Heavy Boots

"Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than those you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from safe harbor. Catch the wind in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." ~ Mark Twain

Strange energy afloat the last few days, leaving me unable to sleep, melancholic, restless.  Sails luffing.  Must be getting ready to come about.  Hard-a-lee!

Night arrives earlier and earlier each day as fall continues to pull the curtain on summer's light show, and with each pressing, lovely shade of darkness, it's all I can do to stop myself from climbing out of my own skin, head outside for some night-swimming, leave it all behind. But there's no lake here, just endless fields of corn and barley, and I walk the long roads looking for something to lighten these boots, fill these sails...

Or perhaps, it's the opposite: the need to climb back into my skin, trust in my body again, spend a little less time in my head, and more time surrendering to the sentience of living aflush, here, and now, nerve-endings awake and alive and electric with connection, a little passion, flow.  Please?  I don't think I can wait another day, another night.

I walk until I find some moonlight, and fill my hollows with the stillness and the shimmer of the stars above.  And yet, it is not ever enough.

Sleep seems intangible, something of an other world, something that no longer belongs to me.  As if my days cannot end, as if those missing pieces are indeed starting to talk to me, demanding that they be dealt with, polished and examined, loved, again.  Don't you forget about me.  

What will it take?  Why is it so hard to make a change?  To trust that it will be okay?  Why can't I break free, gather the winds from the skies above to power my own sails and passage through stormy seas?  This is, after all, no longer a safe harbor.  It's time to throw off the bowlines.  Have an adventure.

"I am not afraid of storms for I am learning to sail my ship."  ~ Louisa May Alcott

Sometimes I think I want the big storm to roll in, as if I will respond only to the catastrophic with a force equal in thunder and verve, to take action, my fight or flight instinct taking over, and harvest the glad tidings and joy that wash in with the tide.  But things remain puddle-stuck, unchanging, stat-quo, blue gloom, in this little spit-spot, and I don't intend to languish here for too much longer.  That there are still things and people here that get me through, that feed me, that I love, is not lost on me, and I am grateful: just this morning, walking through this wind-swept day, noticing that change is all around me, in the burnished tops of grass and corn stalks catching the light, the periodic dance of flocking birds, the sudden shifts in light and air and even the way the earth-smell has deepened with a richness of a slowly rotting, forever cycling world, I was reminded that change is what makes us, keeps us, alive, echoing the force, the beauty, the necessity of unbridled, seasonal tack that lies deep within us, and without.

And this, too: walking through a shiver of Saturday morning comings and goings, happy for a few serendipitous face-to-face connections and real conversations with friends, and starkly aware of the absence of others, I am, by turns, encouraged and disheartened, the ache deep and palpable, the swell and tilt of emotion rising to the surface to find release in this gently blustery day.  I hear you.  I know you're there.  There is a sharpness to the emptiness, an expansiveness to the loneliness that fills the space, and I don't trust it fully; my breath restarts again, and I am transported back to the slow burn of fear and dread, where my mind takes me to all the worst possible conclusions, and then back again, to the searing, soaring hope, above all else, for something better.

Something better.  I've imagined it, letting the possibility roll on my tongue, the kernel of promise split into an anticipation huge and luminous and a-shimmer with the dance of heartache.

Heavy boots.  Pulling in the sails.  Just going to luff it out for awhile, sit with the tears spilling salt on my cheeks, listen to the wind moving through the trees, whispers of my heart, my hollows.

We fill those hollows as best we can, with star dust and sunflowers and sweet, unexpected kindnesses that smooth out the rough edges, and it's all we can do, over and over again.   Fill it up again, restock the shelves, prepare for stormy seas, and then, when we're ready, when we can't stand it another day, trust that our strength and light will see us through, and go.  Go.

Katie Daisy original

LOVE YOU

Today is Valentine's Day.  Just what does one do with that??

GOT LOVE?

I feel very confused and hollowed out by all the marketing frenzy around these holidays.  Blame it on the Dementors.

A week or so ago I was shopping at our local mega-supermarket and was drawn down the "seasonal" aisle--you know the one, with its steady rotation of colorfully wrapped candies, novelties and other proclamations of holiday fervor, all emanating a sickly sweet smell that drapes its cloying, oppressive scent within and without, and sucks all the joy from your soul.  The experience is a bit like meeting up with a sudden flock of Dementors in Harry Potter's world, I suppose, but worse, because it is so well-masked.  Under a guise of festivity and light and a promise of love and fulfillment, Valentine's Day rolls into February like a steam train shimmering with an expectation of something better and leaves most of us stranded at the station.  Ugh.  I don't even want to go there anymore.

But there I was, feeling some unseen, unsightly pull into the land of pink and red, standing amidst all the sugar-fuel for diabetes and obesity and cancers, and forgetting at once just what holiday it really was.  Expecting to see candy corn, or little foil Santas, I was overcome instead by endless bags of red-foiled chocolate hearts singing shiny and bright BUY ME, EAT ME, FEEL LOVED, and bags of conversation hearts stacked high for the Great Flood calling to me with their inane text-like messages, I-M SURE, MAD 4 U, U GO GIRL, and, sigh, E-MAIL ME.

That's when the Dementors came, hoods pulled over a faceless ghastliness, the swoosh of their cloaks announcing the hiss of cold fear that suddenly encircled me.  I could barely moved, but as I reached for a bag of candy hearts--UR MINE--and then another, NO WAY, I could feel all the sparkle and life being sucked out of me in frightening speed, the emptiness spreading, the anxiety taking over.  DON'T TELL.

I knew I had to get out of there fast.  SEE YA.  So lost in a supermarket was I that when I saw the egg coloring kit on the other side of the aisle, I actually breathed a sigh of relief and thought to myself, "Oh, yeah, at least we can dye eggs..." I took only a split second to register my mistake.  Wrong holiday.  LOL.  My head-spin complete, I stumbled to the end of the aisle to try to save my soul, but it was too late.  I can no longer shop happily.  My happiness mere fodder for the Dementor-led marketing blitz, I stumbled out towards the check out line with my two bags of conversation hearts, depressed and disenchanted.  GOOD BYE.

At this point in my life, Valentine's Day has merged with a whole host of other holidays that I enjoyed much more when my kids were young, and we had time together for creating handmade cards, baking treats, and reading picture books.  It was all about spending time together, and now, well, MISS YOU.  The holidays lurk out there like shadows from the past, old snapshots of happier days, songs fading in the background.  And yet, there's something about Valentine's Day that I always disliked: the excess of candy JUST ONE, the pressure to pair up, to flaunt what you've got, to make it all glossy and show-offy and suitable for the Valentine's Day showcase of lovers.  Ugh.  When my kids were little, I refused to buy the Sponge Bob Valentine's Day cards at the supermarket; instead, we spent hours losing ourselves in the painting and collage and cutting and pasting and creating, until, well, all the other kids were sending out Sponge Bob with candy attached and Valentine's Day became more insidiously-sweet than Halloween, and that's, I suppose, when I stopped being able to tell one holiday from another.

Nowadays, Valentine's Day merely taunts, reveals the faulty wiring of a memory that, thanks to the Tamoxifen, has seen better days, and reminds me that despite my best efforts to stay connected and true, the prodding fingers of loneliness often strip me down to an empty shell.  Still waiting for my train, I suppose. 

And there's the matter of  the dupe-marketing-machine and the collective crush of spirit and creativity and brings out my inner cynic.  I want to take no part in it and yet, I've wrapped up two cellophane bags of conversation hearts for my boys-- MY BOY, BE MINE-- bought them some really good chocolate, and made little cards for them out of pink construction paper and markers and a deep, simmering love that overflows for them and can't quite resist the Dementors.  Better work on my Patronus charm.  And be glad I wasn't shopping at (Lord) Wal-de-mart.  Might have been the end of me.

LOVE YOU