love

it's such a complicated word. idea. many people have many different ideas of what it means. who has the right answer. is there a right answer.

i sat by the river tonight, who was not as quiet as yesterday, it had a lot to say. and as i drove there, i could hear something that sounded like wisdom. i don't know if you hear things the way i do, or if it is peculiar to me.

there comes a point where i can no longer tell you i love you. i cannot convince you if i try. i can only let you find it in your heart, your mind, your soul, that i love you. believe that love.

now this thought led to another,

then, when you believe it, trust it, my love, that is, i am free again to say it.

what does all that mean. of course i am not entirely sure, but i've no need for certainty before i believe a thing to be true. it is a lot like life that way.

meanwhile, in the background, one of my all time favorite movies, out of africa is playing. now there is another model of love. something that intrigues me.

i want to stop myself from writing now because i feel a poem coming on. i don't write poems here. but it is, again, consciously subconscious.

the river then, darkening as the sun set. the cat i call greggy walked with me to the river and instead of keeping her distance, she rubbed up against me as i dangled my feet in the water, i took her in my arms a couple times but she's never been the cuddling type. she finally sprawled out on a large boulder beside me and meowed. this time, only once or twice. last time she accompanied me, she meowed in time the entire length of my stay there. it was painful. but she's braver now. trusting more perhaps.

and i could see the breeze rustling through the leaves. a calm and quiet was beginning to settle into the dusk. the heat had finally let up. and the warm rocks offset the coolness of the river. when i pulled my feet out and sat embracing my knees like they do in pictures of aboriginals in foreign countries, everything felt right. felt good.

i have trust.

i believe that the next door to open will be the one i need to walk through, and it will open at the moment it is to open. until that moment, i must stay in the present and tend to what has need of me.

i cleaned my apartment today, how the energy changes when neglect is swept away, and haste has been set in order. started the day at the laundromat and then hid out from the unbearable heat outside. i took a nap and retrieved my child from the bus stop. then arranged the things that i've been overlooking. all this to the soothing sounds of favorite movies playing in the background.

i have spent a lot of time in silence of late. i keep the ringer on my phone off as much as possible, and only look when i want to, i was beginning to feel a lot like pavlov's dog and had to break that habit.

tonight in yoga i did a full shoulder stand. it was lovely. sophie said

next week we'll do headstands,

and i laughed. she said,

really.

i probably laughed last week when she said we'd do shoulder stands. it's amazing how when you take it slow and in steps the poses seem to reveal themselves.

i stepped out of a few balance poses and, well, i just tried to get back into them, no worries. it happens. i think it's more about trying than about perfection. there is no perfection anyway.

i'm ready for bed. tired of body, peaceful of mind.

tell me a story,

she said.

and there's my poem again, rearing its head. i will sleep on it and let it come from the halfshell, fully formed.

living poetry

the poetry intensive was lovely, i kept going awol but i think that's the only way i can manage these functions now. spent three hours sunday morning walking the beach, it was like visiting an old friend. and it gave me a poem. when i read the poem to the group there was a gasp out of one woman and surprise by others, though i'm told it is a familiar union, the image that i used. but it was the act of doing it, the way one starts out on a sunday morning, fresh from bed, showers, lands at the beach and removes shoes. the water is chilly so i kept my flip flops on for about a half hour, then carried them, as shoes should be in hand at beaches. the image began to present itself early into my walk, as the walk progressed, it got fuller, cleaner. i interacted with the image. took photos. found myself conversing with the image and finally shouting,

i got it, i got it.

i don't know if somewhere someone knows what is to be written. but when i finally caught on, the images began to fall into place in my mind. i wasn't thinking about a poem per se, i could just feel images lining up, falling into a particular cadence.

it was, perhaps the most conscious my subconscious process has been, ever. maybe that is where i'm headed now. to a complete consciousness, because i can see poems overlaying my days, like an architect's sketches. i see all kinds of possibility. but none of it is complete, or even concrete at that point. i just see an overlay, like webbing, from scenes, images, words. to something that looks like a poem.

when i turned around to make it back to my car sunday, i wasn't sure i could write that poem. that i would capture it. this is always the question. the issue at hand. it's one thing to see a poem, to hear it, to know it's waiting but another thing entirely to catch it living on the page. to elicit gasps from women.

so i'm approaching my car, i notice how my body began to veer away from the shoreline and toward the seawall stairs by my vehicle. in this realignment, i found the final line of my poem. it redirected my gaze and the images continued to play out before me, life happening, and i heard what would be the final line.

someone asked me once,

did you write about it yet

no,

i said,

it's all words and images to me. i don't have enough distance from it yet.

perhaps it's because that was referencing interactions between people, which seem to take more perspective to make sense of. this, though, was no less important, but the immediacy, the presence. i was walking in that poem. living that poem as it was being written in my mind, and was able to go home and capture it on the page.

i don't understand how it works or why. i'm just grateful, every day, that i get to do this.

i thought when poetry was so much in my mind that i was living poetry, but now, this is something utterly new.

and i went back to the retreat, and wrote it down. called my best friend and said,

i don't know if i got it, i think i got it.

and after i read it, she was silent.

no poetry critiques, no commentary.

and i knew, i got it.

edge or ego

sophie stopped herself short when she was talking about going to the edge in yoga. i wish she would have continued speaking, those are always the words i want to hear, the ones not said. my nature, i guess. so today when i saw her i mentioned how i appreciated what she was saying.

she went on,

breathe (imagine everything in a heavily eurpoean accent, like there are ds where none exist).

when you get to the edge,

she said.

transformation is possible. why do we come for yoga lessons. to gain strength and flexibility at first, maybe. then you realize it is much more.

will you be gone,

i asked. i had overheard her talking last week. the dates overlap mine somewhat, i had hoped considerably, but she will be gone a month longer than i. which bums me out.

she will come. she is very good.

she reassured me.

i realize that these women are really affecting me, helping me deal with the many things on my plate. helping me find my breath, reconnect with my body.

yoga is a conversation between your mind and your body,

sophie says.

i looked down at my foot today and it wasn't nearly as bulbous as it has been recently. this is cause for celebration. i have a long way yet to go.

so the ego comes in,

sophie says,

when you're holding a position not because it's your edge, but because everyone else is

and there is some pride involved.

this is just ego,

she says,

not transformation.

i am trying to learn when to let go.

yet i'm finding i can release and breathe and fall deeper into a stretch, today was hamstrings. provided i'm in the right position, i can sink and lift and stretch farther than i thought possible.

i enjoy the openness of a backbend. can i do it very far or very long, no. but something about opening oneself completely. i didn't think i could find my heels until today, which was probably the fifth time i've done the pose, and each time swung my arms around, flailed them about, unable to connect with my heels.

yet today, when i sank back into the bend, touching heels, it was quite a moment. i get images in my head of limbs snapping off because the stretches are so deep and awkward at times, but i don't think anyone's limbs have snapped off lately, though often mine feel as if they will.

i think when i go to my sister's i will try to keep up this practice of five times a week yoga. it won't be the same not in a class, but it's not the class that i'm after. it's the centering. the silence. the release. ultimately, this changes my body. and my mind.

that is why i take yoga lessons.

passageways

i just read the last packet of my final semester. i will miss my mentor terribly. she saved the program for me. saved it. her critique is invaluable to me because she knows how to push me without damaging what i'm after. she has a very socratic method, which i find intensely appealing. i try to model myself after her in that regard now.

there is so much coming, but let me stay in this moment for a while. i realize how rushed and harried i've been, and i'm trying to change that. to learn to linger. i've always been a lingerer but now, there seem to be many more lingerworthy moments coming in rapid succession. the bath last night. pool side with my bestie yesterday. memorial day's long hot embrace. stay there, for a moment.

poetry intensive this weekend, see, i've already ventured out of that moment initial moment of my packet.

i don't know that poetry is meant to explicate everything for the reader. to lay down a linear thread, i think that is the job of prose. poetry is more jagged terrain and drop offs than that. though i understand, the reader must get some enjoyment out of it too, but i trust when the poem comes, it comes as it is meant to come. this is the premise of my process. it is hard for me then to clip a line, to alter a sequence to suit anyone. this is my limitation perhaps. but i can't understand poetry by committee. even the best committees around. poetry is utterly personal. intimate. the choices made there are not without some meaning. though not necessarily linear and progressive in terms of a narrative.

this perspective has always been my liability. it is why i entrust my works to no one. though i do believe the time is coming for me to publish, or, more exactly, to allow another to publish my works. that is a huge trust for me. it has to be someone to whom i'd willingly defer. those people simply aren't around every corner.

i will read the poems critiqued to the poets who have been writing with me, and hearing me for the past five years now. such time has passed. we have all changed. grown. there are conversations i have to have, that i know are coming, which will be difficult. i see it down the road coming my way, and i know i won't avoid it.

i'm looking forward to the long drive up, to clear my head. marion woodman speaking to me of the conscious feminine, understanding how far i've come. time has been gracious with me. it has brought me love, poems, life, health, and strength. and i am reminded of so many things she said to me before i was free. so many things i yearned for in that captivity i once called a marriage.

i'm not down on marriage per se, i'm down on my marriage. i am still trying to finalize that end, but in the meantime, i'm moving on. trusting. who can know what is to come until it has been.

you can't take your garbage with you,

woodman says.

and i remember when we moved out to new york, how i wanted to be done with it all, to let many of our possessions go, not tuck them away into a workshop. i knew the day would come when i would have to return to texas and bury the dead left rotting above ground.

that day is nearly upon us. this summer looks to be the time for my sojourn back. driving back through tennessee and remembering where i came from.

dreams

i just had an unsettling one. sometimes i wake up and try to rationalize it. but when it involves the ones i love it's hard.

think about something else then, this doesn't address the issue. but dreams are just that, dreams, right. why give them any weight.

it's not me who weights the dream with meaning, it is the dream itself does that. when i wake with a heaving chest, though i wasn't so bad this time, heart racing, it's hard to ignore that. to say,

it was just a dream.

sometimes i just have to cry. to tell someone about it.

stress dreams,

she called them once. i try to remind myself of this.

but i don't feel stressed, not in the slightest, so what does the dream represent. some underlying fear, some inherent doubt i have yet to acknowledge. perhaps.

am i weighting it too heavily, perhaps, but as i said, it's the dream itself that gives it substance.

yoga was tough today. i was physically tired, but the work was full of forward bends and lunges, to the point of feeling like my body would end up in a heap. at least i made it through the class, last week, was a different story.

i'd like to say i got some spiritual meaning out of today's yoga class but all i got was shaking legs and a trembling body. it feels good to push myself, i can feel my body changing. but that is the difference between this and the other teachers, she is bodycentric. it's not a bad thing, it merely is.

i wonder what i would be if i ever taught yoga.

trying to figure out how to move forward from this place in my life.

all feels well, i had a genuine sense of well being today, before that dream episode. and it gives me pause. what is happening different. i'm watching a rather violent hbo series out of sheer boredom, i admit it. watching before i go to sleep. i should probably spend more time at the river. didn't even make it there today.

i'm thinking about my sister and feeling torn in my life, wanting to be near her now, but knowing i am here. this is where i live. i want to protect her, take care of her. shelter her for a bit.

so i'm going to spend an entire month with her, soon. it feels far away. i can only trust the universe to provide what she needs. to send the help she requires. to breathe life into her and strengthen her. i can only love her from afar.

i must remember not to be so far in my thoughts, to reach out to her and remind her she is loved, and safe. she is a powerful woman.

head stand

i went back to sophie's class last night because i was out of sorts. i needed to find my center again as i'd been thrown off. this time when we did the headstand preparation, i went ahead and lifted my legs into the headstand, with sophie spotting me, i was in a head stand for about 30 seconds, then got all wobbly and let myself down. but i did it. it was wonderful.

i'm awful, just atrocious at following direction, but maybe this will help. some of it is instinctive, you have to know where to go, what to do, i get all caught up in the words sometimes, and i'm grateful i'm learning the names of poses, and beginning to recognize the flow.

i didn't get into the writer's conference i'd hoped to attend in la. and while that saddens me, everything has a purpose. there is a reason for everything. so, i will still enjoy myself and move forward.

my work is getting stronger, though i am hesitant to share it with many people at this point because it is so close to the bone. lately, only my sister has been seeing any of it. and my best friend hearing it. she tells me to change this or that, i told her

she's quite the poetry critic now.

when she balks at yet another session of poetry reading i remind her,

it's in the fine print of our best friend contract, you have to be subjected to my work.

then you have to listen to my critique,

she replies.

i liked it better when she was ignorant these things and had no opinion. sometimes that's easier. though having someone argue with me about my work is probably good for me. i can see where i deliberately did or do something.

but, beggars can't be choosers. i would like to find some kindred community as at the moment i'm feeling isolated artistically. though i have had experiences i wouldn't trade, the rush of poems that come from the conversations i have with a dear friend. it's all still there, i just want to share it, willingly with others.

how does that happen?

i don't know.

so i kept having to breathe deep and still my mind yesterday because my baby needed to see the doctor. i don't know what it is about me and doctors but i get freaked out.

so yoga. then sophie led us through a quiet meditation at the end which helped tremendously. i felt lost before i arrived, and when i left, felt myself again.

it doesn't hurt too that she walks over and helps me get into position. we don't talk much, but she is whom i would model myself after if i could. there are not many people i can say that about.

she closes the session with,

when you are in the place of light, of love, of truth in yourself, and i am in the place of light, of love, of truth in myself, then we are one.

i love that. so true.

mat work

that's probably not what it's called, technically, but i make up names for things.

so this morning's yoga was wonderful. we stayed on the floor and did a lot of stretching and balancing from the ground. at one point we got on our foreheads and put our knees on the back of our arms in preparation for the head stand. i did it, held it and was solid. sophie walks over,

can you put up one leg.

no.

i laughed and let myself down. i know my limitations.

it's curious because i'm not the most flexible person in the room, nor am i the most adept at yoga. but the really hard shit comes easily to me. the simple stuff, flat back, following direction (:D) very difficult.

sophie talks a lot about the spirituality of yoga and this pleases me. i'm utilitarian by nature. i want my actions to be meaningful.

she helped me find my breath today too, which was huge. it was probably the first time i felt in slight awareness of my breath and able to begin to control it.

so i've put away the winter clothes, finally. and now i'm all ready for spring. still haven't finished the cleaning to do today, but it's been incredibly productive so far. when i clean my girl comes in the door and dances. it's so cute to see, like the energy of the place changes when things are in order. it probably does.

i'm excited about the coming weeks. the next month is full of little details before graduation. then i'm gone for a long vacation. i can't wait. i haven't had a vacation in ages. eons.

i plan to vegemetate regularly.