because i said i would

For all those born beneath an angry star
lest we forget how fragile we are

on and on the rain will fall
like tears from a star
on and on the rain will say
how fragile we are
-sting

if only a few words tremble out of this mouth
and make it to the page
then I have done what I set out to do.

to speak.
to begin again.

with old music playing, so much that it felt like nothing I have ever done has mattered,
I rose to the occasion of stretching and falling and remembering
my blood and breath.
I am trying to dance with this deep borne melancholy that is sometimes the only familiar place I recognize.
my skin is not the same. nor my heart.
I want closeness and laughter and that way of knowing in a darkened room what a face feels like and that there is something there.
I feel far away from all of my friends. It is a distance that is impossible.
I have lost so many.
I don't want to reach out but I want to be caught.
I want to be there for all of it, but I don't know for who.

I don't want to suffocate myself with loneliness.
I don't want to suffocate my love. He is good. He is love. He is all of everything, but he can't hold all of everything for me. He shouldn't have to.
I am immense and tangled and a storm that sometimes needs to be set off to sea.

I am grateful.

and, this thickness of gray gets the better of me sometimes.

torpor

it's the eve of the eve and i have not been a good tender of the muse.
I have left her waiting and willowing and wallowing in
loneliness
and so I become lonely, too.

I am seeking balance
and something from the inside that is a deep exhale for my soul.
I run.
I do.
I busy myself and fill the plate with something after another something.
and I feel lonely
and sometimes angry
and irritable
and I don't know how in the world I will ever feel the fullness of belonging again.

i don't.

and I don't because
I don't nurture it.
I stay hidden.
I stay unavailable.
I stay in pain.
and no one knows.

I am loveable from a distance.

that's how I begin.
when I write, I remember that,
so I don't write anymore.
or sing.
or dance.

and something is dying inside of me.

there is no mystery to this latest version of depression.

i have strangled the muse and shut out all the laughing.


the question is:
how do I come back to life?

stepping in and stepping closer.

the threshold of this beginning approaches
I shake.
I sometimes wake in a heat that is unnameable.
I sometimes smile from my bones.

each step is tender
and filled with lightning.

today is 2 months backwards from that moment
that we will meet each other for the first time around the circle of
fire and friends, old and new,
enveloped in prayer and song and
love
and we will dance with the smoke and singing
and we will laugh and celebrate
and say yes
i do
to this next step.
to this beautiful adventure.
to this love. to these hearts opened wider than we knew they could be.

and we will say thank you.
for helping us to find each other
and for guiding us to live this love
to it's fullest.

harvest prayer.

I take steps with these feet that hold me,
with these feet that anchor me to the green grass when I say thank you
with a dance.
my arms slide across themselves, beginning the
gratitude.
before I know it has begun, it has begun.
I am in the dancing.

I hear the hush and
the crackle of fire,
my toes dig deep into mud and I am carried by the breeze.

I fall, stretch and turn.
I hold intangible whispers, thankyouthankyouthankyou
words form in my lips but they are forgotten as soon as they are spoken.
they are only for you
not for me,
not for us.
gestural prayers only for you.

my strength precedes me.
I am held.
I am taut.
I am shivering and shaking
and crying in my heart and skin.

I am moved through and
ushered like smoke
around and around and
through and through.

I hear the hush of wind
and the language of fire,
my fingers dig deep into the air and I am
danced by the gratitude.

in the eclipse

some days we are the small thing
buried in the shadow of the sun.

I make this footprint
my new residence
and curl myself into a corner of the last toe.

walk to the river

hello, you, weaving your web, strand by strand
geometrically, intently,
methodically.
the little one next to you, watching.
you pull a thread, you walk and circle.
you pull a thread and gather
and begin again.
tomorrow the little one waits in the center of your hard work
and I wonder if this is your way of giving to the next life.
teaching by doing.
and leaving the design for the next generation to catch the mystery.

************

saskawahawinee
laughing and giggling
playful
with light and life
mallards sing by
insects swim around our dancing arms
the sun is in the dance.

I am here
this time
to let go of the stones
in my pockets.
to finally recognize the red thread that has knotted and tied
and tangled
around my throat.
to talk to darkness and call it out to speak.
to accept it, but not endorse it.
to insist upon it's voice; tell me what you think you're accomplishing here.
and to wonder if it doesn't at all belong to me.
to tell stories of skeleton woman, of tangling, of singing.
to tell stories of China, of tea, of double lives, of roaring violence.
to sit by the fire and
listen.
and summon the words.
and utter the unutterable.
to toss shame and guilt and secret into the flames.
to watch the burning
of exoskeletons, like insects or crabs, dissolve.
of soft bodied, unformed I don'tknowwhats, melt and pour through the hot wood, like soup.
to recognize the past of smallness and the selfishness of motive that kept me trapped and sick.
to finally see him as not a friend, at all.
not a nice guy. not a compassionate guy. not loving. not kind.
but mean, cruel and self serving.
to see it would've killed me. to stay.
and to know that I was rescued, in the real way. in the only way that matters.
and that life was given back to me.
all this time later, all those yesterdays thinking I did him wrong.
when all I did was stand up again and start to sing.
all I did was stand up again and start to dance.
all I did was stand up again and start to live.

and that was never going to be ok for him.

he needed me smaller, sicker, less than....
so he could be free and better than, and healthier and so he could feel like an angel
to ward off the darkness of his own soul.

me as big as I am born to be,
was never going to be ok for him.
so he had to kill it.
just like my father.
just like skeleton woman. sedna.
tossed in the sea and
left for ages upon ages.

I rise. I rise. I rise.
and my heart is beat like a drum
and his tears are the salve to my awakening.

god, I hope so.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): I placed a wager down at the astrology 
pool. I bet that sometime in the next three weeks, you Capricorns will 
shed at least some of the heavy emotional baggage that you've been 
lugging around; you will transition from ponderous plodding to curious-
hearted sauntering. Why am I so sure this will occur? Because I have 
detected a shift in attitude by one of the most talkative little voices in 
your head. It seems ready to stop tormenting you with cranky reminders 
of all the chores you should be doing but aren't -- and start motivating 
you with sunny prompts about all the fun adventures you could be 
pursuing.

fear

I dreamed of a giant alligator last night. It's a theme for me. I've been dreaming of them since I was a little girl. Subterranean, mysterious, frightening, dark. Feminine, Divine Mother, Wisdom, Fear. all the same isn't it?

This one may have been the biggest I've ever dreamed.
She was in a small canal. She barely fit. It was an unnatural setting, not nature....more like a pen. Concrete. Separated from others, I think.
In the dream, I think 2 people were eaten.
The latest was a woman, young woman, wearing red and white gym shorts and a tank top. I remember seeing her and then I saw the shorts hanging out of the side of the alligator's mouth. Just like that.
Robert, except I don't know if it was Robert, you know how dreams can be, went into the area where the alligator was and he was being playful. I was understandably very nervous. He displayed no evidence of caution or respectful awareness. Against my pleas, he jumped onto the back of the alligator and danced around, jumping back and forth from her back to the adjacent concrete dock, which, of course, the alligator could also have easily grabbed him from. I remember turning my head so that I wouldn't have the sight, burned in my memory, of my Robert being devoured by a giant predator.
In the dream, this moment didn't come. It doesn't mean it wouldn't have. I woke myself up pretty quickly and was hot with fear.

What a dream to wrestle with ontop of a day and evening full with so many of my own monsters. fear and misalignment and discomfort with the existentialism of my moments. dark and gnawing self reproach and doubt and otherness and aloneness and awareness of the aspects that are readying to drown me.

We Are Water

Today my father, Si Houshang Azar, would have been 80 years old. All day I have felt a heavy and complicated weight. And then I remembered today's date. It is strange, and not strange, how tangled and timeless grief can be.

I have wrestled with demons. They have not let me rest. They have raged and cornered me, smoked me and screamed me, pinned me down and bullied me. They have tried to convince me that I am worthless, messy and a terrible trouble for anyone who tries to love me. They have pulled at my lower lip, gut punched me and kept me from water. They have punched holes in my arguments that everything is different now, I have grown, I have healed so much....they laugh and call me hopeless and stupid.

I have not let them win.  I will not sleep it off or talk it off or walk it off or curl into a ball and surrender. This time, I call on soul.
My Soul. My Divine. My Wild. My Wolf. My Wilderness. My Fire.
And I write and write and move and agree to feel it one molecule, one bitch slap, at a time.
And I wrestle and stay in the fight.
And my knees bleed and my teeth fall out and patches of my hair lay in my peripheral vision. But, there is skin underneath my fingernails and gristle in the teeth I have left and I can see, with the one eye that is not swollen shut, that I am still in the game.

vulnerability.
honesty.

this is what I am feeling. this is what I am ashamed to see or say or have seen. I take responsibility for that, this. I hear you. I own my part in this. I set a boundary. I will not agree to hold your share of the rope. I'm in this with you. I will not retreat from you. or this. or us.

and, then I remember the date. and I tell him. and then the glorious flood of pain comes surging and sea is in motion again. My ocean rocks into his own tethered harbor and he swings loose, too, with his waves and crashing. And the seas are in motion again.
And we are water.
And we are water.
And we are water.



*it was unintended and unplanned, but that last line, and now the title, are tipped hats to the novel by Wally Lamb that I just finished listening to on audiobook as I drove to and from the Blue Deer Center in New York. Thanks Mr. Lamb. It is exactly the way it is for me right now.

dive

this is one of those times of dusk
when the bony, withered hand clutches and wrings and wrenches
my heart like an old rag.

and I am soaked
in my own drowning pool.

lungs full and tears dried,
my mouth gapes in a last surrendered exhale.
there is no grasping. no meaning making. no struggle. no fight.

there is only a steep and steady falling
into nowhere.

a starless well,
a soundless song,
a hollow hurting
emptied of all reason or remembrance.

I see gun barrels loaded and leaned into my skin,
hearing the click, the click, the click.
the firework explosions of a raincloud, done with its raging.
the still hum of an ordinary night.
life goes on.

lights blink on and off
all the time.
just like Christmas.
just like the stolen holiness of the darkest day.

or else, everything goes somnambulant,
all haze and faze and fog and smoke,
like a perfectly forgettable dream.

just two stars on the left,
and I am away and in
the saddest chair,
pondering
every moment of waste and wanting.

after

I made it to the edge of my skin
after all those years
hunkering down
in the belly of my bones.

and I smelled summertime
and the sea
and rainsoaked earth and
freedom.

now, there are so many me's I want to be
and still,
stillness settles me and tells me to do
nothing
but
listen.

blue deer

I arrive home and recognize I've arrived home. I see things now. I smell the air in a new way.
I am the 2 deer across the river, bounding, chasing, pausing, listening....allowing myself to be seen.
I could watch that shadow bug for hours, stationed lightly on water molecules. I waited for so long to see what that shadowless spider might do. and I just drank in the bubble and ripple of the river; this kind and gentle water that holds my hurting toes and makes them warm. this grass, this wind, these birds trapezing from one branch to the other, talking.....this is life, this is life. There is a faint smell of fire, the clouds wander, the mountainside whispers. Everything is alive. I am alive. I am alive.
And, there isn't that low drone undertone that has been the soundtrack since I came to this place, this place on earth with this one name, one body. there is space and breath and silence and it is intoxicating. I feel myself here. My body, my heart, my joy.
I am grateful. my breathing is a prayer of thanks.

father's day.

you are further away than ever.

Since I was born,

I

have


always


missed





                                                                           you.

caught.

this heart has opened so wide
and, all at once,
I sing the seasons of the sky and sit so silently and sad.

I live in a world of unfathomable love.
I live in a world of brokenness.
I live in a world where the human animal has forgotten its animalness and so blames it on the rest of the wilderness for knowing its nature.

We celebrate and grieve together and
these complicated threads twist and gather in a sudden fist
and nothing feels inseparable
and nothing feels so hopeful or clear or possible anymore.

we are, after all, only human.

sigh no more

grief strikes at the most surprising moments.
making food for lunch, just back from a walk with Ursa in this almost rain spring day.
this song comes on.
and I remember you singing it to me in the car while you were leaving this world.
I turned it up and cried and sang out loud.
I remember singing it to you. for you. Singing the thin differences.
How did you know to give this to me?
And I believe again in the unseen hands that hold mine and know me to the syllable;
each word sighing into my heart, bruising it and making it whole.

almost 6 years later and the discovery reveals itself. that dark thing that we both knew without knowing.
You know me.
I know you.
the old world loosened and you slipped away.
my bones and blood can be the wild ocean and hold the story that lets the grief fly and recover.
Love will not betray, dismay or enslave you. it will set you free.

dress you up in my love.

I bought my wedding dress today.
It was a spontaneous trip to the store. I invited Linda, last minute because I hadn't realized the date, to go to a costume sale at the theatre. She said yes and was on her way when I double checked the time and realized we had missed it by about 30 minutes. I blew it. bummer.
So, we decided to go to David's Bridal instead.
I went last week with mom, reeling from the stomach bug that I had so, I was a little woozy. I tried many gowns on and narrowed it down to about 3. Then I went home and, in my typical fashion, researched the heck out those gowns and more, looking for a deal. Sample sales, clearance, etc.
Today, I forgot my notes and so, in the pouring rain, we decided to just run in and try some dresses on and see what I liked. I wanted Linda's opinion.
Colee helped me again. I tried on 3 dresses.
The first was the bling bling Grandmaster Flash: a beaded and jeweled number that is stunning and spectacular and out of my price range. But, so pretty.....yes, it looked great on me. To be honest, it was also itchy under the armpits and required a whole lotta corsetting. But, oh was it pretty.
Number two: the Goddess dress. super stunning, strapless with a simple a-line skirt and a train with elegant beading. An empire waist with some sparkly bling. We topped it with a rhinestone blingy blingy beautiful drape over the neck and shoulders. Beautiful. Elegant. Goddess-y.
The last dress: I honestly don't really remember trying it on before. It's a simple sheath, all lace with a keyhole back and a high waist. super pretty. elegant. simple but stunning. We added a beaded sash and suddenly I was in love. Linda said it was her favorite.  I put a clip in my hair and a pearl necklace on and I could see it. I could see me and Robert standing face to face, crying and smiling and starting this step of the journey together, hand in hand. It was the dress.
I became ambivalent about the dress once I said it. Buying the dress is such a big deal; it is saying yes, for sure, I am doing this and this is what I'm going to wear while doing it. It is the arms wide fall into the surrender. But, I felt emotional.
Then they handed me a bell and told me to make a wish, say a prayer and, when I was ready, to ring the bell. I started to cry; I was overcome. What are you doing to me, you tricky salespeople? You are shooting a bullseye on my hopes and dreams and the happily ever after...you know what you are doing. hooking me on how beautiful I am in THIS dress and then doing all these magical rituals so there is no time to look back, ponder, second guess....all the way to the register. That's the cynic in me.
But, also.....it was deciding I am not going to hem and haw. I am saying yes. This dress is beautiful. I don't need a deal. I don't need to get a bargain. This is an important ritual in my life. I am the type of person that could keep piling on the choices until I was so confused that I wouldn't be able to make a choice. That sums me up. This was a moment where I decided not to do that. To say YES. I choose this. I choose Robert. I choose this moment in time. I choose to wear this dress when I marry him.
So I did.

and, yes: I feel the slight urge to back pedal, to wish that I had slept on it for a night. But, it's done. Paid for. And I don't have to do anymore research. I can move forward. so.....YES!!

a love letter until we meet again.

It is all different now.
now that I know.

you are good.

and my goodness helped you.

and you loved me.

and I never willingly added to your pain.

and I love you.
now and forever.

and I am so grateful that you are free.

and I will grieve for you, for us, for me.
I will do this for you, for us, for me.

because that's how love works.

artemesia

day one was a tornado. splitting the timbers, upending whole neighborhoods, terrorizing the young and old.
this tornado loves you, this tornado loves you.
What will make you believe me?

it is too late in the night to go venturing out again. there is no hostel to hold me. not at this hour, anyway.
so, spill the tears and rage and stand and stand and hide and stand.
agree to some soothing but commit to nothing.
I spend my heart trying so hard to sit on the other side of this door, listening to your cries. I'm here. I'm  here. I will not abandon nor hurt you nor subject you to either.

I sit and breathe and sob for Idon'tknowhatorwhy. and hear,
"Listen to yourself.  Trust the tornado ripping through you. You've come this far."

and, sweet, glorious daybreak still shimmering from the flood invites me to swim in the gentle rain and explore. there are threads that have been holding the universe together.
afraid to tug at them, I tug at them.
I am light and you are dark.
I don't know why. I don't understand this darkening without reprieve, this night without moon, this void without end... and I do. It hurts me deeply to add more pain to yours. I freeze, conflicted, in your defense and in the obstacle of my own rage and terror.
It is complicated.
When your darkness is over, my own light can resurface. You must go so I can survive. Survivor's guilt.

and, I am grateful.

help when I need it most.

I might get ready to go.
The world is evaporating before my very eyes.
I say this and, inthismoment, my beloved luna jumps to me,
rubs her face against my hand,
purrs,
engages me in love, again.

SE, with love from Mexico

as a love letter to you,
I'll go into the muscle and bone
wait and wait
and watch the dance arise through numb confusion

and my spine will burn like someone is stabbing me in the back,
and my teeth will ache while the heaviness of my head wobbles on my neck like a
sand balloon
and my hamstring will pull like a foreshadow
and I will be lost and unclear and drifting and wanting to give up and go away and disappear
and
I will not.
I will ride the wave and warble and wiggle my fingers and toes and somehow stay
in the wait of the struggle
not knowing the name of the struggle
not knowing the place or time

wondering without any wonder,
"is this a fall?" in a literal fashion
or metaphor
and that last word will tumble back upon itself and I
can remember the Firehall Theatre,
dragging my elbows up and sliding slowly from stage left to right
deep in the telling of the thing
only my body knows.

I will turn to the right and twist and stand and revolve and start again and go slowly and
wait
for the potency to build.
and I will raise my hand to strike and I won't.
I will find the wall, find the door and pull
 and pull, pull, pull
with all my might
I pull it shut, to keep it closed, to keep it out, to stretch into the memory of forgetting....

and the beast, who guards the fears, says, " I got this. You rest, now"
so I do.

start with gratitude

1. my loved ones. healthy, alive, safe, joyful, living life in freedom.
2. and, they're all near and we spend so much time together.
3. love. this opportunity to grow and heal and learn love in a way I've never known.
4. art. beauty.
5. I can move, sing, think, feel, laugh, cry, dance, write, dream, create, learn, teach, heal, grow.


moving into another run around the sun, another dance...let's dance.
this time, let's fly, let's roll and release and make contact and surf and feel strong and flexible and resilient and delicate and fierce and soft and powerful and
let me be who I am without hesitation or apology or shrinking back or second guessing.

there's a new frontier coming towards me; friends and community that will sing to my heart and remind me I belong and that I am home.
my heart will not hurt the way it has. it will expand and make room for more love.

I let go of all those I lost...some I don't know why....
so, dj, pe, eb, sz............

it's time to trust what is gone is gone for good reason. what is emptied will be filled.
time for the reset button.