accepting

Letter to My Heart

/ autumncircles / Leave a comment

Dear Heart of Mine,

As I begin this letter, I honestly wonder what I will say. I have attempted to make amends to you before and upon reflection wonder if they can really count as amends if I don’t change my behavior?

When you were a young heart, freshly beating inside this new body of mine, I am sure I loved you, protected you. Even without memory of those days, I can still feel your connection to my soul – our soul.

As we grew and our journey took many paths, some of my own making, some not. Through all of the winding roads, terrifying back alleys and sunlit streets, you kept up your end of our commitment without hesitation or skipping a beat.

I, however, have taken far too many risks with you, with us. Fortunately, the majority of those chances have turned out well and we are living a relatively happy, content existence today. It hasn’t always been that way and I fear there are still some danger zones I am not able to overcome that may end up harming you.

I’m sure you remember the number of failed relationships both in love and friendship. Today we know those were never meant to last anyway, yet at the time they were extremely painful when they did not need to be. We have the loves and friendship of our life now that make us the most joyous, most complete. It all seems like I should be totally comfortable in the skin of this body, with the air we breathe, or the songs we sing.

The thing is, I think I am getting signals that I am not, that something is missing and the most troubling aspect is that I am unclear as to whether these electrifying pulsations are coming from you wherein the truth lay, or from my brain which we all know can be a battlefield of confusion and treachery.

For example, I have this friend. Her name is Vivian. She has it in her brain that she is disappearing little by little each day, literally. She doesn’t drink or take drugs but she has convinced herself that she is not far from fading out of this universe into some other realm. I love her. She is my friend and I want to help her, but I don’t know what to do.

She has told me how fulfilling her career has become after years of searching and yet she doesn’t think anyone really notices her. She is madly in love with her husband and believes he is with her, but she never hears him say the words. I have been around her kids – they are totally awesome, loving and funny creatures and still Vivian thinks she is somehow totally screwing them up. She spends hours on end confiding in me how she longs for concrete evidence that she is doing a good job, has the love of her husband and that her children are all right despite her varying and sometimes quite explosive temperament.

The more I listen to her, the more confused I become. I begin to think that she is talking about my life and not hers. I constantly remind her that she need not seek love and validation outside of herself. She has that naturally from within and simply misplaced it temporarily. I have told her at least a gazillion times to talk to her own heart in order to find the truth of how much she is loved and will never simply disappear. I cannot seem to get through to her. She still doubts, still worries that one day pieces of her will start to disintegrate until there is nothing left.

She’ll have strong stretches of time where she is okay, where it really feels like she believes she is all right and nothing has left her. Then something small will happen, like a forgotten lunch or a misunderstood comment or a challenge with her kids, and it’s as if she and I have never, ever spoken! I know it’s selfish because these are Vivian’s problems, but it is so frustrating for me! I give her my time, your time and she repays me with depression and arguments and yelling? Why won’t she listen to me, to us? It makes me want to cut her out of my life completely, to not listen to her long drawn out protestations of insanity anymore.

And here, dear heart, is where I fear I am failing you. I don’t cut her off. I am incapable of not listening to her and getting mixed up about whatever she believes is wrong in her life. I want so very much to “fix” her and her thinking, I lose track of our life, our love.

And for this, I am truly sorry. I owe you more than that. I owe our life and loves more than that. With the marking of this day, this beautiful sunny day where all things are possible, I begin anew – again. I will protect you from the confusion that my brain brings and not allow Vivian’s invisibility complex – whether real or imagined – effect our connection.

Together, sweet heart, we will beat strong and in unison for our well-being, happiness and peace.

Love,

Your Body and Soul

(For more letters to hearts, visit http://www.blogher.com/)

Reasoning work versus Playful rhyme

/ autumncircles / 1 Comment

Ladies and Gentlemen!

Entering the ring, wearing the blue silk, business casual trunks and weighing in at a whopping weight of the world status of four hundred and fifty seven pounds is our challenger!  She’s mean, she’s tough – she stomps on daisies and eats b-u-n-n-y  r-a-b-b-i-t-s for breakfast!! Give it up for the Queen of Restraint, the Bitch of the Boardroom – MS. AFFLICTED!!

[The capacity crowd boos and throws popcorn.]

And now, flying in to reclaim her original title – she’s calm, she’s beautiful – she makes us laugh and cry with her peaceful kind of love and takes her man’s b-r-e-a-t-h  a-w-a-y!!  Wearing tye-dye trunks and weighing in at a compact fighting feather weight as light as air is our people’s choice champion – put your hands together for our Woman of the World, Child of the Universe and the Zen Goddess – HARMONY’S CHILD!!

[The crowd goes wild – screams and cheers echo all the way to the moon.]

The two fighters are poised in their corners.  Ms. Afflicted is snarling and blood is pouring from her mouth as she has just bitten the head off of a baby chick. She is already dripping with a grimy, gray sweat and pounding her fists together. Harmony’s Child hovers above the canvas in the lotus position, eyes closed chanting the love of the ages oblivious to not only Ms. Afflicted, but the millions of eyes and hearts on her every breath. She glows with a light of serenity that secures her place in life.

Let’s get ready to RUMBLE!

The bell sounds.

————————————–

And, by bell, I mean the alarm clock goes off and I start my day which frequently resembles the equivalent of a Rocky Balboa sized prize fight with me battling the demons of responsibility, all cut up and swollen screaming for my family and love much like he did with Adrian.

My reality lies somewhere in between harmony and affliction.  I don’t think I am much different from most folks trying to live their lives amid the human race. And yet, I masterfully convince myself that I am the only one who struggles, who is unable to work an eight hour day, get the kids to/from school, make dinner, clean the kitchen, do the laundry, walk the dog, please the husband and fulfill creative desires without neglecting the ones she loves. My affliction is adept at making sure I feel unworthy to have these children or the true love of a husband or even the talent to write a blog. So, I don’t do any of it and the house becomes a mess, the kids watch TV and a stoic silence erupts between my husband and I. I become brainwashed to believe that my children despise me, that my husband only tolerates me because it would be too difficult to leave, and that no one will ever understand and appreciate my writing much less consider it genius enough to publish.

I read another woman’s blog the other day – clusterfook.com, which I highly recommend – and someone apparently accused her of being depressing.  She has been fighting cancer for over five years (I believe) and is chronicling her journey through a blog. I am fighting having a day job wishing I was at home writing Nobel Laurette poetry and those interminable ten pounds that I cannot seem to get rid of off my ass. My site is depressing – hers is remarkable. And the most remarkable part is that she would probably not compare our two struggles in the way I do.

The truth is that we both receive some sort of relief from writing about our lives and pain and joys and sorrows. We both carry on the tradition of humanity that began in caves thousands and thousands of years ago with simple figures drawn on the rock and grunts around a warming fire that turned into many languages of expression.

My prayers are for Lisa’s voice to delight the fires of her family for many, many more years as well as the rest of us peeking into her world through our brightly lit LCDs and keyboards.

And me?  Well, I’ll keep on-keeping on.  I’ll try new things like a joint writing project with another blogger and maybe playing at photography and work on old ones like accepting and trusting life, each other and the universe.

Upon considering Breakfast…

/ autumncircles / 1 Comment

Don’t we all have some Holly Golightly in us?  The incessant race to get away from ourselves into the imagined person we want to be?  Running away from love to find more misery and reason to run instead of staying where we can find comfort and joy?  Is it the fear of not finding that comfort and joy to be enough that keeps us on the run? What if we were to find the love of our lives to not be all that we had ever been told to dream?  Or the happiness we are taught to spend a lifetime searching for to be a let down when we arrive there? Better to run from misery to misery, right, they never disappoint do they?  Sadness and despair are determined to not fail at their success.  But love and happiness – we have tricked our minds and hearts to believe they may not be real or lasting.  Do we ever believe the same about despair?  We all to often convince ourselves we will NEVER feel different, that we will always feel miserable.  What if we could swap out that same old fucking formula?  Trade out misery for happiness?  Keep sadness at bay rather than joy?

As deeply as pain can grip a hold of our hearts so can contentment and peace because they are our true selves.  We are born happy, unmarred, innocent souls with a treasure trove of laughter and acceptance and oneness.  It is only as we are aged by grownup time that we begin to filter out our original nature and retain the fear we are taught.

I did not know I was afraid of the dark until someone brought fear into my darkness.  I did not know how to be sad until it was told to me that must be why I cry.  I recognize this now that I have children with whom I have unknowingly taught fear much like it was taught to me.  That can be the only explanation for a grown woman to be afraid of a smile so all encompassing that it could lift me off the ground into the waiting arms of my spirit who unconditionally loves every molecule I am made of.

Should we never fear anything?  No.  Should we accept all that exists in our lives?  No.  Is it always up to us to find our happiness?  Yes.  Is this where the limits of my capabilities to stretch beyond this concept end?  Yes, for now.

I allow the din of many other voices to crowd my heart until it may burst into a million pieces.

I must let go to allow the symphony of the fugue fill my being until it pulsates with the life force that maintains its beauty.

But sometimes, I foget how to get to Tiffany’s…