set a course

i've not worked on my visual file (ala artist's way) for about two years. maybe longer. i lug the thing around (it's about six feet long by three feet high and currently acts as a very inspirational room divider. trouble is, it is two sided and the back side is blank except for my girls attempts to create a visual file, which consists of about five pictures of spongebob, fairly odd parents, some random animal shots. a few horses, and lots of parrots. i'm going to strip them off, because i thought about just pasting over them, and i don't know that it won't compromise the core to not have it all adhered nicely, though that sounds mercinary, ripping off pictures, even random pictures, that my daughter pasted there.

this is why i'm doddling.

so i've had it in my mind, have an O magazine or two around, been meaning to shred them, often there are very fine words in O mag. but that isn't enough. i found a stack of martha stewart living at work today, and brought them home. they are perfect the photos really inspire me. and now, i will begin giving substance to my dreams. because what i've found in the course of this file business is, dreams really do come true.

watch and see.

safety here

i've compromised my own safety, no one did that to me, i did that to myself. now i have to figure out where to go, what to do with it all. how to proceed given my new self imposed constraints. i don't do well constrained. so, part of me says, fuck it, just do what you do. let the chips fall where they may. and i'm trying so hard to be nice. it really requires a vast amount of effort for me to just smile sometimes (granted, there are those who get the gentle, soft, cuddly suzanne, but those are the few, the rare, the chosen). everyone else gets the hedgehog, or porcupine might be better.

all i know is i don't know where to go or what to do now. constraints confound me.

while i understand i can chew the cud to nothing then regurgitate it and chew it some more. this process i understand, it is part and parcel of who i am.

what i don't understand is how someone like me makes it in a world where politeness is the rule. granted, i don't throw tantrums (my closest friends get that), but i can stay pretty well composed in most situations. but sometimes, i wonder how i'll get anywhere. baffled. my own fault. but i am who i am.

so where to go from here. what to do with who i am. my very bent is this way.

i keep trusting it will be well. in part because there is not a whole hell of a lot else i can do. sure i can wring my hands but that has never been an activity i much engage in. rather, i get active and do something about it. if the context can't change perspective can. there's lots of room to shift focus. to feel around the elephant and describe some other part.

i can do this. i know i can. these trials are not bigger than me. my will is strong. my stubbornness serves me well.

but i'm tired. i'm busy. i'm trying to be positive but finding there are variables i can't control.

i tell my friends,

control what you can. yourself alone.

i need to take my own advice. but sometimes i'm trapped in my head and when i've offered up my venting space, well, i've screwed myself in ways unimaginable. only now am i realizing it. the problem of lack of foresight is not knowing where you're headed.

likely, this is all hormonal (easy to chalk it up to that), but i want to grow beyond this. to evolve.

that can only happen if i'm gentle with myself and those around me. i have found lashing out helps no one.

i keep trying to change my life, and i trust that i have. that things will continue to come up, but i am equipped to handle them.

i am safe here. in my home. in my head. in my heart. here is my land and country, and no one has constraining power over me here. not even myself.

there is some comfort in that fact.

find your way back

there are so many things i could say. so many ways i could trip myself up. but nothing is wrong. i have to just trust that even when it feels like doom is impending, it isn't that's just some catastrophic thinking i have learned to live with and i'm not living like that anymore.

my girl had her heart set on a particular bunny. we found him and adopted him today. it was nice to see her wish fulfilled. wish i could do that more often. and he has such a sweet disposition, that he let her hold him for an hour while we dashed about trying to get the things he needed to live with us. (someone more practical, perhaps, would have had everything prepared in advance, but not me, i like to wing it. or i'm so used to winging it, i don't know how to plan which is why i assembled the cage with two walls upside down and had to reconfigure it). my girl said,

next time, let's read the directions.

i did!

that's the trouble. directions don't work for me.

but bunny is happy and we are well. now i have to start knocking out some schoolwork so i can rest. i had a lot of personal stuff to tend to (still do) when i got back from boston, but i'm through most of it, by no means all, but most of it is under wraps. my pony has had an oil change, a good 1400 miles later than i usually get around to it, but i've been racing. so, i've let a few things slip.

now to cuddle that bunny and settle down for a nap before my phone starts a ringing. which fortunately for me, it does.

there is no other shoe, this goodness will prevail. trust it and see.

come to me

did i tell you that i was trying to change my life. i stood at crossroads some months back and asked my friend,

do i need to move for change to happen or will change happen, then i move

she didn't know, as i did not know. so i moved. i leapt out. i went for it. and now, everything has changed. everything.

there is no going back. i never want to go back. it's good, great, getting better all the time. i'm learning what it means to live.

and so i told her everything i could. bared my soul.

then she bared hers. together we cried.

but i'm happy,

i said.

and she understood.

happiness is reason enough.

do we get to keep it, the heart treasures we unlock from stone? i believe so. sometimes, a warm breath is all it takes to defrost them. and the closeness of two bodies to melt the isolation away. sometimes, presence is all that is required. no voices. no intrigues. just heartbeats and togetherness.

this is what happiness means to me.

and soon, hopefully very soon, i will have another i love come to me again. i try not to get my hopes up, but they fly. they fly.

let it come to fruition, then i'll share. a story is better told in retrospect rather than speculation.

that which is mine will come to me, i believe this.

truth

it comes in many forms. for some, it is the unspeakable. the avoidable. the danger zone. for me, it is the fertile soil, the air i breathe. i don't know that it's right, necessarily, to speak truth as much as possible, as often as possible, but it's all i know. it is my greatest liability. and so the trend continues. i speak my truth, affirm who i am, and find myself less afraid.

it was time to tell her. she had to know. i want always and only for her to know me. and so she does. good bad or indifferent.

what does this mean, perhaps more than i understand at the moment. it's all new to me. i am green in this life. but i want to live it on my terms. to be open and honest as i can be. and her knowing was key to my moving forward.

and so she does.

what now? life goes on as before in some respects because nothing has changed. that's the thing about the truth. it is not dealing any new facts into the matter, save awareness. understanding. possibly, misunderstanding, fear, prejudice. that is always a possibility. but the risks are worth the truth, always have been in my mind.

i could not live freely if i were trying to not be who i am. the thing is, i'm always discovering something new. there is a strange confidence here, a fierce courage. and a willingness to grow. it has been so good. and i want to grow.

a girl at work told me of a trial she endures on a regular basis, i listened but was not afraid.

in my own life, on my own terms, i am going to grow. to celebrate. to discover what it means to be the woman that i am.

i trust it will be well.

and so it shall.

joy

i'm reclaiming that word. i abandoned it to people of faith, though i have faith, not in what i once had faith in, but i do have faith. faith that things will work out as they are meant to. according to the way things need to happen. i had this long conversation with a beloved about not settling for less than the best. she is uncertain that it will turn out the way it has all turned out for me.

but it must, there is no other option.

sometimes i see it all so clearly. that she won't, i won't accept less than what i need. life can deal all the cards it wants, but i'm not folding, i'm not sitting idly by, i'm not walking away until i win. there is no not winning for me.

i believe in abundance. for richness. for fertile soil of heart and mind. for myself and those i love.

you're sowing seeds of hope in their lives,

she told me.

you see them as they are. as they can be.

and that pleased me. my clarity of vision at times confounds even me. but i am trusting it more and more. not belittling myself but enlarging my territory. trusting that higher heights are ahead for myself and those i love.

grow. live. be happy. be completely who you are.

this is what i want for my beloveds. all of them.

and i want it for myself, too. that joy comes and takes up residence in my heart. that i learn how to infect people with that the way a smile passes from one stranger to the next.

yes, this is my wish.

re-entry

they warn us when we leave residency (ten days of artists doing what they do), that we're radioactive. to not make any big changes immediately, don't move to a mountaintop cabin (though i may someday), don't ask for a divorce (already did that), don't expect anyone to understand (i don't). it's hard to explain. the process is grueling really, ten twelve hour days stacked one on top of the other in many ways it feels like you're stuck in some otherworld bent on clarifying commas or unifying tenses, but on the other, there is camaraderie there. there is freedom.

it was a time of openness for me in a way i hadn't expected. i went with hedonism on the brain and that was the rule i lived by. i asked nothing more of myself than what i wanted. i, not anyone else. it was liberating, invigorating. all that. and more.

home now. i have a child underfoot, she's not a baby, but teens demand in their own way. have their own needs. sometimes more complicated, more intense than the swaddling or changing of a baby. though that is life altering in its own.

some nights i drag in near midnight, that's when i get off work, and she wants to talk, so we do. i try to keep the eyelids peeled until she's done. but it gets tough. i am not superwoman. this i've come to acknowledge only of late. i am trying to return to human expectation of self. set limitations on what i demand of my self, my body, my mind. but i've pushed the limits for so long, it feels like idleness when i sit for a moment.

i drove back down the long drive to my cottage, and the lush green, the healing sway of boughs welcomed me back. but i was not fully back, still, not fully back. it's taking me some time to reengage here. to want to be here. i'm trying, genuinely trying. i don't like hiding. i don't like not being who i am. i guess i've reached an impasse where i have to decide to be open with my life in my life, whatever that means. i have not yet decided what that means.

my favorite prof poet said to me,

your sexuality, your voice, your being is all celebratory.

which is true. all of it now is about sucking the marrow. finding delight and lingering there in the nectar laden moments. being with those i love.

i have a lot of work to do (not crazy, like last semester), and my personal intrigues will run right alongside like a junkyard dog trying to get a rise out of me. i won't let it. i will turn and face the dog and send it, tail tucked between its legs back to the junkyard. leave me alone.

i've done no more and no less than i've wanted to this point.

i've never lived like this,

i said.

i don't think i can go back, after living freely. how can you go back?

the thing is, she said,

no one is asking you to.

and that's the bottom line. she likes my mind, says

i'm too smart for my own good.

maybe she's right.

but this i know. one year more, then i will begin my dream job. i know where it is and what i want. that is half the battle. i've come to understand that about my life, when i say yes, the force it releases is beyond comprehension. to this point i've only said, not no where the job is concerned. throwing resumes at jobs i couldn't not apply for. but now, i will go after this one, this thing i want, and it will be mine. it will come to me, in fact. the way all things do. in wonder and at the right time.

i miss boston, i do. but there is much yet to accomplish here. and so here i must be. all of me.

that which is mine will come to me, i believe this.