there is just enough.
enough heat. enough space. enough challenge. enough grace. enough growth. enough of me here.
it isn't 100 miles per hour and a collapse to the floor relief to be done.
it is a steady paced sprint requiring the work of my heart and breath, focus and intention, and I am still taking in the sights.
this gives room for the dedication.
today is father's day; the opportunity for somewhat complicated feelings to surface from the swim.
I don't separate them out and attempt to lay them neatly in a row. I let them hang out, intertwined, tangled and knotted, with an occasional clean thread dangling.
Instead, I am breathing and focusing on the first beads of sweat that are gathering their watered weight and sliding down my face and neck and arms and belly and legs. I'm here. in this room. now.
I remember my gratitude for this. I am here. now. lucky me. so lucky. blessed, really. to be. to be here. now.
My head is full of a story I listened to from the archives of 'This American Life' yesterday. It was a story of the massacre in the small town of Dos Erres in Guatemala in the 1980's. Two young boys were the only survivors of a senseless and brutal assault of the village by the Guatemalan military. The slaughter was one of 600 mass killings that took place during a 36 year long war that left more than 200,000 people dead. The United States Embassy knew about the incident at Dos Erres and other places, but kept the information secret until 1998. It was a tenacious Guatemalan female prosecutor who, after working on the case for 15 years, pursued the eventual murder and human rights violations convictions of three former commanders of the military squad responsible for the deaths. It was she who was responsible for discovering one of the surviving boys, kidnapped by a commander and raised as his own child. The boy is now an adult, married with four children, living in Framingham, Massachusetts. His name is Oscar.
Oscar had no idea of his history and considered the man who raised him as his own kind and loving father. That same father was directly involved with the sadistic murders of Oscar's very own pregnant mother and 8 siblings. The miracle in the story does come. Oscar's true biological father was not in town when the massacre occurred and, he is still alive. The reunion of the father and son is heartwarming, heartbreaking, delicate and complicated.
There is a stunning streak of light in the midst of such a terrible breaking.
I am thinking about this.
Yes. I thought about it all night.
And, I am thinking of it still.
I am thinking of the reality of the darkness that ensnares the souls of men and coaxes them into unspeakable atrocities; acts that threaten to destroy not only the physical bodies, but the spirits of anyone bearing witness, proximity or lineage to those acts.
I am thinking of where that darkness begins and how it grows so vast.
I think about the Shanghai Massacre that tore through my own paternal grandfather's story; how it must have punctured his capacity to trust in anything good or believe in anything like love.
I think about how that untold story walled off rooms in my grandfather's heart; how the buried fright and rage lay brooding in his body.
I think about his sons learning the language of storms; carrying the saturated thunderclouds in their open mouths.
I think about my father and the way he rained, like an uncontrolled habit.
I think about the lineage of trauma, how it travels down the generations like a drop of blood, gathering momentum and madness.
I think about all the secrets and violations, guilts and guttered shadows that are swallowed like glass and digested into the seams of our softest tissues; how the scars gather around the sharp edges and tense, distort and calcify until we believe we are free from the wounds. And, how terribly wrong we are about that.
I think about how the cells change to accommodate the ruptures, how the nervous system reroutes.
I think about how pathology becomes the new normal and how we are all just fish swimming in the same dirty water, not knowing anything else.
I think about generations upon generations, standing on the same broken matchsticks, lighting cigarettes and drinking gasoline, calling it good enough and fine.
I think about the rules, the beliefs, the traditions, the terrors, the pleasures and the punishments that started there and continue here.
I think about the ancestors standing along a long red thread.
I think about the ancestors and wonder where the thread began to grow taut, where it shredded and tangled, where it went slack and when or if it will snap.
....and, here....I dedicate my practice to my ancestors.
with every effort, every challenge, every edge I approach, I say to my ancestors "may you be surrounded and filled with unconditional love and healing, peace and ease. may you have everything your heart needed to thrive and sing with joy and freedom and love. always, love. may love be your truth and experience. may light guide you and protect you. may all your sufferings and pain cease."
I imagine the thread unwinding and softening.
I see my ancestors dancing, smiling, singing, waving their arms and carrying on in all of their languages, knowing that they are safe and loved.
I see them with open hearts and strong bodies, tasting the foods they love, smelling their favorite aromas, occupying their most sacred and sanctuaried spaces, delighting in the dancing and singing of the music that moves their souls, feeds and nourishes their spirits and brings them to life.
I see my grandfather receiving love.
I see my father receiving love.
I see me receiving love.
Today is father's day and my father is gone.
He is with the ancestors in that place that is that thread that is woven through my veins and nervous system, cells and skin.
With love, I am dedicated to healing those tangles and knots in all the ways that I can.
I am pulling the glass from my skin, watching it bleed and allowing it to heal.
I am here, today, sweating and stretching into parts of myself that are rigid, collapsed, resistant, righteous and full of rage, pain, fear or untapped joy.
I am here today with love.
I am here today with truth.
When we meet the unthinkable darknesses with the courage of love and truth, we bring them into the light.
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