into the deep

Recklessly, I wrangled my winter coat over my pajamas. The light had retired early and the netherworlds beneath a towering stand of Douglas fir were calling. Affectionately known as the “Deep Dark Woods” this nocturnal vaudeville housed a family of Great Horned Owls that my dad had been coveting for months.

Pouring himself a generous glass of scotch, my dad swept the tumbler to his fingers and took my hand in his other.  My heart took to flight and I held tight to his thick palm knowing that anything was game if I let go. Haunting shadows and menacing sounds sparked an imaginative playground in my mind as we ventured further from home and closer to the woods.

There were rules of engagement out here that were never to be tested.  Silence was mandated with an occasional inquisitive whisper reluctantly accepted.  Beneath the giant bows we stood and I couldn’t see anything other than the dark figure of my dad.  “Don’t move kid.”  After a few minutes my dad had spotted an owl and it was crucial that it did not know we were there.  I strained to see anything but layers of darkness only revealed more darkness and I buried my head into my dad’s thick side feeling petrified as only a 5 year old can.

Like a knife cutting through a wizard’s cloak, the magnificent creature pierced the absence of sound nearly knocking us to the ground. A sharp squeal erupted from the forest floor as the bird lifted its prey back to the branches above.  Admiration and remorse swept across my chest, as though I had just witnessed a gunslinger’s shoot out.  Sensing moral conflict, my dad squeezed my hand twice which meant it was time to return to our house.  As we stepped between tangles of underbrush, the glow of civilization returned, as did the breath into my lungs.  I tugged for my dad to come down to meet my chilled face.  “Thank you for taking me to the night daddy.”  I kissed his cheek and he remained silently smiling.

in memorandum

I slipped from the feathers of my bed into a game of nature’s spades.  Wet leaves and tannic blackberry notes swept across the freshly soaked concrete drive.  I inhaled my first cup of coffee as a sailor takes to sweet-spiced rum.

Under a cacophony of electrical rage, my feet quickly escorted me away from the drumming of thunder towards the steep grade out of Point Robinson Park.

I heard the jester, Raven, call out to me from the west.  I positioned his cackle above a young buck car-struck near mid-rise of the slope.  Celebrating in the fragrance of decomposition, he beckoned me to join him in a hearty memorandum.

For three days the foul scent of the stiffened beast caused me raw discomfort every time I passed by. I fought a strong repulsion and trudged on to meet the spot of slaughter.  Raven perched alone in the bow of a bent alder. Below, lay blood stained hair and grass interwoven but the lifeless deer was gone. Death incarnate had disappeared and I was left staring at the empty space demarcated.  Like a crime scene freshly cleared, I bowed in reverence for all mortal beings brought in and out of body.

Raven was quiet.  As was I.  Thunder ceased and I returned home with wet feet and a steady beat in my chest.

a letter to loss

When you ask me how I’m coping with the recent loss of my mother, my response reflects the confusion of a Magic 8 Ball:

I’m OK.  I’m so fucked up.  I’m lugging around a screaming heart in my chest.  I’m a whitewater of love.  I’m wickedly blind.  I’m dying.  Come back later.

And it’s hard not to be hard on myself.  See, there I go again.  But the truth is, no one really knows how to accept death because every death is different.  Well, there are a handful of folks who seem to have a grasp, but as a person staring into the shadows of loss, I can say there are more unmarked trails than lit ones. 

There is no 12-step plan to manage or to stop this grief.  I’m suspect to the negligence of any claims that love will obey and isn’t ruled by total chaos because the deeper penetrated my arterial vein, the more I spin into the unknown, be it into ecstasy or horror.  Or both.  Most certainly into both. 

The best response I can give you right now is that I am learning to be a constant dancer.  I birthed both of my babies while fearlessly swaying and stomping across wooden floors, so it figures that in the face of death I’d be sweaty in the core of the mosh pit.  Every day reflects a newfound embodiment of letting go.  Interpretive dance at its rawest. 

Some days I’m arm and arm with love.  My mother is so close I can feel her peppery breath to my cheek, and the warmth of her fingers on my shoulder.  Other times I’m standing alone at the middle school dance, paralyzed and awkwardly reaching out for hope, for a body, only to find false idols and blisters. 

Then comes Sunday, the day my mom left her life, when I hit into textured walls of nostalgia and longing.  My nose bleeds and the ache burns my bare feet up to my chest and out through my skinny arms.  I look for her and she is nowhere.  I call for her into darkness.  Like a child in the throes of tantrum, I scream violently for her throwing myself against the door that separates us until I succumb to surrender.

This continues day after day, week after week.  And damn, the only thing I know is that I’m so thankful my mother taught me to dance in our living room.  Without those moves I’d have no idea how to waltz with life and with death now. One step at a time.

 

born on the day of oscillation

when i was little, i hated bedtime.

there is nothing unusual about that.
but what was and still is the most
challenging aspect of my existence
can be mined from this antagonism.

the concept of end, of closing the page,
of stopping action, and accepting change
toward being restful, peaceful even ---
goes instinctively against everything
i feel in my body and heart
about why i am here.

i am one of those over-inspired weirdos
that loves being, playing, building, laughing,
loving, creating, nurturing --- hell, even
fighting, struggling, crying, stumbling so
wholeheartedly that the concept of this
"ending," even if for a day, brings
such overwhelming sadness that
i cannot breathe or speak.

you might be rolling your eyes at this point
and that's ok.
i hardly ever talk about this because it
makes people very uncomfortable and annoyed.
"do some yoga.  try meditation.
remember reflection brings new energy."
and i appreciate you saying that.
but it's not that simple for me.

containing this well spring of passion
is like trying to embrace a supercell tornado
and sometimes i get so angry at myself
for feeling this way that i try to attack
it too with total apathy, fear, bottles of wine,
---- any myriad of colorful distractions

but no matter what I do, this feeling relentlessly rises.
and as i paddle out into the day
the crests of ideas, beauty, imagination,
and possibility draw me further out
into the prismatic sea, past the break, until I find
the angle and force of the perfect wave
to bring me into something new.
over and over this happens
like riding a great set and
my energy matches and meets the invitation.

until it doesn't and i am so fucking exhausted
that i crash brutally.  i miss a sign, i lose intuition,
i take a drink or 4 to calm down and then it hits me
and sends me to the bottom - the abyss of darkness,
sand packs my nostrils, flailing arms and legs render useless.
i am alone and it is terrifying.
i doubt every part of myself that started the quest,
that believed in my capacity to be so infinite
and i retreat away from love and into self loathing.

i can empathize deeply with those who have
been so consumed by creation that it was their destruction -
we all have our favorite handful of
artists, musicians, scientists, philosophers -
we deeply admire and connect to.
as they lost their minds, hearts, and lives
in this manic/depressive scenario,
we mourned their inability to find a balance.

so what does a person like me do
who loves being alive so much that
she fights, screams, and cries at bedtime
still at 35 years old?

i don't know.  but let me know if you do.

goals

sometimes life is about setting a goal and meeting it
i am meeting it

gatekeeper

as the gatekeeper of a lighthouse, i must close the gate at dusk every night.  time had moved blackness forward and i wandered into it with wet cheeks and a mascara blur.  the white metal barrier awaited my governance - when left open it was access to a northwest nirvana, and when closed resulted in a begrudging reroute with a hefty side of historical disappointment.  and here i am left as the one holding the precious padlock to a person's offbeat travels.

i started to sob wholeheartedly again.  clutching the tiny key in hand, i pictured it as the entrance or exit point of every relationship i've had.  be it the lock down or lock out of a lover, every flavor of this moment landed like chicken bone in my throat and i was gagging on its rigidity as i walked to the gate.

then i heard a sound -- youth suddenly penetrating my monologue of middle-aged medivalism.  a boy and a girl laughing.  talking about the mountain and midterms, about how pretty her eyes were.  that they were in the dark alone.  i froze like a cowboy in a spaghetti western.  these kids were here after hours and i couldn't shut the gate until i escorted them out.  so i approached softly inquiring if they were the inhabitants of the black jetta in the parking lot.

they sweetly apologized and i recanted my efforts as porter by nearly gifting them the beach itself.  "what you're doing is precious,' i said.  (and i want it too.)  "don't stop.  go to another beach and keep talking like this."

they drove away and i locked the gate.
i can't wait to open it again.

robin song

jogging down the road
i found a robin
dead, perfectly.

i knelt down
to study its anatomy
frozen in rapid departure

like an angel fallen
its opal eyes invited
me to cross the veil

in a magnolia leaf
i wrapped the bird
in life

and it sang to
me a chorus of
death, beautifully

one call had bonded
both dawn and dusk
in sacred union

i ran home
to tell my mother
this was so

grandfather clock

in my childhood home, a grandfather clock
watched over the living room
like a scottish grandmother
it rarely ticked, was never touched
but we all knew it was there, making time

one day, with laughter's legs and arms unwound
i collided with the monolith
of oak and glass and gears
the 'clism of time's death 
was like dynamite in a locked box

left without order, i smiled.
_______________________________________
he shut the door
and i lay on the floor
my body in pieces

my hand in chest
and i held my breast
what am i?

i reached within
and let passion begin
between my thighs

a wonderland
and i couldn't stand
that pleasure was mine

in final throws
and i deeply know
love is time.