For Andrew

Andrew,

You are still asleep and I have been up for hours.  Soon you will stroll in to the kitchen with your ankles doing their familiar pop as you come down the hall.  I will step into your chest and you will fold long arms around my torso.  I will rest my cheek on your chest breathing in your leftover sleep.  Your chin will perch on the top of my scalp.  We will pause there before we begin our work.  

Maybe the little kids will be seated on bar stools, half asleep with fluffy hair.  You will smile at them. The smile of a little boy seeing Star Wars for the first time. or Pepper's face at Disneyland when we walked into the castle.  It takes up your whole face, and I can't help but reflect it also.  It is the smile of falling in love, and I see it on you often.  

We do all this work, so we can wake up in the morning to these little ones.  And let's not forget the not-so-big older one.  She will sulk around in her teenage bath robe with a bowl of cereal in one hand and an Ipad in the other.  She will glare at you, but almost smile when you say your line,

"Soph.  Chop Chop.  It's time to go."

You drive her to school and gymnastics everyday.  This child who did not start out as yours, but has become yours.  I wonder how that drive is.  I know it is wearing a groove into both of you, making you familiar.  

When we first started dating you said to me,

"I know that having a relationship with you means having a relationship with Sophie, and I am willing to do that.  I know that being with you means having a family, and I will do that, because I want to be with you."

I can feel the same relief now as I type those words, as I did the day you said them and solidified my trust in you.  Not many men will keep their word under all circumstances.  But I knew you would, and sometimes I want to scream at you for being this way.  Because it is inconvenient, and at times I think it's unnecessary, to be so rigid in your principles.  But the truth is, our family was built on that promise you made to me 10 years ago.  You act on it everyday.   From you I have learned; love is an action.  You go to work.  You make sure every aspect of our lives is insured.  Seriously we probably have more forms of insurance than I even know about!  You mow the lawn so our kids have a beautiful space to play.  You provide us with all we need, so that I can be home with them, be in sync with them.  So that my intuition is sharp and I can anticipate their needs.  I hope I do justice to your sacrifice.  I try.. and I think of you every day.  How I wish you could be with us more, and I appreciate why you can't.  

Beckam is just like you.  He is getting so tall.  I know you will give him every tool you can, literally and figuratively.  He is his own person, so I guess you never know what will happen.  You're off to a good start though, taking him to Father-Son soccer, and having Light Saber fights in the bathroom with the lights off.  You read him books, and help him brush his teeth.  You give him compliments and make him feel proud.  I trust when it gets harder and he is older, you will hold him to a high standard.  I promise to get out of the way so you can teach him how to be like you.

Pepper is your soft spot.  Everyone can see it. In so many ways she is ridiculous.  But there is no denying she sees truth deeply, and her way of interpreting the world is magical.  Not to mention that wild hair atop her scrawny little Mowgli body.  You are wise to give her so much affection.  She craves it.  You create magic for her by taking her to shows like Disney on Ice and Cavalia.  You indulge her ridiculous fascinations in ways I never would, and that is good.  You surprised her with a trip to Disneyland.  You pay for her acting class.  You create a space for her to be creative.  Artists like us need solid people like you, to ground us and steady us.

Sophie...oh what to say about that girl.  I will never know the road you have walked with her.  I see other step parents who do not try as hard as you have tried.  I see how long it has taken her to forgive us for getting married.  I see how you have had to wait years for her to soften.  Your role with her has been so many backstage sacrifices.  Thank you for giving her more than she can realize right now.  She may not see it, but I do.  I know you two share a mutual respect, for your disciplined lives, for your hot tempers, and for your fierce love of our family.  

I know I don't always do things the way you would like.  I am trying, and you've gotta admit, I take damn good care of that BMW!  Please know that I cherish our children and I try to keep them in the forefront of my attention.  I fall short of this every single day.  But I think I've got a pretty deep understanding of who they are and who they are trying to be.  They came to us as individuals, and I believe it is our job to serve them and to teach them.  In return, they inspire us to do better.  You, my dear husband, have become a better man than I ever thought possible. There were times in the beginning when I honestly doubted.  I was afraid I had pushed you into a role that you really didn't want.  I am so grateful we stuck it out through those first hard years.  Because today, on your 8th Father's Day, I am certain you are happy being a Dad.  I know you don't want any other life.  I know that our kids have dug far deeper into your heart than you ever meant to go.  I also know we are in for it.  We've already got one teenager, who will be driving in 2 years!  Thank God.  Then we never have to drive to the GTC ever again!  

I think we are gonna be okay though.  I think we are building trust every day in our little kitchen with the warm sunlight.  Thank you Andrew.  Thank you for giving me a second chance to have a family.  Thank you for our kids.  I wouldn't want to do this with anyone else.

I hope you...

I hope you find what you are looking for, she says.
a polite dismissal, or a sincere intention, perhaps.
A perfectly socially acceptable thing to say in parting.
But I want to roar back at her, bearing my teeth and yellow eyes.

We both know this is not what life is about
How dare you dilute me this way
How convenient...
a consolation prize for the half-assed house wife
Now she can sit in her "Chair" and watch her "Shows"

If you know me at all...you know,
I hope to never arrive in The Land of What I was Looking For
I hope to run the desert in bare feet until it burns my toes and I ache for an oasis
I hope my hair is dirty and my skin is golden
I hope I jump into unexpected pools of water regardless of what I am wearing...or not wearing.

I hope that one song makes me cry every time I hear it.
I hope I can still smile at teenagers skipping class cuz their souls are on fire
and all they can do is smoke cigarettes behind trees in public parks

I hope I round the corner of my pen and reveal frightening things. embarrassing things.
things most people would skip over and not write down at all,
things I didn't want to see, and needed to see
things that force my breath to intake sharply and tears to fall when I read them out loud
I hope my voice grows thicker and becomes that of a woman I have never known
I hope she lets pools of her own blood fall behind her without apologizing for the mess.

I hope I make the doctors angry and the nurses smirk when I won't listen

I hope I don't know my husband yet, or my children yet, or you...
and that we all surprise each other

I hope I accidentally cut myself while slicing carrots for dinner.

So while I appreciate your good intention, friend
You can have it
I hope you smile when I hand back it to you
and walk away empty handed, roar still echoing.
I hope you know me better
than to wish me a mundane life

For you I wish the unexpected and the glorious...

Chrysalis break...still

We grip kettle bells side by side.  My friend and trainer says to me as we lunge and step, 

"You know what I've noticed about you?  I never see you eat."

"Yeah...I get that a lot," I wince and feel exposed like a nerve through a tooth.

I move through the feeling with my whole body.  I do not need to feel shame or hide.

I let it absorb into my belly, into the strong place where I carried my babies.

"Is that like, on purpose?" he asks.

"No, not exactly...but it's probably not an accident.  I still struggle.  I know you've read my blog..."

"Yeah.  It's brilliant," he says.

"Thanks...yes it is my longest standing daemon.  I have good days and bad days."

This morning I read my books.

The books change.  The practice of reading and sitting does not.

Facebook threatens to take this practice from me.  I have reclaimed it a hundred times.

This morning I read:

The only tranquility I knew was to anesthetize myself with food, an indulgence for which I paid dearly the rest of the time.  Nothing could save me from the mental and emotional anguish and confusion of being fat, feeling guilty and hating myself for lack of control. 

~For Today

I have been seeking forgiveness of myself for this.  For my compulsive eating and alcoholism.

It is not an intellectual decision.  It is a slow and tedious breaking out from chrysalis.  To me it has felt long, yet when I consider how long people choose to sleep in their shells, some an entire lifetime, it is not so long.  Perhaps they don't choose.  Perhaps an outside light never comes to alert them - there is a whole world out here. 

This blog started as an amends to myself.  The question:

What would happen if I just told the truth about this struggle, about what my head says?

What if I shared it?

In my other book I read:

"...we don't believe love will ever just come to us on its own.  We believe instead that we have to do something to make ourselves acceptable.  So to push ourselves to try to be good, to whip ourselves into shape, we hire an in-house critic to keep tabs on how we're doing."

In the margin I wrote:   I still believe this.

But I believe it far less...and I can see it is not a requirement for my love of others.  Perhaps, just as my allowance for others has turned in to an allowance for myself, this could become true as well.  I am still afraid of it.  I am still breaking out.

from the courtroom bench

From my seat on the courtroom bench I calmly, and frantically notice you.
For two people hell-bent on self destruction, we are so tame now.

Ten years ago, when we were still in our 20's and we still believed in fairytales, you would say to me,
"Tell our story.  You've gotta tell it.  Promise me you'll write it."
With equal desperation I would promise you, of course I will.  How can I let this fade, evaporate like a dream on the shores of consciousness.  Let's just stay unconscious.  Please.  Can we do that please?
Without making a deal, we made a deal.  We agreed to run it out as long as we could and suck up every last bit of one another's juice.  We savored it in the form of gin and intellectual rants and drunken fights with broken glass.  Like Mary Poppins' chalk pavement pictures, we superimposed ourselves onto movies starring Bill Murray and Scarlett Johannson and got lost.  We listened to Ryan Adams and Pj Harvey until our bodies melted.  Poetry, we lived it and ate it and exhaled it's smoky tendrils.

I just flipped through an on-line album of pictures from Kurt Cobain's suicide.  They were lame images of a pair of sunglasses lying next to a cigar box of heroin rigs.  I saw his note written in tiny penmanship with a red pen stabbed through the middle and stuck into an empty planter box.  I saw the corner of his black Converse all-star shoe, and the driveway to his house up to the garage.  Then there were pictures of cops lazily standing around in pot belly suits, with limp hands and unimpressed faces.
Those of us who rage hard die so small.
Regardless of our internal experience, how massive and crushing and desperate it feels, we are confined to this one body.  It isn't much.  When we go, few people are impressed by our theatrics.

Now I am sitting in a court room holding the hand of my friend.  It is shaking.  Perhaps mine would be too, but I am here for her.  Her fear trumps mine.  Her husband was just convicted.  He is walking away in hand cuffs and a pin striped suit.  As he is escorted by the bailiff, he looks over to flip her a weak smile.  I am in the eye of the hurricane.  In your suit and tie you walk back and forth, doing your lawyer job.  I won't let myself make eye contact.  We do each other this courtesy of not seeing one another at the same time.  When you are not looking I notice that you have aged.  Your hair is going grey, and your curls have relaxed.  I also note that you still stand perfectly erect as a statue, as one who will not be swayed.  I wonder if you are still you, or if you have given it all away.  But your posture tells me that you have not.

I still want to tell the story, but it is not the one I promised to you.   I doubt you would want that one anyway.  Our story only counts because we didn't die.  Otherwise it would be a very short and predictable tragedy.   But I only know my half of it.
Just as I won't trivialize you by waving a dopey hello from the courtroom bench, I won't let our story be another Romeo and Juliette love jaunt to burn hot and die fast.  You were my friend and my guardian and my soul's gateway. You knew me before I knew me.  I lived and died with you. Your arms are the bars of a phoenix cage.

The Trifecta

Ever since we went to the concert, one line loops and sings to me,

"You can only dance in a hurricane, 
            if you're standing in the eye."

I had never known Brandi Carlisle, except for this one song Dad put on my ipod.
It's about stories, and how they don't really matter without someone to tell them to.
Then I think about my Dad, and how he has chosen to be a lone Maverick in his own desert.
I'm glad I've listened to his stories when he returns from a long stretch on the trail.
There was a time when I couldn't listen, because all his stories were at me and all of the dark things about to happen.  They were about God, or my fallen mother, about the world's crumbling morality and mine.  Now I write my own stories with a fluid hand, one that makes no apologies and tells no lies. He isn't scared anymore.
My tether to him transcends words, yes it is love, but love itself is inadequate.  When I hear this song I become him.  I am the aging man who hears it.  I am the man who has raised 6 children, whose whithering wife left when the youngest was only 4 years old.  I am a genius who never went to college, but instead found God.  As it turns out, God doesn't care much for genius.  I see the whole world all at once and it is too much, but I am up for the challenge.  I listen to the Les Miserables soundtrack turned all-the-way-up in my dark living room alone, but I do not feel lonely. I feel empowered.  I am a man of routine who buys only one type of sock and six of the same t-shirt because the cut is good and the material is hearty.  I always eat whole grains.  I deny myself pleasure because it gets in the way.  I can live in my truck on Mount Olympus water and Triscuits.  I know because I have done it.  I miss my kids desperately.  I know my dreams will sustain me when everything else is gone and I will die without apology.  I will go hard and fast down roads too scary for most people.  I raised a daughter.  Her name is Sarah.  I am very proud of her.  She is me but she is also her, she is finally feminine.  Her hair is long and red.  She has never stopped writing.  She will write a book for both of us one day.
When I hear this song I quiver but I don't allow myself to mourn.  I keep walking.  I let the dust settle on my shoulders with the heat.  My breath stays steady and propels me forward like a steam locomotive.  I have too much momentum to quit now.

I went to this concert with Katrina.  It was her birthday gift to me.  I turned 36 years old.  I wore a white and green striped dress with red Vans tennis shoes.  My hair spilled down and trickled gently along the hot summer current like water from the sides of a boat.  Her dress was the color of cantaloupe and so were her earrings. She is very good at that, matching her earrings to her dress. We walked in sync together up the gravel path to the mountain venue, our flat shoes crunching. I knew the sun would set later, and it would be beautiful.  Especially with all the smoke in the air from the California fires.  Funny how fire can make the sun turn pink like hibiscus.

We sit together on our blanket in the grass with bare knees like junior high girls.  We talk soft and easy with heads leaning into one another.  We watch the people, all somewhat wealthy, or at least comfortable enough to afford these tickets.  There is something silly to me about people with money.  I wonder if she notices this too, but I say nothing.  I am happy to be here in this simple space with her.

As we walk to the bathroom she whispers,
"I wish I hadn't worn these panties, they're so uncomfortable."

"Mine are too.  I was just thinking the same thing!" I exclaim.  "Let's take 'em off in the bathroom."

"But what if something...happens?"

"It doesn't matter.  Even if people see up our dresses...it doesn't even matter, right?  Why does it matter?  We don't know any of these people."  I flash her a Cheshire grin and she can tell I really mean it.

"Alright...I must really trust you, Sarah,"  She sighs.  But I can tell she feels better and so do I.
We sneak out, both grinning now, with panties balled up in our fists.

After the opening band, best friend number three arrives.  Her name is Butt-Nutt.   I don't know how this came to be...it is just her name.  She is the most wild.  If we were that workout show from the 80's, you know the one with the three circle tiers of intenisty?  She would be high, I would be medium, and Katrina would be low.  Yet we have all sought to destroy ourselves at some point, with equally piercing intent.  The trifecta is in order.

1. • ri·fect·a
     trīˈfektə/
     noun
     NORTH AMERICANAUSTRALIAN/NEW ZEALAND
     noun: trifecta; plural noun: trifectas
     1.            a bet in which the person betting forecasts the first three finishers in a race in the correct order.
     ·                                       a run of three wins or grand events.
     
     

And this is the hard part...it is the most important part of the night, but I can't tell it to you.  I can only tell you what happened on the outside.
I was the first to cry.  The sun had barely set.  The sky flashed it's elusive color of turquoise.  The color I have wished upon after a long day and tired feet.  Brandi Carlisle was letting her whole soul escape through her throaty voice and chest up to the stars.  My head leaned in to my Butt-Nutt whom I had been certain would die of a drug overdose on the street, or worse.  My friend who got sober and lost her son anyway.  My friend who was at my wedding in a silver dress with movie star curls. The one who my baby's placenta and exclaimed it to be the most beautiful thing she had ever seen!  My friend onto whose immaculate white comforter I sobbed my deepest grief when I got divorced and broke all hearts into more pieces than I thought could ever be mended.  My friend who wailed the Pretenders with me into the night while driving fast down State street and promised to be there forever.  But I was 26 and she was 19, how could we know?
Now, ten years later, we know.  At least we kind of know the truth...life hurts so much more than we were prepared for.
Then my head leans the other way and is met by Katrina.  My quiet friend who scales mountains with me.  Who followed me up a massive sand stone cliff in Lake Powell only to rappel over 200 feet of unknown and gorgeous blazing rock.  That was our first adventure, and we just kept going for long swims through the lake with arms that know the water as automatically as Mom fold clothes. We scramble up with bare feet shivering and tight to lie on hot rocks like lizards. We are perfectly balanced like a good sushi roll.  When she asks me how I am doing, I answer her more honestly than anyone else on the planet because I know she will listen and understand me even when I can barely articulate.  Sometimes she can see around my next corner but she doesn't tell me what's coming.  She trusts that I will deal with it just fine.

We have been the cast of each other's stories, switching costumes, alternately playing the mother, the mentor, the traitor, the clown and the accomplice.  There are lines of worry etched between Katrina's eyes which belong to me.  Up under my ribs is a scar where I cut my heart out and gave it to her as a apology.  Horizontal across my forehead is the crease made by Butt-Nutt's heartbreak. On her, you will rarely see it.  Butt-Nutt's real name is Georgia.  Georgia is a place spread wide and buried deep.  Do not let her jig fool you.  She may hop like a grasshopper on stilts which seem to always bounce back, but those legs are made of lead sometimes.  She has good reason to be firmly planted.  Katrina's shoes are always dainty and she walks softly on the ground, a trait I will never acquire.  She knows how to pace herself so she will never have to quit.  She will not complain about her bunion.  She will keep walking until you are ready to turn around and go home.

On our little blanket, time collapsed around us that night.  All of the stories so concentrated into our small space were more than we could contain, and we found ourselves sweetly and surprisingly crying.  I spilled over onto Butt-Nutt first, and it became contagious.  But how could we not cry, really?

"Anyone who says the arts should not be taught in schools is an idiot," I mutter.

All of these lines across my face 
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I've been
And how I got to where I am
But these stories don't mean anything
When you've got no one to tell them to

I climbed across the mountain tops 
Swam all across the ocean blue
I crossed all the lines and I broke all the rules
But baby I broke them all for you
Because even when I was flat broke
You made me feel like a million bucks
You do and I was made for you

You see the smile that's on my mouth
It's hiding the words that don't come out
And all of my friends who think that I'm blessed
They don't know my head is a mess
No, they don't know who I really am
And they don't know what I've been through like you do

~Brandi Carlisle

At the Edge of Light and Water

This morning I have "baby kitty eyes."  Because last night I walked the neighborhood in squeaky flip-flops, sobbing into my hair curtain.
Note to self:  It is very hard to be convincingly angry while wearing flip-flops.
Suddenly I was 17 years old hiding behind my swath of dramatic red hair.  I felt comforted by it's camouflage. Beneath it I could cry as much as I needed to.l
The tears came for no reason, at least not one big enough to justify this teenage outburst in a 35 year old woman.
We had just been on a date to see the new Mad Max movie.  In the dark I kicked my bare feet onto his lap.  He held them like kittens in his wide hands.  The sun was setting to pink when we left the theater.
Then we got into it over who was going to be late to work so they could return the carpet cleaner to the rental place.  The car grew tight as we yelled over each other, both hot with self-righteousness. Andrew pulled in to the garage and pushed the little button to close it. I scurried under the metal door before it could clang shut and trap me in domestic prison.  I was Indiana Jones barely escaping with my whip and hat, only for me it was my purse and cell phone.
I shouldn't be complaining.  He just shampooed the carpets.  I have it better than many wives, and mothers of 3 children.  I can still escape to the mountains and go rock climbing with my friends.  I sweat and feel more animal than civilized person.  I get dirty like a kid in summer.
I paint canvases in the living room under bright sunlight.  I attend creative writing workshops, use the word fuck when it suits me, and write stories that make good girls blush.  I go for sunrise runs on well seasoned legs.  I'm a member of a gym with people who make me laugh and push me beyond my physical limits.
My soul should be fed.  These are the kinda things they tell you to do in Health magazines right?

excerpt from my most recent sketch book 2015

So why is my chest shrieking:  RUN!

I haven't done this in a while.  I haven't been consumed by a silent roar and tried to outrun it since we moved to this house 2 years ago.  But right now I am frantic going full steam ahead in one direction.  I just want to keep going until all ties fall away and I am a single entity.  I want to streak into the setting light behind the mountains and let my soul catch fire.

A young family rides slowly past me on their bikes.  The dad has a toddler on one of those plastic seats mounted to the back of his frame.  They are so tame, like lions at the zoo.  I know Dad could ride hard and fast without his family in tow.  Does it drive him mad sometimes to be so subdued?   Does he ever ache to drink whiskey instead of milk?


I do now.  For the first time in years, I wanna head straight for the bar.  I know something will awaken there.  It is the girl who will not be tethered.  She takes everything she wants, every shot.
She feels no guilt.  The alcohol swirls little Jiminy Cricket until he cannot chirp the annoying truth at her.

sketch book 2015

But no matter how fast I walk, I cannot un-know the truth:
That is not freedom.
I would be tethered to something far heavier than a family.  I would not move fast at all.  I would only sink.
The truth and the reason I am crying these hot tears is because there is nowhere to run.  No matter how fast the whiskey.   No sex, no distance covered in miles, no size 3 dress, no man, no woman, not even a child can ease this for me.

I am meant to feel this.  It is my deafening, limited and human self.  It is the price I must pay to keep my heart open to the only sustainable source of light I crave.  The light I chase in the sunrise before anyone else is awake, and I can cry in a way that is not lost or frustrated or heavy with longing.  My longing is quiet because I am right where I need to be.  On those mornings, I cry because I feel peace.
All of my questions are answered, even the ones I can't articulate.  I float the ocean's horizon line suspended between two worlds.  I often draw this line in my sketch book.  I feel most quiet here where both things are true.  They negate each other and I am weightless along this edge.  The only thing to remind me that I am human is the breath drifting easily from this body.   This beautiful whale that is one throbbing muscle of propulsion, too heavy, yet necessary.  I know whales rejoice too when they jump from the water to hit the sun.  Our only way out is to rejoice.

Back on the sidewalk, fireworks explode all around me in every direction.  It is the day after the 24th of July, and I am on a military base of pyromaniacs.  I'm also on the phone with my friend, Misty.  I've been walking for nearly an hour now.  The rage has cooled to smoke and tendrils of laughter.  From the dark behind me a man runs up and slaps my ass.  It's Andrew.  He is breathing hard from running to catch me.  The street grows a little brighter.  I feel myself shrink next to his 6 foot body.  I also feel more tears, but not angry ones.

"What are you doing here?  ... Misty...I'll have to call you back."

"I used the "Find my iPhone" app to track you.  I love you and I was starting to get worried.  You were gone for a long time."

We stop walking.  I cry into his soft black t-shirt.  I press my nose into his chest muscle and take a long drag.  I have been filleted.  He can do this to me like no one else.  He will not buy my complex package of artistry.  He will only do one thing over and over and that is love me without question.  We walk home together.  He carries my silly flip-flops.  My feet are bare and he waits for me to tip-toe around the rocks.  He reminds me to wash my feet before I go inside.  He just shampooed the carpets.

sketch book 2015

Lead Feather

Post Run Poetry.   Walking past manicured Sandy city lawns.

Lead Feather

the weight of a hearty soul

like a lead feather

this paradox assigned to me

I did not choose

each time I am deceived by my form

I appear to be a feather

but when I lift fine hairs to the breeze 

they do not carry me

instead the wind laughs

making ripples of static along my spine

I know I was there once

but I am irrevocably here.  Now.

weighted by this hearty soul