Beings Full of Terrible Wonder, Wanting To Be Known

Okay, so maybe I lied a little bit. 

Or, maybe I didn't lie, but I changed my mind.  I had another post planned: the part two of my "blowin' it out the badass box" writing, and I wrote it...but I'm not going to share it.  That writing is for me.  So, you've got a part one without a part two.  Sorry not sorry.

(I've never actually used that phrase before.  Look at me go...being all hip with the lingo.........or something.  YOLO, y'all).

Ahem.

I'm thinking a lot lately about growth and change, and how no one tells you how painful that shit is. 

I'm thinking about the fact that growth and change is not linear.  It's back and forth and in-between.  It's good days and bad days, and days that are both and neither.  It's holding on so tight it hurts.  It is knowing that you are white-knuckling it through the day.  It's doing it anyway.

I'm thinking about the fact that growth comes with hurt so deep it takes your breath away.  Growth is days when all you can do is remind yourself that getting to the next moment is your only goal.  It's wishing that was hyperbole.  I'm thinking about the ways this makes me feel so deeply alone, and knowing I cannot do it alone, and knowing that alone is the only way through it.  I'm thinking about the ways we are irrevocably alone, and about the way that the desire to be seen and known in that aloneness aches my bones. 

Growth is believing all of these things to be so painful and terrifying, and also believing them to be right and good.  It's about finding a way to live those contradictions.  It's knowing that shame is not the answer.  It is engaging the struggle to believe you are worthy of the fight, of the pain, and of the joy.  It's continuing the fight to breathe, while acknowledging that the fight itself is holy.  It's knowing this reads like a war story, but wanting it to read like a blessing.  It's wanting you to understand that it's both.  It just is.

I'm thinking about the fact that sometimes growth means waking up and witnessing your life.  I'm thinking about how it means truly feeling everything, and how this is beautiful and right, and so fucking painful.  I'm thinking about the fact that sometimes numb is such a way of being, you don't realize it was there until sensation creeps in.  I'm realizing that sensation doesn't come back until you see and name the doors you closed to keep her out.  I'm trying to believe there is no shame in this seeing, this realizing, this naming, this opening of doors, this waking and feeling.  I'm thinking about the ways that I am scared of this, and scared of the way the world will or will not receive me.  I'm thinking about how powerful it is to truly witness oneself and ones life.  I'm thinking about the bravery that's needed to live into that opening.  I'm wondering if I have that power and bravery.  It's feeling like I must be the only one who has ever lived this.  It's being sure that none of you will really understand. It's knowing I must have the power and bravery, regardless. 

I'm thinking about how alive feels different these days.  I'm thinking about how being truly alive is electrifying in its intensity, and the ways I find this to be a terrible wonder that makes me curious, and terrified, and confused, and joyful all at once.  It is wanting someone just to witness this with me: to know that it is painful and hard and the sheer overwhelming weight of its intensity takes my breath away.  It is wanting someone to witness that, through this, there is also so much joy, and gratitude, and amazement.  This thing that is happening around and within me is a terrible wonder that is beautiful, and hard, and scary, and ultimately so very right.  

Is it the same with you?  Are we all beings full of terrible wonder, just wanting to be known?

Blowin' it out the badass box: Part one

When I called my sister the other day with some exciting news to share, her response was this: "Dude!  You're blowin' it out the badass box lately!"  (We used to be American Idol fans, and judge Randy Jackson was known to say that contestants were "blowin' it out tha box"...we've adopted that into our occasional lexicon to tell one another we were particularly rocking it).

For over a week now, I've been thinking that I really need to sit down and write about the past couple weeks - even just for me, if I'm not going to share it.  There has been so much going on -- SO much -- and it is good.  Deeply good.  Beautiful, even.  There is a lot going on inside of my heart right now, and it is deeply good and beautiful. 

It feels hard to write about, because it feels intensely personal.  It is intensely personal, and most of it I will not share.  But I am curious about the fact that it feels necessary to hold this thing that is happening so close to my heart.  I am curious about the fact that I feel this intensity of emotion, and the ways that this makes me feel so alive.  I am curious about, and amazed by, and grateful for the ways I feel powerful, and brave, and empowered.  I am curious about the ways this is living inside me so intensely, and the ways this is good, and beautiful, and overwhelming, and hard in ways that feel right.  I am curious about the ways alive feels like so much right now, and the ways that "so much" doesn't feel like "too much," but like a gift I am finding a way to live into. 

I am noticing the ways I am laughing louder, more frequently, less self-consciously.  I am noticing the ways I feel like my body belongs to me in ways it never felt like it did.  I am noticing that I not only feel at home in my body, but also in community.  I am not always waiting, always looking, always preparing for disaster.  My body is not always scanning, always gauging, always timing the quickest route to an exit.  I don't spend as much time convincing myself of all the reasons why no one will accept me/like me/be kind.  I don't work quite so hard to convince myself of all the reasons why I should not go to events, and of all the reasons why no one will want me there. 

This is beautiful, and good, and overwhelming, and hard, and it feels like I need to hold it close to my heart.  It is so much.  It feels fragile and powerful all at once, and there is something about it that is hard to say aloud.  There is some fear, and some joy, and lots of gratitude, and questions about "deserving" and worth and owning my body and my intensity and my strength.  There are questions, and thoughts, and also the fact that it is happening -- that it is here inside my skin, and making its way into my laughter and my smile and my presence.  It is so many feelings.  My heart feels different.  It just feels different.  Remember a few weeks ago when I said that my 30 days of poetry project felt holy in a holy-as-a-verb-and-not-an-adjective sort of way?  That's how this feels - like there is an action that is happening in my heart, and that action is holy.  This process of coming into my body, coming into my heart, feeling powerful -- it's holy.  Scared, beautiful, painful, self-critical, ugly, patient, grateful holy. 

Part of the badassness I've been up to is the fact that I did something I've wanted to do for a long time: I got a tattoo.  In fact, I promised myself this tattoo 5 years ago.  As soon as I did this Important Thing, I told myself, I could get this tattoo.  It took me 5 years to do the thing, but I did it.  I am telling myself that the doing of the thing is the only thing that matters - it does not matter that it took 5 years.  It matters only that I did it.  That I am doing it.  That I continue doing it.  This is not easy, but I'm trying.  This tattoo was and continues to be a promise to myself to do the thing, and its permanency is a reminder to keep doing the thing. It is important.  More important than you can possibly imagine. 

People keep asking me "does this design have deeper meaning for you?"  Of course it does.  Do I seem like someone who would pick something without thinking ALL the thoughts about it first?  This design, in fact, has many deeper meanings...but those meanings are for me.  Maybe one day I will share them.  Maybe I won't.  Is it weird that it is so deep and meaningful and important that I can't even write this without getting teary?  What I have told people is that this design looks like freedom.  And that is so much.  So, so much.

I've also had many people say, "I NEVER would have thought you would get a tattoo," or "OMG, you're doing WHAT!?!" or "Woah, YOU'RE getting a tattoo!?!"  Perhaps I am an enigma.  It wouldn't be the first time I have been called that.  What makes me happiest, though, is that my community that means the most to me has been fully supportive.  It's not that I needed others' approval -- this was all about a promise to myself -- but it means more than I can say that I live within a community of people who seem to be willing to say "your body is your own," and "we support your decision to do with your body what feels right to you,"  and "we will love you and share your excitement over this expression of you and your person and your body."  No one has questioned or doubted my decision, or (outwardly) negatively judged me because of this.   I don't think I expected this judgment necessarily, but its absence feels like a blessing.  Its absence (and in fact, its very opposite) makes me feel like me and my body are okay.  It makes me feel like we are safe here.  And in fact, no one here has even asked me to explain the tattoo or its meaning, now that I think of it: it's just me, and my body, and my decision.  I am in control, and I am not being questioned or doubted.  It's hard to explain the comfort I feel surrounding that: this is no small thing.  It is so much.  It is so, so much. 

Getting my tattoo feels powerful.  It feels brave.  It feels like I did something for me, and like this is mine, and it is beautiful.  It makes me feel strong.  It makes me feel like my body belongs to me, and like I can fully inhabit it safely.  When I look in the mirror, every time I see my tattoo, my thoughts are "it is mine, it is mine, it is mine."  

Coming up: Part two of "Blowin' it out the badass box."

Love Embodied

I had the privilege of being asked to write a poem for this morning's church service.  The theme was the healing power of animals so, of course, I had to write about my buddy Mo-Man.  

Below, a picture of Marshall (clearly the most important thing here), the text, and an audio file of me reading it (at home, not at church).  Enjoy (particularly the picture.  That's the only really important thing!).  

Love Embodied

I went to 7 years of higher education

1 year of internship

and 2 years of postdoc

and I'll still

never be as good a therapist as Marshall.

Marshall is a 26 lb, white, curly haired,

black nosed, floppy eared,

4 legged bundle of love embodied.

He's not too sure who his mother was

has never had a father figure,

he had a rocky beginning that made him

scared of life itself, but now

this guy is perfectly well-adjusted.

Like Marshall, the best therapists teach us

how to find joy in the smallest things and

that unbridled excitement lies in the ordinary -

things like car rides, toilet paper tubes, dirty socks...

they teach us that we should fiercely protect

all we hold dear

even if it means barking at the mailman,

the neighbor, the squirrel on the porch,

they remind us

that our hearts are worthy of protection,

that we deserve

a deep and abiding knowledge that we are

worthy, and loved

if only because we walked in the door.

His tail

says more in 5 seconds

than I can in my entire 50 minute session

and as full as my body gets

with passion and love and more empathy than my skin can contain

my butt just does not wiggle,

my ears do not flop,

and thus I have no hope

of ever measuring up.

Marshall, I tell him,

some days this life is just

too much.

He nuzzles his head under my arm

crawls into my lap

rests his head against my chest

stares into my face

then sighs, satisfied with his work

as if to say

this.

This right here

is what the whole world needs.

I'm not one who often

takes advice from those who

roll on dead things or

smell others bottoms upon first meeting,

but I try to learn his simplicity as he

enters my space gently

looks at my face with soul-filled eyes,

reads my body and settles in to say:

we'll just sit here then,

feeling what we feel,

until we're ready to move on.

Don't worry

I'll keep loving us in this moment,

regardless.

Day 31: The final poem

Here are the numbers:

Number of days: 30

Number of finished poems: 30

Number of unfinished drafts I could still work on: 3

Page views in the past month: 2,020 (holy crap!)

Most popular poem: "Charleston" with 116 page views

Least viewed poem: "It is no small matter" with 26 page views

Number of audio recordings I posted: 2

Hours of sleep lost: a lot

But...holy cow, y'all.  This meant so much more to me than I thought it would.  It feels kinda weird writing about it, actually, because as public as this experience was, the impact feels very private and close to my heart.   

I don't know why I decided to do this.  I don't know why I felt it necessary to start this challenge on some random day in June and why - unlike all the other times I thought about it - I actually did it.  All the way to the end.  It's not that I'm not used to seeing things through to completion...other than that huge, boring counted cross-stitch I started in middle school, and the book The Hobbit, I actually can't think of anything I have started and haven't finished.  But doing this -- finishing this -- it feels like something important.  My heart is here in these words.  Thirty days of my heart. 

My rules were at the beginning were thus:

1.       I am going to try not to expect brilliance or perfection.

2.       I will try not to stress about it.

3.       I will try to limit myself to 30 minutes on the poem.

4.       I will be okay with shitty poems.

5.       I will write one poem every day for 30 days.

So, here's the truth.  I stressed a little bit.  Or maybe a lot.  I spent much more than 30 minutes on many of the poems.  I was not okay with shitty poems, and I declared many poems that I now like to be shitty upon their initial writing.  Actually, I declared every single poem to be shitty.  I can't lie.  I expected every poem to be brilliant and perfect within the first 2 minutes of it being sprung from my brain.  Every single night I posted the poem while saying some version of: "fuck it I'm done with this shitty poem I don't even know why I decided to do this stupid thing anyway this is ridiculous I'm going to bed." 

But here's the thing: I did it anyway.  Every day.  Even when I hated it.  Even when I thought I couldn't.  Even when it scared the everloving shit out of me. 

Because I didn't hate it.  I knew I didn't hate it.  (Except for a couple moments...there were a few moments of hating it).  It wasn't anger or hatred or frustration that made me respond the way I did: it was fear.  This project was scary.  It made me feel vulnerable in many ways - I had to be okay with writing raw emotion when that was all I had.  I had to be okay with writing and sharing things that I found less than perfect, less than "okay," less than I would have previously been willing to share with anyone.  I had to write, and name, and process, and explain my emotions while they were still raw.  I had to be okay with hearing and sharing my own voice, without time to sit with it and make it technologically beautiful.  I couldn't always dress it up all fancy: if I hoped to get any sleep, I was going to have to post it real.  It's kinda like going out without make-up, except it feels more like going out without clothes: this is what the real me looks like.  It's hard.  It's scary.  It's vulnerable.  It's real. 

What I didn't expect, though, was this little exercise would make me feel powerful.  But it does.  It did.  Knowing that I have a collection of 30 poems from the past month, and that they are mine, that they are true, and real, and I alone am responsible for the creation of these small gifts...it makes me feel strong, and powerful, and worthy, and alive.  I feel like I have 30 days of evidence of my power.  Most importantly, I feel like I have seen the ways this has carried over into my life, just in the past two weeks. 

I started this blog in September 2010 and, honestly, I started it out of desperation.  That year was my hell year: I was sexually assaulted in March, and was living through some version of a literal hell - and I know the definition of the word literal.  I was being actively silenced on a daily basis, and I felt powerless.  I began writing to attempt to reclaim my power.  I did not have a choice.  Writing has always been my outlet.  For the past 5 years, it has been a necessity.  I have said that from day one. It has been 5 years, and the struggle is ongoing -- but I am not where I started.  In fact, I am quite far from where I started.  

I know I often gush about my love of poetry, and I feel weird about it...like I'm some sort of supernerd or something, you know?  I have never met anybody who feels as strongly about this as I do...not that I'm not used to being strange...but reading and writing poetry is the closest thing I know to holy.  It is a necessary holy.  Think of holy as a verb.  Like an action and not an adjective.  That kind of holy.  A necessary holy through which I find my voice and power.  It has saved me, as only the most beautiful, important things can, and it continues to save me.  I can't describe the feeling I get when I am engrossed in writing a poem.  It's just holy.  Scared, awful, painstaking, beautiful, self-critical, ugly, patient, grateful holy.

Having 30 days of necessary holiness feels like a gift I have opened inside myself, and I am in awe of it.  I don't mean this to sound conceited -- I am not saying that I am in awe of my words.  I am in awe of what poetry can do.  I am in awe of what it can do for me.  I am in awe of the way that putting words on paper for 30 days creates this sense of being powerful, of being strong, of being worthy.  I do not understand it.  I just know that, whatever it is, I am grateful and, whatever it is, it is a holy necessity. 

So here it is.  The final poem.  (Side note: the story eluded to in this poem is true.  Driving to work this morning, I saw a man fall off his motorcycle and get stuck underneath.  I jumped out of my car and lifted up and moved the bike so he could free his leg.  I think he's probably a bit banged up -- but okay).

The final poem

Day one:

I write about being 

observed at the park.

Day thirty-one:

I lift a motorcycle off 

of a man's leg.

I have nothing left to say

but thank you:
this has been a journey
of scared, beautiful,
self-critical, ugly,
patient, grateful
holy.

Day 30: I was going to write a different poem.

I feel like I should say something here...but I think the poem says it all.  I WAS going to write a different poem.  I'm frustrated that I wrote this one.

Also, it felt important to me that I post this with a recording of how it sounds in my head.  I don't know why.  But I did it, if you want to listen to it.  (I hope it works).

Also also, this is day 30 of my 30 days of poetry.  It's a sucky note to end on.  I'm going to write something tomorrow.  Maybe a poem + a little 30 days of poetry reflection.  I can't end 30 days of poetry on the fact that I was going to write a different poem.

I've done 30 days...what's 31, right?

**********

I was going to write a different poem

I was going to write a different poem.

I was going to write a poem about 

feeling safe, about the way

I walked through the crowd and my body 

did not panic, my heart 

did not stumble over self-doubt and old memories,

I was going to write a poem

about the way I feel vibrantly alive

when I can know that I am loved,

I was going to write about the way

I feel that sometimes now.

I was going to write a poem, but first

I went to the store,

composing the poem in my head, as I

stood in front of the canned tomatoes, I was

writing a poem about

love and

safety and

comfort and

what it feels like to feel whole for the first time

in a near eternity,

but my body

was not whole.

My body

was just another display of pieces

that are put together like ingredients

for your favorite dish.

I don't want to write this poem.

I am so tired of writing the same

fucking poem of how

my body

is not for sale, and

my body

is not yours to lay claim to, and

my body

is not fruit, is not produce, is not

something to be grabbed off the shelf,

I am tired

of writing my hearts stumblings.

I was going to write a poem about feeling safe - 

I am writing a poem every day:

it hadn't even been 24 hours before

the feeling had come and gone.

Before I was reminded that I am nothing more than a commodity.

Before I was reminded that safe is a privilege not all of us are afforded

at the bar

at the park

in our homes

at the grocery store just buying

a 98 cent can of tomatoes.

Before I was reminded that unsafe is where they want me

because it's the only way they can keep control,

before I was turned into a damaged head of lettuce:

squeezed,

and then cast aside.

For what it's worth:

I was going to write 

a different poem.

Day 29: Word One

IT IS DAY 29!!!!  That means I have only one more day of (self-imposed mandatory consecutive) poeming left.  I'm really surprised that...I'm actually going to miss it.  I KNOW, I know, I complained a lot in the beginning...but...well...more about that after I get these last two poems written.  It's been cool, you know?  It's actually been a really cool thing to do.  Much more cool than I thought it would be.  I mean, who writes 29 (soon to be 30) poems in as many days?   This girl!  (And "cool" is pretty much the least articulate word I could use here...but...I still need to poem, so we're sticking with "cool" for now). 

I had a poem I wanted to write tonight - a really beautiful poem that made me all teary and full of ALL the feelings as I was trying to write it in my head.  But then my night went a little haywire when I dared to go grocery shopping, and I couldn't get back into that headspace to finish them poem.  

So here's a poem instead about the struggle.

Word One

This is the way you write the truth:

you write the lies.

you cry.

you stop writing.

you wait.

This is the way you write the truth:

you forget what you know.

you remember what you don't.

you realize you can't say it.

you decide not to try.

This is the way you write the truth:

you type and erase, type and erase,

throwing words at the wall 

trying to find the one that will stick,

and when that word sticks,

you run, as fast as you can

in the other direction so its history all unravels

like a trail of breadcrumbs waiting

for you to find your way back.

This is the way you write the truth:

you follow the thread

all the way back to start.

You examine the word in its truth

hold it up to the light

make sure it is yours

smell it, taste it, breathe it,

hold it inside.

You decide to use it - 

knowing you're no closer to the end,

but you're braver from the journey.

This is the way you write the truth: 

you start again

for the second word.

Day 28: It is no small matter

It is no small matter

It is no small matter

that our country celebrates its independence

with explosions.

It is no small matter that red

is the color on our flag:

that it matches the color of blood we choose to ignore

when the person that's spilling is brown or black;

it is no small matter

that white is the next color on our flag,

when we look at who's holding the gun,

when just today

I drove past two confederate flags

flying from the back of pick-up trucks;

it is no small matter

that blue is the color of our veins

and also the color of cold, of ice:

the spilling of red blood at the hands of white skin

freezes the veins of some and

comes from the frozen veins of others.

Red, white and blue -

today we celebrate

not realizing that

it is no small matter

that our country celebrates its independence

with explosions.