cognition...ignite ...

the last few weeks in review... 3 weeks ago, my partner, the love of my life, the father of my infant child, and the man who nearly one-fell-swoopedly scooped up the contents of my heart almost 12 years ago... he went on a bender. ..... 3 weeks ago, i very dramatically scooped up my child, as much cash as i could find inside my house, filled a banged up toyota corolla to the brim with children's toys & clothes, shoes, books - Whatever I imagined we might need... 3 weeks ago I slept in my childhood bed, with my daughter by my side, and listened to her breathe. 3 weeks ago, i sat in my sister's tiny little living room watching trashy reality television, sipping coffee, changing diapers & playing with our kids, reading magazines & taking turns dissecting the vicissitudes of one another's worlds... 3 weeks ago, when pressed, i pointedly told my own mother - the one who saw fit to drop everything in her world at that moment and run to my aid, cradle my daughter and i in the confines of her house-beautiful home & soothe us with 400-thread count sheets & impossibly fluffy scrambled eggs - i told her - that I thought she was frivolous & silly. that she ought not to spend so much time just buying shit & why couldn't she contribute something useful in some way? I made my mother cry. and in the end, all i could think was - careful to hang yourself up on the splinter of another - when there's a massive log in your own damn eye... 3 weeks ago, i sat on the big, mortgaged deck with my father - that overlooks mountains & trees & a beautiful sunset - discussing farming & subsidies, consumerism, cancer & the My-oh-Mys of what a pickle we all are in. And I felt lost. So lost. & small ..... 2 weeks... i camped in the woods with mosquitoes & firewood and improvised woolen mittens for my 3-month old daughter from socks - who likes to sleep with her hands held aloft - as if she were absorbing Grace from the Ether into some infinite power strips traversing the width of her palms... i had bad, horrible dreams where i would wake up, wanting to spit and pummel at the man sleeping beside me - friend, lover, husband - betrayer - .... i stood at the edge of a stone-lined, grass-laden labyrinth by a river - closed my eyes - and whispered - avowing to live at the Center of my life - with heart & courage & verve & wisdom. then quietly walked to the center of the stones...eyes closed. i sat in warm pools and took deep breaths. i napped. i cried. 3 days ago, i went on my own bender - of listening to the news for 3 hours straight - deluged by the endless rain of Civil Rights not gradually, but so rapidly eroding, our food supply ever-more tainted, the corporate stranglehold on our nation growing ever greater - the Endless litany of "The BAD GUYS are winning"... playing its insouciant dirge another round in my head... and i could barely put one foot in front of the other - for fear of everything I buy, every morsel I eat, every trip downtown I take in my little petroleum peddler - somehow only adds to the Demise... this week i sat and listened to my breath, watching the endless rocking train, engine seemlessly linked up to the caboose -of my thoughts- for FIVE WHOLE MINUTES. this week i sat in the company of warm, imperfect women - & we dug together - pliantly nudging at the contents of our hearts & guts - as one. i walked, i wrote, i rode my bike & ate bananas. and i thought... how in the end, the political is, in fact, deeply personal. what a radical thing to move on into the center of your own life - inhabit all of it - the fear, the anger,, your doubts & your own great smallness- the myriad uncomfortable places - and to sit. Breathe. Listen. then to quietly ask, open-palmed, for Grace to come aloft - and be your Guide.