Day 5: Anthem

Sigh.  I suck at titles.  Also, I seriously had to get through like 8 different throw away starts to get to this poem (which initially started with the line "I can't write this shit").

Writing tip 1: When you can't think of what to write, write what you can't write.  Then write.

Day 5 was a struggle.  But it's done. 

Anthem

Being a poet means

living edgelessly on the verge, always

feeling like you're

free-

falling through layers of life and line-breaks and

vulnerability and there are

so many poems I am too scared to write. 

There are words I

swallow like songs my mother sung me that will

kill me one day or

explode in poetic battle of rainstorm --

there are so many ways of fighting against a poem.

Pushing away the big words that invite fear and

working only with the smaller ones that will

coat the lining of your stomach -

this shit is real;

living is no joke and witnessing this through

poeming is

some sort of Fucked Up most days, but

I will write instead that

my body is an anthem I will learn to stand up for, so

I sweat from the outside in.

Let it pool in the cells between my ribcage to

make saltwater baths for the emotions to float on like the

Dead Sea, but

everything in me is the opposite --
like my ribcage is really a rib-liberation, and
saltwater makes everything sink;
like the Dead Sea is really alive and the

empty spaces are overflowing and

my heart makes breaking fall together --

there are so many ways of fighting against a poem:

so many ways of forgetting

what it feels like

to be alive.

Day 4: Holy Encompassing

Holy Encompassing

It's going to take me a long, long, LONG time to trust you, he said.

"Okay," I nodded.

Like maybe 10 months.  Or 8 months.  Or 12 months.  Or maybe longer, he warned.

I weighed this carefully, squinted my eyes a bit, nodded again. 

"That sounds reasonable," I said. 

"This isn't something we want to rush."

He glanced sideways and eyed me up with all 12 years of tough dontmesswithme secrets

and the words came pouring out-- slowly at first and then

all at once, like dark descends on nights without stars --

wholly encompassing breathtaking endings -- but somehow also

like breathing into the comfort of knowing that

here, where we stand

is also valid.

Day 3: Steps Before Self-Love

(1) I'm remembering that writing every day is really hard, and that sometimes I have a hard time letting go of my need for "perfection."  (And everyone says "sometimes?").

(2) Tonight did not go as planned.  This was written in about 20 minutes.  It's all I've got.  I'm going to have to be okay with that.  That's the point of this writing every day exercise.  

(3) Day 1 and 2 were much better poems.  If you didn't read them, you should probably read them instead.  Just sayin'.

Steps Before Self-Love

While scrolling Facebook: 43 Self-Care Practices for a Healthy Mind, Body, and Soul.

In the checkout aisle at Safeway: 15 Powerful Self-Care Tools You Can't Live Without.

In my email inbox: 12 Important Ways to Love Yourself

On the side of my news article about the latest dog food recall: 18 of the Most Important Self-Care Practices You Aren't Doing

Why the fuck are we shaming ourselves over self-care?

I'm wondering why I'm

supposed to be seducing myself, wondering how

I'm supposed to be getting into bed with me when

I have only just learned my name, and -

I'm not even to the point of

holding hands with me, much less

seeing me, loving me, and

what I want to know is what color my irises are on the inside, and

whether my heartbeat ever keeps time with the world,

I want to feel the way breathing

can be gentle next to me in ways I've

never let it be:

there are steps before self-love that no one wants to talk about.

Conversations that must be had before you can

enter into self-care but

before I lie

next to my self, I will touch her softly asking-

where does it hurt?

and we'll do nothing but

hold the aching

gently

in our hands. 

Day 2: Unsmall

Unsmall

We were friends the way 10-year-olds who don't fit
meld together into a unit of awkward by necessity. 

We didn't understand each other and didn't have to because 

we were 10 and didn't know the burdens we carried or 

how to name ourselves and our lives  - but it didn't matter
because we danced for the same reason
and knew it. 

I was the shy, bullied girl with too-big glasses; he, the only boy in dance class,

and we somehow fit into each other's space with an ease we knew did not just happen.

We got to know each other's quiet pauses. The ways his eyes would soften when he knew

things weren't good at home or

the costume did not fit or

they closed my fingers in the dressing room door - again, and

I knew the way he was practicing jumps when

things weren't good at home

or school

or anywhere

and we would lose ourselves in

who could jump higher or

who could pirouette longer and this

is why we danced.

Hey Buddy, he would say, and we would

sit on the steps where we

weren't supposed to be but

no one would stop us because together we were

invisible and invincible and

it was never love but I loved him in a way that made us

not small at a time when we were both

unseen: we could

dance each other large

if only for a moment and

what is love anyway but making each other

unsmall?

Life happens, in spite of unsmall love and

I haven't seen him for more years than I knew him, but

after 13 years, when I saw his mother's obituary, 

I knew I had to go.

He stands on the porch, smoking a cigarette

wearing a too-big suit and the weight of the world on his body.

Hey Buddy, I say.

He shakes his head like he used to and his eyes go soft.

It's been so many years, he says.

I hug him tight, his shoulders broader than at 17;
I feel so small against his frame.

I can't believe you came, he says, and his voice

cracks under the weight.

I hold him with my eyes and know this love
can still make us unsmall and

for a moment

we are there, 

dancing each other large.

Day 1: Undoing

Okay, y'all.  So, it's time.  For real.  I need to get my butt in gear and write actual words on an actual page.  So there will be 30 days of writing.  

For real.  I'm not even kidding a little bit.  You have my permission to kick me if I am not writing.  

Here is day one.  

Undoing

Some days I wear my body like broken glass.

Crumbled shatterings create

splintered mosaics inside this frame and I

thank god for the ways gravity

and bones hold my undoing together.

And some days

I wear my body like thunderstorm.

The oppressive weight of cloud hangs over my chest and rips

thunder through me -

there is danger

in the way I wear this rippling creation of a being.

I wear this body heavy the way

carrying a river is heavy:

it is beautiful

and deep as it silently

erodes its own

edges.

And some days --some days

I remember this body is not

a thing to be worn.

Not burden, not bruise,

not load to contend with.

This body is not

pieces glued together forming this

heart-full being of human.

See - a tree does not wear herself differently

because the wind has blown.

Does not shame herself when

lightning scars her skin,

when seasons leave her bare,

when insects bore her leaves  --

she lives her physical body without

shrinking.

Some day,

I will

live

this body.

I haven't been able to write this poem

I have been struggling like woah with writer's block.  It's awful.  I have about 15 pieces of poems in various places...on my phone, on pieces of paper, in notebooks, on my computer....and they all suck.  They're all trying to say the same thing, and none of it worked.  I have about 4 pieces of other writing I've tried to do to get around it, and that isn't working either.

So tonight as I was washing dishes, this is what came to me: "Stop trying to say all of the things.  You can't say all of the things.  Stop trying to say it all fancy and impressive.  Say it simply.  Just say it.  Ask the question.  State the problem.  What is it your heart is trying to say?"

And then I listened.  And the question is how do I write this?  And the question after that is how does my heart hold all of this?

Here is the 5 minute poem that came from those questions and that listening:

I haven’t been able to write this poem.

The hateful rhetoric is loud and threatening and I
am frightened.
My baby sister calls and tells me she is scared.  She has
nightmares if she reads the news
too close to sleep.

I walk the dog in morning dew.
The world feels fresh, like it
doesn’t know what’s to come, or—
maybe it does and it
believes in itself anyway.

How do I write the depth of this fear,
anxiety,
dread?

How do I write the intensity of this hope,
belief,
resilience?

How do I write the way my heart
blisters as it strains to hold both
huge
truths?

Hella Strong: Radical Self-Love and Gratitude

Okay, so here’s the deal: I am exhausted.  I have about 500 things I should be doing, and at least 3 other things I should be focusing on writing, but I really need to write this tonight. 

No, no, you don’t understand.

I need to write this tonight.

I don’t know if non-writers or non-artist/creative-types understand this need.  Hell, I don’t really know for sure if anyone who isn’t me understands this need.  It’s like an addiction.  It’s like I need to put the words on the paper or they will start to crawl out of my skin and do dangerous and unsightly things, and we can’t have that, can we?

I know I am not alone when I say that my relationship with my body is difficult.   It has come a long way – particularly recently.  Part of being human, and part of being female in this culture, and part of being raised in my particular family culture, and part of being a survivor of sexual violence, and part of just, like, being me with my particular neurology, probably, has meant that my relationship with my body has been tough.  It has gone through healthy times, and not-so-healthy times, and destructive times.  It has been through a lot, this body.  It’s hella strong, and hella resilient, and I have also put it through a hell of a lot of shit.

Most days now, I know how to feed her and water her and move her in ways that feel good and right.  It’s not that I always do those things, but more often than not, I am privileged enough to be able to make the choice to do those good things.  I am learning how to think good thoughts that do not hurt her most times.  I’m learning.  This being human, y’all.  It’s not for the faint of heart.

But here’s the thing: when my body does not do the things I think it is supposed to do…when it does not act in the ways I think it is supposed to act….when it does not feel the way I think it is supposed to feel…I fall apart.  I lose my cool.  The whole “positive relationship with my body” thing goes out the freaking window.

For the past week and a half, I have had some pretty nasty joint pain, amongst other symptoms.  I’m still in the process of figuring out what’s causing it…but it’s not fun.  Moving hurts.  Not moving hurts.  Typing this makes my fingers and wrists feel like they are on fire.  There are good moments and bad moments, and they are unpredictable and have seemingly nothing to do with what I do or don’t do. 

And ultimately, it will be fine.  I am blessed with a hella strong, hella resilient body, and with health insurance, and with access to whatever doctors I choose to go to, and that is one hell of a blessing.  In the meantime, I am tired, and I am frustrated, and I have done a really shitty job of being kind to myself about the whole thing, asking myself questions like “what did you do!?” and convincing myself that my body has some crusade against me, as if that is the only logical explanation.

In a few rare, gentle moments last night and this evening, I realized a couple things:

1.       There are not, actually, “sides,” here.  I am not at war.  This thing is just an experience that my body and I can live into.  And, I actually have some control as to how that is going to go.  This simultaneously makes me anxious and relieved. 

2.       Living fully present in my body is something that was a challenge for me for a long time, and has been something that I have only really learned how to do again easily recently.  Pain messes with the ways I use to ground myself physically in my body, which then makes it more difficult to feel grounded.  It’s a fun little cycle.  I spend a lot of time in my head.  And this is such a good excuse to spend more time in my head and not in my body.  

3.       I teach parents Kristin Neff’s self-compassion exercise all the time.  I have told friends and colleagues about it.  I refer to it often.  But I don’t use it, actually, because self-compassion is hard, guys.  I am really, really good at recommending self-compassion.  I’m really good at modeling it, showing it to you, taking you out for a self-compassion test-drive, even.  But when I am alone in my own head, it’s another story. 

Anyhow, she teaches the three steps of self-compassion (1) mindfulness, (2) connection with common humanity; (3) self-kindness. 

So, one might say to oneself – (1) This is a moment of suffering; (2) Suffering is a part of life; (3) May I be kind to myself.  Or (1) Wow, my shoulders and knees hurt right this moment.  (2) I know there are many people who are also experiencing physical and emotional discomfort.  (3) May I be gentle in my thoughts and actions. 

***

So I have been thinking for a few weeks now that I want to do a “post-a-day” challenge, and I actually really want to do a poem every day for 30 days like I did last year.  But then I think about how tired I am right now, and how much my all-of-the-things hurt at the moment, and how my brain gets uber obsessive about poems and writing, and how that would NOT be the kind or gentle choice right now.  Like at all.

But this is what my brain has been coming back to for the past several days: I’m going to start a gratitude practice specifically for my body and how it carries me through the day.  Because, when you think about it, it’s pretty fucking amazing.  Right? 

Every day, for 30 days, I will name one thing I’m grateful for about this hella strong, hella resilient, hella hurting body.  

But here's the thing: this works better with friends.  Will you also commit to loving and celebrating your (strong, beautiful, resilient, hurting, insert your adjective of choice) body with me? 

Will you join me in this act of radical self-love and gratitude?