Juxtapositioning

Missing

I am a ghost. I am formless, void, hollow. I breathe and the breath wafts through me. I sing and hear only the wheezing of a empty dry bellows. I trace footsteps out of my bedroom, following the shapes on the golden brown wood that lead through the hall, past the tiny-white-tiled bathroom, down the steps and out the door into constant motion, cars going by at all hours, energy moving, people living and dreaming within a hair’s-breadth of me, and all I feel is slow, dull, invisible. I move, think, work, and speak in slow motion, half-time, endless loops circling around and around, tightening around me, constricting.

I do not exist.

My life lies in boxes stacked two floors beneath where I sit. Halfway in and halfway out. I know I need to set foot on the ground outside, to take ownership of the air around me and breathe it in, but I am paralyzed. Ghostly. It is easier to burrow under a comforting white softness, choking out all air and possibility, than it is to open to what might hurt.

I am afraid and I am alone.

To be fair, the days since my one-year cancer anniversary, coincidentally also the day I packed a truck with the boxes of my fragmented life and drove it 80 miles south into the golden city, have mostly been magical in ways I have been dreaming of for so long. But now as I retreat into my ghost self I can only see gray. I know that my superpower of remaking realities works both for and against me and in truth, most of the time I only see the dark side of it, the lack, the fear of not remembering anything good and letting it all slip through my fingers even as I try to hold more tightly, but right now all I feel is missing.

Movement

There is something about looking westward into the waning light that makes me incredibly happy.

Once I drove through Illinois under a spreading wide field of fluffy white that extended into infinity, cottony sheep drifting gallantly and with amused authority over the highways through a sky-blue background.

Then, for a year, I watched purple merge with golden pink over the jagged silhouette of the Front Range, lost in Chief Niwot’s curse of the Flatirons. When the year was over I could still glimpse pinkgold over jutting mountains in my rear view mirror as I turned for east again.

Then for a brief time I saw gold in the brilliant dusk mirrors of the tall crystal buildings along False Creek in Vancouver, sighing every time I biked past the Burrard Street Bridge, glimpsing silvergold on acres of glass standing tall along the water’s edge. I sighed at the beauty of this city that wasn’t mine.

For two years now I have had the bay at my side, looking across gently lapping waters to the bluegrey low shapes of the San Juans beyond. One red building in my living room view lights up near dusk and I have often felt I could sit and look at that magic light against red brick for hours.

I have known now for six months that this home by Bellingham Bay would not be mine by the time the year is out. For a little while I did not know where or perhaps why this would be, why I would leave my home between the bay and the mountains, but I blame Picasso.

Picasso. There is a Ray Bradbury story that I read a million years ago about a small boy meeting an old man on the beach, an old man who wore a striped French fisherman’s sweater and drew amazing figures in the sand only for the sea to wash them away. People in the story whispered, “It’s him. Pablo,” and were devastated that the great man’s art could be so fleeting, that the ocean could come and take away the marvelous figures dancing on the sand and that no one could save them. I wondered what was the big deal. Picasso, an old guy who drew women with two eyes on one side of their face. No, Picasso I would save for later. I would allow Picasso to be a blank spot in my awareness, a door that would open at the right time, if the right time ever came.

On Black Friday I found myself sharing Picasso in a way I never thought art could be shared. A dance. Coming together and moving apart, then together again, words spoken but never said, glances, whispers, wonder. On Black Friday I glimpsed what life could be like, if only I let it. The dance, the wonder, the electricity, the aliveness, the shared experience of total beauty and something far bigger than two can create alone.

And so the dance unfolded.

Yesterday I merged onto I-5 as the sun waned, heading to the place where much of the unfolding has occurred. I glanced in the mirror over the lake and saw Seattle lit up, shining, hopeful, expectant. It was the same light that has lit so much beauty and joy, and this time Seattle was lighted for me, for the us we are creating, for the place that in a few days will be my new shared home, the place behind the door that Picasso opened. I saw all this in a glance and smiled, two eyes on one side of my face, and fell a little more in love with the Self who feels joy in a quality of light, who adores and is nurtured by the blue grays of the waters, the many-colored grays of the sky and the contrast of color against gray, and who loves loving and being loved by her man.

Every day now I will turn the corner and see the lake that lies below and across it the shining city standing beyond, and feel joy in the magic of creation so sweet that I will not mind if the waves come and take it every day, because I will know that it can be created yet again the next day and the next and the next.

Drowning

The waves crash around me, sucking me under. I cannot breathe. Water fills my eyes my ears my nose my mouth and I scream but there is no one there to hear, just the relentless surf, the pounding waves, taking me farther and farther from the safety of shore.

I long for a place to put my feet. A stone. A post. A step. My feet long for firm sand, but all I feel is ceaseless motion, spinning, vertigo. My heart runs red into a pool around me and my throat cries soundless gasping wails. Tears become rivers, oceans, becoming the endless waves that roll over me, crushing me, carrying me out into the current.

Dreams echo the unending uncertainty. There is no solace in sleep, no respite. Look inward, she says. Feel your heart beat. My heart bursts sixty times a minute, shaking me to my core, and I am sure that the sound echoes across vast mountains and galaxies.

Stand still. Wait. Listen.

Joining

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove…

In the morning I am awakened by warmth seeping in close to me, a breath, a heartbeat. I move slowly from dream into being, your heart-filled eyes inviting me into another day. Twin mugs stand by, steaming coffee’d warmth and life with each sip, feet on lap, talking of the day to come. The sun streams in through a wall of panes, inviting us to catch a scent of summer blossom through half-open door; or rain streams over, pattering, rivulets, and we two are snug inside with logs blazing into heartwarmed embers. Twin names on the mailbox, a testament that we walk this path in tandem, hands held, joining.

The day unfolds. I write. A painting emerges from my soul. I sing love into being. You inspire, inquire, clarify, evolve. We taste, we create, we experience, we harvest the richness of being loved and loving.

We dance separate dances, now touching again, now moving apart, always connected, always aware.

Wine glasses clinking, voices, music, shared conversation and laughter. Or reading far into the night. Or drumming, smoky fires, ancestral visions. Or sensual delights, a candy store. Our tandem dance continues. Finally darkness settles in like the purring cat between us, comfortably, contentedly. The world stills around us and we sleep, breathing, joined.

Polynomial

You remember those, right? Am I giving any of my geekiness away when I say that solving quadratic equations was sort of a highlight for me, mathwise? I found a certain exquisite perfection in creating balance. Each side of the equation balances the other. Yummy.

To refresh, in case Algebra II was (cough) a few years ago for you: a polynomial is an expression of finite length constructed of variables and constants.

[What, you don't trust my truthiness in math? Go on, Google it.]

It has not escaped me that I am involved in the creation of a polynomial. I already told you that 1 + 1 = 3, remember? Well, what does 2x + y equal? Or 2x + 2y? Or … sure, the permutations are endless here.

To be sure, this equation is all new to me. Every equation is the building of a new world. I am just really glad that the magic is returning to this one after having walked through fire. What does not turn to ash and burn away into the atmosphere is made stronger. The path ahead is still uncertain — all paths are — but is made bolder now than before.

Humility

Humility. It is from the Latin humilitas, which may be translated as “humble,” but also as “low,” “from the earth,” or “humid,” since it derives in turn from humus (earth).  Wikipedia says it is a virtue, since it is connected with notions of transcendent unity with the universe or the divine, and of egolessness.

I sang yesterday for a woman who lay dying. I sang with three other women who all sing their heartsongs, and as I sang I looked out at the sparkling blue-gray bay beyond, hearing our voices lift to carry the breath of one whose breaths can be counted now, so slowly. As I sang I thought of humility. Lift me up, I sang in silent supplication while my lips sang other words. Lift me up. Let me be your instrument.

Words like those do not come to me often, or easily. I have come so far in owning my wants, my desires, and here I was asking to release them into the breath-space beyond me. Humility. Releasing my desires into the larger space around me. Releasing my hold, my death grip, on creating my What Comes Next. Slipping into the warm current that will carry me into the tides of tomorrow and tomorrow. I felt my body, my heart, relax as I still sang, still looked with love and wonder and gratitude at the wild white hair scrawled across the pillow above the slight bent form curled into a u-shape, and the soft careworn faces lifted in song around me.

I thought about what it might be like to release into nothingness, into the space around and beyond me, and to let go of trying and simply be. To let go of needing to be perfect, or even good. To instead offer myself as a gift gladly received wherever there is need. To breathe life into the spaces between my cells, and let them float up, up, into the wideness of All That Is. To release into softness, and to allow that softness to carry me, lift me, and form me into my What Comes Next.

I am writing my story, the bigger story that is me, and in so doing will discover who I am and how to be in the world. It feels already like humility, humus, the Earth, is a part of that. My bones are shaped from mud, after all. My heartbeat stirs far beneath my feet in the warm wet wild earth. I am writing and also mindful that each breath I take also stirs the air of seven billion throats. Each step I take reverberates around the globe under seven billion pairs of feet. Each song I sing adds to the music already resounding through seven billion ears. What I do affects you. I write my story knowing this, and it makes me feel not small, but humble. Aware. I have the power to change lives. It amazes me to think this. I need do nothing, nor perhaps should I do anything other than Love and Be.

Magic, the gathering

I have been looking for a way back instead of a way forward. I look through the destiny book of awesome and its secrets stay locked within, remaining tightly shut within black walls and creamy pages, mocking me. Remember this? they hiss, When things were magical and all was possibility unfolding in front of you like a golden carpet? I look at the magic and want it so much, the beautiful song. I try to grasp it tightly to hold it to me, but it slides through my fingers.

Ahead. That is where I should be looking. But how do we know anything except what is behind us? I replay the tapes in my head: a sensual kiss in the rain, a look of love, feeling enveloped and held by a warm heart, loving an amazing man. I see myself from far away, not feeling it, not remembering it fully, thinking that if only I could climb back into that moment all would be sparkly and possible again.

It is not lost on me now that I have lived most of my life in retrospect like this. Replaying, analyzing, thinking these are useful learning tools. I think most of us do this. It dawns on me now that this is not the way.

The way forward is through Now.

Today I am gathering to me. Baby steps. I thought that today I would be writing my masterpiece or at least the first pages, but it turns out I have other work to do first.  Today I lunched with a friend. Shared with her my pain and uncertainty. Later I sing for someone in transition, fully recognizing that I choose this experience not as much for her as for me. Because it will help me, lost as I am, adrift from my moorings. I hope these things make me human, because I am weary of trying to be more than human. Tonight I rest in the arms of other women, my tribe, all singing the song I sing of love and loss and longing.

And tomorrow I will wake up. There might be sun and wind and rain. The flowers will bloom. I will breathe, and in that breath I now choose to create space for What Might Be, hoping that it can be even more magical, sparkly and awesome than the empty grasp I held tightly to. Loving and being loved. A kiss, a look, feeling held. The way flows ahead.

Spring

Everywhere I look I see new growth. Buds ripening. Cherry blossoms bursting into soft pinkness. Vivid colors superimposed over the blue-grays of sky and water. New green shoots pushing up from seemingly lifeless brown twigs. Surely there is a metaphor here.

I am cold. I miss the warmth. I long to feel it permeate my limbs, my skin, my heart.

I’ve used a cliff metaphor perhaps too frequently in the past for it to fully fit now, but I do feel that I have at least dipped a toe into the waters of change. Change happens slowly sometimes, stealthily, without us noticing, like a cat climbing into your lap: one paw, one whisker at a time so you will fail to notice movement at all until there are four paws of purring goodness curled contentedly where a few moments ago there were none. I feel that cat now, or one of her paws…

A friend tells me I know what is right for me. The next step. I look to the gods for reassurance, to the winds, to the stones, but they remain silent. All I notice is growth. Movement. All that is required is to step into the flow and let the current add its weight to my own. Exponential. Like breathing. I send my own green shoots deep underground where they grab hold and grow into exploding brilliant stars overhead, magnified by the rains and winds of my soul’s longing.

I know what I need to do now. The song of it fills me, warms me, exposes me to the soft warm breath of spring.

Medicine

It takes more than one hand to list the animals that have been showing up for me lately, filling the air with their song and presenting me with wisdom, perspective, challenge.

[Note: I count on my fingers beginning with the thumb. How many people do that? I would wager not many. Not many Americans anyway.]

One. Hawk. The messenger. Visionary power and guardianship. Paying attention to what might otherwise be overlooked.

Two. Eagle. Bald eagle, off to the west of I-5 somewhere around Stanwood. Ability to see highest truth or viewpoint. Spiritual energy. Connection from earth to sky, symbolizing balance.

Three. Ants. LOTS of ants. Many more than I am comfortable with. The warm spring winds awakened them and they scuttled inside looking for solace. Attending to one’s foundation. Community. Perseverance. Accomplishment through discipline and structure.

[Ant note: Edward O. Wilson says, "Give ants nuclear weapons and the world would be destroyed in a week." I can attest that they are relentless. A neverending stream of them has invaded my house. I am both violated and entranced. Last night after the army retreated I saw stragglers carrying off parts of the dead. I fight them with tea tree oil, cinnamon, and Black Flag ant traps. This may be a losing battle. I am larger but they have numbers.]

Four. Crow. A few days ago there was a sporadic stream of debris trickling down my front window. I went out and confronted Crow, who hopped from my roof over to his compatriot on the electrical wire nearby where they both regarded me with bright humorous eyes. “Fine,” I muttered as I closed the door again, “Have your fun.” Crow has odd ways of making friends. Integrity. Bringing magic into your life.  Seeing the magic that is already present around you.

Five. Deer, alongside Lakeway Drive today. Standing, watching the traffic. I am pretty sure that the cars following me too-close did not see Deer. Gentleness. Grace. Peacefulness. Spirituality. Love.

Mmm. Love.

New hand. Six. Lizard, on the trail today in the Magic Forest, where I went to Be after walking through a doorway and closing another. Lizard stood very still on the path, unblinking, unmoving. Dreams. Imagining different futures and creating them.

Hawk, Eagle, Ant, Crow, Deer, Lizard.

Like connecting dots, I can draw a line from last week to Now through all the animals who have visited my path and see where I have been. I think it points also to where I am going.

I alluded earlier to doorways opening and closing. I was surprised to close a door — we are taught that closing doors limits choice — but also received the message at the time that closing that particular door actually allows many other doors to open. And one did. I have never felt quite this human before. Not frail and vulnerable, as I imagined being human might feel like all these years I have resisted through a brick wall of trying-to-be-perfection, but warm. Soft. Yielding yet strong. Supple, lithe, determined. Alive.

Yes, alive. That is what this feeling is.

It’s as if I have suddenly turned from black and white into full glorious color, like when Dorothy lands in Oz.

I feel compelled to DO something with this difference, this aliveness, but mostly the message is to BE. I am anxious to prove its reality to myself, and also anxious to begin crossing off the debts I incurred by being less than human all these years, as if each relationship, each interaction, each momentary eye contact was made less than it could have been because I was trying to be more than I was.

What would Crow say to that?

Animals simply are as they are, and do not attempt to be more than they are unless it is for a very specific reason. The cat becomes larger, fluffing fur and tail, to intimidate an enemy. I became not larger but smaller, removing myself from the equation until there was little of me there at all.

All I can do now is to go on from here. Start from where you are.

You. You know who you are. I will start with you. Bring it.

Seven. Manta ray. This one exists for me as an idea, a symbol, but its effects have been exponential. Flow. Letting things come to you.

Connecting

The last several days have been sort of epic. Not necessarily good-epic. More like intense-epic. The root of change epic. Changing direction, switching lanes epic. Only … it’s not yet clear where things might go. I am drawn to nestling myself in a tree-lined hilly neighborhood of four million overlooking blue-gray waters (and on magical days, the snow-tipped Cascade range beyond), where I can push my heart outward in concentric rings to connect with other hearts and draw inward again. I am drawn to sparking my cells with the essence of carrots, celery, and apple, connecting with the Earth by drinking her lifeblood. I am drawn to jumping feet first into change I can create with a snap of my fingers. I am drawn to warming my heart in tangible-touchable hands.

Last week over a million people read my story. Well, not my story exactly. A few sentences that briefly sketched my story. I have felt fearful angry tentacles reaching towards me, wondering how I could be the person they feared I was, and how I could be sitting here on my robin’s egg blue couch overlooking blue-gray waters while three beating hearts breathe 3000 miles away. I do not feel connected to those tentacles, I do not allow them to reduce me to a sobbing floor puddle, and yet they signify the disconnect we all share. We are all trying to do the best we can, in any moment. We are all trying to not feel so alone. We are all trying to connect to something outside ourselves, to feel allied in some way.

If I could love the angry tentacles, would anything change?

Closer to home, or at least closer to my heart, in these days a chasm has opened. In the chasm are my fears. I have fed them with new fears and protective patterns designed cleverly to mask the fears. The chasm has become a great gaping maw, begging to be fed. I can barely see the heart that stands on the other side, shrouded in mists of illusion. The feeling of disconnect, of loss of something that not long ago was a bright star of promise in my heart’s sky, feeds the gaping maw and leaves me without breath. Arid. Desiccated. It is possible, I think, to weave a gossamer to the other side and walk across over the fears clutching at my feet. I wonder if I have the courage to walk that thin thread to see what remains standing on the other side.