would keep me safe from the world.

no, my home has to be carried in my heart.  in my body.  in my soul.  i have to take care of my home and my center because it’s the only place i have to come back to.  when my dad is halfway across the country, i have to be my own daddy.  i have to sing myself to sleep when i feel lonely, vulnerable and scared.  i have to be my own mommy and be gentle with myself and tell myself i am doing just fine, and i am beautiful just how i am, and brilliant despite all the mistakes i make.  because i am growing up.

i am not a child anymore, i am taking care of a child.  i have wisdom teeth, not baby teeth. and i have a huge lump of resistance in my throat. or maybe it’s excitement.  maybe it’s excitement for feeling so blessed, and so lucky for all i have.  for having such a fucking great childhood, full of jumping off couches in leotards and lemonade stands and eating mom’s pesto, and washing Buddy for the first time and watching mom at the computer and Paul and Dad watching sports together, and the road trips we took where I’d come just to sit in the back and listen to them watch sports talk radio, well into the night.  the excitement of pulling into the gas station and getting really hyper off a mountain dew.  these days are more or less —-over.  but i honor them today, i bow to them, and bow to my parents, and now really realize in my center that the ball is in my court.  and i have beautiful roommates, a beautiful house, a beautiful job, a beautiful mentor, a beautiful boyfriend, and a real beautiful world i know i don’t have to navigate alone anymore.  and i feel thankful.

walking forward without fear is the most important step.  to take a step and pick up the paintbrush, or the pen, or the guitar, and let the realness ooze out is what is most important.  to make my mistakes boldly and learn from them is of utmost importance.  to forgive, let go, and love the new.

so yes, everybodys changing…

and so am i.

being a woman is a natural act

an everyday impulse

that gives you direction

and you must follow

where it may go

always

with its beauty

and unsteadiness

with passion

in the day to do

a personal will

to want. to feel. to live

with the sun

until the end

reflections of a chicago skyline

             I grabbed my Ziploc bag of roses, saved, preserved for god knows what anymore, maybe for a smell, maybe for hope, maybe for a reminder that my soul too will dry up like a rose if I clip it from its roots and let it feast inside walls.  I placed it in my purse with some sage and the India prayer beads I felt okay buying because I was wearing linen and I still had my third eye so I knew that magic was alive in 110 little pieces of wood caressed in my little fingers. They smelled of fragranced so sweet, an entire nation devoted to love and I stared at my candle and knew we were all just trying, much too hard.

            I tried to.  I tried to recreate a kiss I never received, I tried to talk about love like I really knew what it was like I had really been there and the closest I have ever been, if we’re talking about truth was the summer of two thousand and ten in the mountains of Colorado, with my knees on the ground and my vocal chords screaming pouring fists from my heart onto the wood trying to dig up where this all came from trying to present the present moment with a real true case of hard laughter to tell god I was still listening and still loving despite the pain body and I loved my fists in that moment and I loved the safety

            She was sweeping spider webs out upside down with her broom and I scolded her as I cringed and she erased hours if not days of detailed minute specific work to build a home note a house and a nest not a breeding grounding of terror and I realized  was jealous that no one had taken a broom to my tangled web of lies and assumptions and roadblocks that have kept me alone in this labyrinth, forever.  I sit in the garden and watch the way the flowers bloom without being asked the ants march up the anthills even though they are unaware of the whole wide world that this there and all there are is dust and sand and grains and children to be fed and crumbs to be transported and the sunshine and everything is ok and I prayed that someday I’d just be ok with the glory in front of me the sand beneath my feet the hand on my skin the scent in the air and not drift away

            I spent two weeks with you and we spent hours if not days talking about love and craving it and desiring it and you didn’t know I went to bed cold and afraid and full of hate that I had misdirected on myself and wanted so badly to escape and barely did in my dreams and I dreamt that night that I had stepped off the road, my road to pick some flowers and run in the fields like I always do in my dreams and the road became drenched in sunlight suddenly now that I wasn’t in the way and I saw all the secret tunnels and nooks and crannies that hadn’t been explored or named or loved and I thought of all those less fortunate than me and all the nooks and crannies and crevices in faces and people who haven’t been loved or touched or held or cradled over by a love that was blind like you offered and I haven’t accepted, only part and the other half is still gazing at the clouds behind me and I collapsed crying for the knocks on my door that I never answered and the birds flying I never saw and the trees I’d never thanked

            Her hands touched me as I closed my eyes.  My Americanized vision of myself “you are your body” was hating myself. My body felt bloated, my heart stifled my words tangled in my own web of anger and blame and heat and pressure.  She felt my back  and shoulders and face and told me in her broken englsih, you are beautiful.  I tensed and realized and I let her blind words and blind love sink in truth never felt so real as coming from a stranger and I wonder how much strangers really knew, if she knew I needed it or if we ever know what we really need ourselves.  I’d walk for days just to get lost in a pulse in a make believe mine based on the truth of the heartbeat still alive in the faces of strangers and land formations and things that don’t talk back and don’t’ haunt and don’t have ulterior mtoives. I’m fascinated by those with harder lives than mine because they trust harder and their hearts beat louder out of increased adrenaline and drive to keep awake keep aware keep real.  Where violence and survival are reality and maybe that’s Crash and maybe the reason that safe christians and prayerful do-gooders don’t turn me on because it feels too safe only sometimes, and I thank god for heaven but wonder how far deep I have to go to really know what heaven means.  If I spent another waking moment in the mirror or my legs or my arms because its what I thought my soul wanted, I’d be a fool.  I’d be a fool in my waking life to pay attention to the bread I was raised on.

            Skyscrapers mark time and space like nothing else.  People slapping keyboards closer to heaven while grave diggers are digging and getting hotter, no one remembers the eyes of ancient gods when they are counting their gold and I’m just a fool for ever thinking my troubles were bigger than my god.

            I spread ink and remembered ink is truer than unspoken thoughts and the physical body is a beautiful body of transportation and doesn’t like ridicule or photographs.  To think of silver square edge or simple four by six could capture every pain narrative every heart beat joy and fallen emotion would be ludicrous.

            The sky was purple and he asked where the hell we were.  I said I don’t know and I’ll stand by that remark as I gaze up at the intelligent BIV of Roy G. and realize nothing changes but nothing stays the same.  They walk in tandem in front of me talking about baseball and I walk in tandem with the streetlight thinking about you.  My mind ran into the night further than my feet can carry me and suddenly the pregnant glances of passer byers in cars make me wonder who isn’t trapped and who knows their soul as much as a child crying for their mother at 3 in the morning because they don’t trust shadows. I remember the time I didn’t and still believed in monsters when they told me they weren’t real and now I know monsters only exists in our minds

            I’m toying with images trying to make a presentable case of why we should stick together no further than how I crave my swollen feet on the hot pavement and crave to stare into the eyes of others more than I do my own.  My story never excited me more than smiling faces of foreign families or texting teenagers whose category I’ll never fall into again.  Twelve hours ago I saw a little girl reading the gossip section of star magazine to her father while he was grocery shopping.  He nodded saying isn’t that terrible and I was the only one in that moment who realized how tragic this really was.

            I stir my water and think of the collective unconscious wondering what we are all unconscious about and when we’ll awaken and who knows the truth and whose hand I can squeeze hard enough to hold knowing that I’m afraid of the puppet strings that haeve danced me step by step and spoken  my words and fed and starved my soul.

            nothing really mattered in that moment besides the green candle light, the Stevie wonder carried in the wind and the air of summer and the frustration of money, the anxiety the right and the wrong dissipated and wasn’t closet to touching me.  All that mattered were the lovers around me, the workers having conversations, the stop lights still changing and the family portraits being shot to my right.  At that moment I realized one bedroom apartments and nothing to have and no fancy restaurants and bum conversations might just be okay and might be the right path after all and after all I missed the dust on my feet and the mystery and the fear and the uncertainty and the comfort and surrender of the uncomfortable.   Words crossed the table taking shape in the form of precautionaries and  I couldn’t tell if they were coming from a place from hope and good intention or lost dreams with a side of regret.  I listened quietly not wanting to cause any waves in the stream and thought the night sky will listen later when I ask it to listen to the sound of my heart beat.

how to be alone- tanya davis

photo courtesy of audrey grace speicher, the beautiful and the talented