Saturday, March 27, 2010

how to remember love





my favorite lines:

"she tied you to a kitchen chair
she broke your throat and she cut your hair
and from your lips she drew the hallelujah"

"love is not a victory march"

"remember when i moved in you
and the holy dove was moving too
and every breath we drew was hallelujah"

"all i ever learned from love
was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya"

Thursday, March 25, 2010

baby!


sometimes the world works in really, really mysterious ways. when you least expect it, you may find yourself in a situation you never saw coming. regardless of how strong the inclination may be to ask how or why, the best reaction turns out to be acceptance. it is in acceptance where i find my core radiates. as hard as it may be for me to get there, once i am there, i know i function at my best. life is kept in perspective and love flows freely, from my fingertips to my toes.

as challenging as this adventure may be (watching someone i love in pain is both emotionally AND physically difficult for me), i trust that its been offered to me from a higher power/place and i approach it with a deep sense of awareness. i know my heart is about to open up more than it has in years...perhaps, it will open up more than it ever has. in all honestly, i feel it already doing so. more than ever, i trust the value of my role in another person's life and i'm embracing it with great loyalty.

placing my hands on the belly of someone i love and feeling the life of a little girl move within is unbelieveably incredible. knowing that i am going to be the key support person--coaching, calming, assuring, and guiding--is the biggest honor i've had in my life.

i feel blessed. i feel alive. i feel so excited that i am going to be present for the birth of a child. it's something i've wanted to do since i was ten and now, at thirty-three, i will.

i'm getting music ready. i'm reading every doula piece of literature i can find. and i'm exercising--this is going to be an emotional, physical, and spiritual event!

8 weeks isn't too far away.

*please god, don't let me faint!*

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

run

i am running
a half-marathon
of healing

a mile for forgiveness
a mile for understanding
a mile for sticking up for what is right
a mile for dignity
a mile for letting go
a mile for all those words said and written, but not lived
a mile for dreams, created and lost
a mile for mascara stained pillows
a mile for sensitivity, offered and robbed
a mile for dancing to songs we shared
a mile for pictures taken and taken down
a mile for music inspired by our touch
a mile for closure

7/64 of a mile for hope
that if we cross paths
we are bigger
than what we have been.

i am running
and may never stop.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

"But Who's The Boy?" A Conversation with Mother

I had dinner with my mother this evening. At the close of a truly fantastic weekend, we found ourselves deeply engrossed in fun, quirky conversation. At one point during the dinner, it became apparent that the waitress was paying quite a lot of attention to us. I didn't think too much about it until my mother made a comment about how she specifically catered to me. It dawned on me that she had brought a full side of extra asparagus, saying she "felt bad that one of them slipped off the plate", brought me 2 refills when I had yet to finish my first glass, and came back at least 4 times to ask how everything was. I just assumed she was new and was eager to please.

And then she winked at me.

I blushed.

I said to my mother, "I think the waitress is hitting on me."

Her response?

"But which one of you would be the boy?"

Suddenly I found myself in a conversation with my 77 year old mother, bridging generational gaps, as well as homosexual and heterosexual gaps, regarding intimacy and sex.

I found myself delicately describing how intimacy doesn't require a gender role, that sex between women doesn't require someone being a boy and someone being a girl. That depending on a mood or an emotional desire, someone may feel the need to be in control or be controlled, but that isn't necessarily gender specific. I described my own sex life. I was open and frank about how I've come to understand intimacy over the past ten years. Regardless of sex between two women, two men, or a man and a woman, it is truly best when two people are driven by the desire to please the other. If two lovers focus on giving the most of themselves intimately, then gender roles aren't really the focus. Pleasure is the focus of good intimacy. I've had bad intimacy and I explained why. It wasn't because of confusion over who was the boy and who was the girl. It was because of confusion in the heart to truly be open and giving as a lover.

I told my mother that I'm certainly not an expert, but I did need to clarify that intimacy is so much more than someone being the boy and someone being the girl. And after she thought about it, and thought about her own experiences, she concurred. Sex is an act of giving. Of body and spirit.

The cute waitress catered to me during dinner, and that not only made me blush, but it made me feel good. It's the simple act of giving that makes intimacy a beautiful thing. When I've catered to lovers in the past, I felt good. Some may look at how I expressed myself intimately and say, "oh, you're being the girl" or "oh, you're being the boy" but I think that's totally missing the point. And after a lovely conversation with my mother, I think she would take delight in explaining the point.

Monday, March 8, 2010

goodnight sweet sentra


Oh little me. I must admit that I have always struggled a bit with change. Sometimes, regardless of how exciting or right the change is, I find myself with boxing gloves, shouting "hell no, I won't go." Perhaps it's the romantic in me that clings to what I hold dear, regardless of how bad it may be for me. Case in point--I cried when I said goodbye to my car on Saturday. I literally had tears in my eyes over a piece of metal that I had to have towed into the car dealership. Most people would be like, "thank god this piece of crap is gone--give me something new!" Me? Not so much. I had to go through a ritual of closure with my car. I took pictures of her-she looked so vulnerable and miserable beside the shiny, new vehicles. I took time (a good ten minutes) staring at her and remembering the places she carried me to, the amazing whoopie I had in her, the moments in her when my heart was broken, and the moments I sang at the top of my lungs on our tour through Ohio. She got me home safely, every time....even the times I pulled in praying she would make it up the driveway. I imagined what she would say to me if she could actually speak. I think it would go something like this:

"I love you. I loved you the moment you picked me out from the rest and called me your "pussy inferno." I loved that the day after you got me, I carried you all the way to Michigan, for your first Michfest, and I eased your anxiety about traveling by yourself because I was the safest, most secure piece of metal you ever owned. I loved that I was there when you had your heart broken by your first true love, how she left me and you in tears. I loved that I saw you grow beyond that moment. And I love that I have seen you grow again and again through challenges, be it a broken heart, a broken kidney, a broken ego. I love that you risked having sex in me, but should tell you that people did notice when I rocked back and forth. I love that you are about to embark on a new journey. I love who you are and I know I will no longer be the one to carry you, but I see who's come to fill my tires and I trust in my engine that she is the best thing for you. So let me go to the junk yard knowing that nothing will ever replace the 8 years we had together. Remember me and put down the boxing gloves--embrace the changes that lie ahead of you."

So with a new car, a new home around the corner, a new job on the horizon, and a new attitude, I am embracing change and allowing myself closure. I'm saying goodnight, loving the sunset and moon that close the day, and falling asleep with hope. The boxing gloves are in a box, in the closet.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

daily advice to self

dance in kitchen.

slide across linoleum floor.

sing into spoon.


Monday, March 1, 2010

2 poems and a song

*engagement*

the day began with information overload.
took me in perverse reverse to a settled fairytale that suddenly felt more Grimm.

how do you do, past?
i have loved and said goodbye,
yet here you bring me headlines that turn the volume up on my aching tits.

only a bit of my heart screams.
maybe just the left ventricle.
joy pumps through most of the rest.

it's just the newly engaged was such a lovely swan
and could lick the salt on my skin with the softest of tongues.
(i believe angels kissed her mouth with lover's chap stick.)

i would offer to sing at the wedding,
but seeing her has always left me
crossing my legs.
awkward.

she was the ink a poet's pen dips in.
once you dip,
you never forget.
she stains fingertips fluorescent.

(i just told a lass how she used to play tiger and growl into my neck.
growl,
sweet little bride.
growl.)

oh tiger, i tip my hat to you.
i bid you adieu.
do send a christmas card of you and the cubs.




*toes and destiny*

i can feel my toes tapping deeper into my destiny.

big toes tap, curl, embrace

what these moments are,

what those moments were,

and what moments lie ahead.

"What makes me think I can start clean slated, the hardest to learn was the least complicated."
-Indigo Girls