taste this...

there is this couple whom i don’t know but are friends of friends... i suppose. i see their posters up whenever they come thru town en route to or from some exotic locale like bali or costa rica... somewhere with an abundance of sandy beaches, coconuts, waves & adorned navels. ….. but anyway... i saw the briefly at a festival we were attending on maui - super pretentious kinda’ schtuff.. costing hundreds of dollars to get in, camp, dine on inordinately-slow prepped raw cuisine and get exorbitantly long hugs from lit-up and woodsy smelling strangers. huh.

and there they were... just the two of them.. with names like shiva linga simphonia & her partner rama llama more-blessed-than-yo-mama... or something like that...

and they were simple. quiet. humbly sitting in the corner waiting for their plate of warm plant food or setting up mats in a quiet corner of the dome to do some simple breathing, moving... whatnot... unlike all the other swirling, dancing, fairy-wing laced grandeur all around them i remember thinking they were so simple.. so humble. so plain. something so unassuming about their mannerisms and their presence... it made me think there must be something deeper, more lovely & real in whatever offering they were there to present that weekend. no fanfare, no entourage... no floating feathers & vegan fair-trade lace trailing behind them to announce their glorious arrival. just the two of them- silent- hand-in-hand - dressed simply in white smiling - waiting, for the next assignment to emerge, guitars and sticky rubber mats at the ready. waiting. breathing..

and so whenever they cruise into town they offer this workshop... a puja in fact... which i suppose is just a fancy, easternly-borrowed word for a ritual - that glorious transmogrification of the ordinary into something Other - a deifying of space... consecrating the oh so mundane and rendering it sacred.... and they call it the Altar of Love - i don’t know what it looks like - i believe it involves cacao in some form or another - and i imagine there is candlelight - and soft music - perhaps recitation of words not quite english - perhaps bells and gongs and the laying on of hands and gazing into another pair of eyes for interminable periods of time and breathing deeply into sustained, otherwise uncomfortable silences...

but they offer it again & again... there must be something there.

and i have never taken it. don’t know if i will. maybe just slink off on my own to some darkened corner and eat an overpriced chocolate bar there - listening to the nutty nubby of its crunch in my mouth, between my imperfect teeth, let the flavors sit a moment longer than usual upon my tongue and think about sweetness.... in all its’ forms... (and maybe bitterness too - the flavor that is chocolate to begin with, no??) then brush my grubby hands off on my well-worn jeans and continue on with the day.... having knelt for a moment at my own little altar.... tasted sweetness, bitterness, et al.. in the quiet corners of my own little shrine... my home.. my cavity... the quaint and messy ode to being i’ve helped to consecrate... with paint and artwork, records & instruments, wrinkled tapestries and hand-me-down furniture --- and more books than you could possibly read... this. my altar. my day. my corner. my bittersweet chocolate bar - my own little puja …..

and i keep thinking about this thing - the altar of love - it’s a phrase that keeps coming to mind over the past week or so - where absolutely nothing has been going right - where all i can think about is death and madness - shitty diapers and piles of laundry... this quietly eeking into domestic non-existence.... all the lights once shone so bright now fading down into a molten, screaming monotone of white... kitchen paint fluorescent... the colors which once danced now static... painted. flat. wallpaper. chipped.

altar of love - because in the midst of this desperate domesticity - where there is little sex, ugly brown carpet & endless, mindless to=dos waiting for me... there is this pinpoint - this radiant, sunspot of light glistening right in the middle - my daughter - cliche and corny though it is to say -radiant and beautiful and smiling and gurgling and screaming and pooping and....... well - it’s her. this beautiful upshoot of sheer life force - who at times i cannot even handle. cannot navigate. but her. so beautiful and lovely and raging and pure - and there are times right now - as she is so young and pliant and still baby-smelling and light - that i breathe her in - deep down into the pit of my belly - into the base of my pelvis - down the length of my spine - into the pith of my bones..... and it is the purest form of love that i know - and i tell her - absentmindedly whispering, cooing into the side of her hair - that you know when i’m with you all i want is to be with you - that andnothing else - no bills to pay, no chores, no lists or planning or phone calls or grown uppery bullshit - just this - this rolling on the floor and eating cheerios and squeaking, shrieking at the funny noises that emit from our bodies and our throats - growls, squeaks, delight - that everything done with her is auxillary - a divine chore - from the steaming of broccoli to the tucking in of endless fluffy blankets to the giving of baths - to the umpteenth reading of the seussian foot book of that day - all these things - endless, tissuey pages in the larger TomE - that is my deep Deep LOVE for her - and i take her and i hold her and i breathe her sweet sweet floating, dizzying scent - and all of a sudden i remember that this is it - the job i have signed on for - so sweet, intoxicating, neverending and exhausting - the business - the busy-iness of LOVE - this thing dwelling so deep inside my belly and my bones... my unpaid profession of right now which takes up all my time, my mind and energy - which at times leaves me feeling all dried up, aged, whithered and beaten.... - but lets me hold this thing in my body - my tissues absorbing the nutrients it gives - LOVE - to know it so deeply and purely - a joy so piercing it can make you weep. ….. …

altar of Love..... something involving cacao.... for it is lingering, and bitter... just as much as it is sweet. … A Puja... by any other name..... the deity wearing fornow the face of my sweet-puffy-faced child. …. rosy cheeks and slippery smiling lips. … 6 teeth... and a slight rash from where she rubbed against the sofa... and i - me - enmeshed inthis daily bit of offering - myself, my talents, my time - my life force, and energy - all engaged (even when sleeping it seems ) in this business of Love - to know it, sense it and bow to its’ presence now planted deep within me... thought it takes all i am - leaves me with little to offer to the man i share this baby this bed with,,,, little reserves for the endless projects and beautiful dreams and imaginings i would also like to birth into the larger sphere of the world... altar of Love... how i gaze upon it every day.... my eyes so accustomed to its beauty sometimes i can’t see... … i live here now. daily.

and my reverence is not what it could be - and my devotion is weak and wandering - and still …. and still....

i have been granted this goodness. my kernel of Divine blessing & beauty in smelly, soggy pants form. … and i am learning to see it. i am learning, broken down, splayed wide at times... what it takes to be a devotee... lose my life (the one i dreamed about and seem to have misplaced somewhere between the electric bill and the thank you notes i have yet to write ) in order that i may find IT. It the big I-T. - learning day by day what it means to abandon your smallness and all my ideas on what i thought this life should be - the form my Love should take and inhabit - and offer it up to that larger Being - altar of Love - i quietly rest my head... i bow.

hoofin...

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
Oscar Wilde

Huh.

I was reminded of these words by an online posting from a former theatre alum. .... a failed experiment in my life if ever there was one... time to time i'll peruse whatever technological means of voyeurism are at my disposal to check in on the whereabouts of bygone classmates and comrades... out there in the world... most of them (ok, mostly all, damnit.) plying their trade... hoofin' it in shoestring theatres... street corners, renaissance fairs, college classrooms... waiting tables or bartending or the million other plus things one must do in the meantime when one is waiting for their "big break"..... paychecks and pittance... but Passion!! Passion!!! ...

and at times i get a bit wistful... a rogue streak of envy seeps in... ahhhh.. la vie boheme.... so colorful and free... and yet. i must remind myself...

I was a Terrible ACTOR.

Seriously.

If ever there was one.

so enamored of the stage at such a young point in life.... when I was 4 I told my parents that I wished to be an orphan.. Why? because after many viewings of a certain red-headed tramp and her parent-less companions traipsing the halls of a rundown depression-era building with a bathtub-gin-stinking mistress as its' guide... it was clear to me - as it should've been to everyone else... Orphans get to go thru life singing & dancing... every life's banality and circumstance fertile ground for yet another sing-along and clapping of metrical toes.... the lessons were clear!!! your life force, your chi, your joie de vivre was far too grand and toe-tapping, too fay, raucous and whimsical to be contained in the pages of ordinary life!!! to confine such spirit to the auspices of a bourgeois nuclear unit would mean death, stifling, stagnant decay.. but the freewheeling halls of musical bliss in the hands of a devil-may-care noontime drunk in an unfortunate wig - now This - this was the spot for me. i had found my true north. patent-leather shoes now pointed firmly in that direction & ready to bid my bemused parents adieu and seek refuge in my new glorious claptrap home.

the orphan. all-singing. all-dancing. taking this great big pot of putrid lemons and making a scintillating cocktail of well-spiked lemonade. here Here!!!

astonishingly similar to the life i might've signed on for full-time - the underpaid artist - the romance of living from one unemployment check to the next.... never knowing where your next burst of inspiration (or income) might spring from.... the world... your ever-loving rag-tag oyster... bare bones & passion, baby. Bare Bones.

and i've made a trade-off, it's true. to the untrained eye my life would appear utterly ordinary, sedate, suburban, serene & settled... a slightly spiced-up version of a familiar recipe from the pages of ladies' home journal.. or good housekeeping... my world perhaps nothing more than a friggin' tuna noodle casserole.

So Be It.

perhaps this go-around i've not been slated for the stage... my particular truths not to be revealed to a paying audience behind the veneer of plastic & foam...stagepaint & falsetto... cloak & dagger... lipstick & iambic pentameter.... poetry & lamplight..... bravado & boxsteps....oh my.

and maybe it smacks of absurdity to say it (but say it i shall - anyway...) ... but life has handed me some other bits of covering.. a hat or two.. darest i say a mask..... of motherhood... wife... child.... scribbler.... unbeknownst poet... singer of lullabies & living room torch songs.... incessant tapper of toes.... shakin' my ever-loving bootie in the kitchen as that damn casserole sets on the stove.. ...

yogi. or some semblance thereof. learning to work with my hands, grow food, paint, write... sand wood, stain furniture, dig weeds, & change a million stinky diapers.. and all manner of things i never imagined for this one long & glorious life...

an orphan.... vanquished from my former art-as-life-and-sustenance tribe.... but i hold this still in my heart....

it's never too late to be a red-headed orphan.. i believe... dye your head with the cheapest box of henna you can find.. stain your hands while doing it... mix up your own batch of bathtub gin - or just a strong cup of coffee - and get back to the business of singing & dancing - every single damn day, if you choose - though maybe no one is watching...

you don't need a mask to tell the truth... just maybe a sturdy set of ankles & some flexible toes - to step into the shoes life's handed you - maybe several pairs deep - and DAnCe....... cuz really ... you're as free as you want to be... life's capricious headgear notwithstanding... i am slowly crafting my own great megaphone...... sidling up to it and whispering... gusts... beginning to blow.... and one 'a these days... anytime now really... a song.... so sweet & un-sublimated... is gonna start to roll....

...lessons from a pachyderm...

i was thinking the other day about obstacles... to the point that I considered getting out my little Ganesha statue and slogging into town with him perched on the seat by my side, perhaps to serve as my little prompt and visual aid for the class I had to teach, a cute little something to serve as inspiration and muse. Ganesha - remover - but also placer - at times - of obstacles -

cuz I had broken down the night before..... for the 6th night in a row where my baby would not sleep nor cease nursing even after two straight hours attached to my body, draining what little nourishment I felt was still in me... sucking, suckling... delicately taking and sipping away... restless.. crying..... and my husband lay fast asleep beside me.. so tired he said... after two days spent snowboarding - down perfect, powdery slopes .. again.. after two weeks, of beautiful 75 degree waves.. rolling ceaselessly into shore, and him atop them. in a south american postcard... while i sat at home with our sick baby... yellow goo pouring out of every orifice.. eyes glued shut with the thick nastiness of it. and he’s riding waves... and he’s eating tacos,/// drinking beer and smiling.. his skin turning a delicate brown... and I think there’s snot on my shirt where the baby finally dozed off....

and i don’t begrudge him the waves... the sun.. the expanse or pleasure of it all. quite the contrary i’m happy to have him go - take deep breaths and re-remember what it is to feel light and free in a human body once more - before mortgages and business ventures and fatherhood and hell, the arduous task of even being married - took hold - secured the “provider & protector” cap so tightly on his head - that it made it hard to breathe... or throw his head back in a gesture of sheer delight...

i want him to know that joy.. that abandon.. that peace.. that once constituted the mainstay of his days.. before all this.. before me.. before bills and homesteads and all of that... i want him to be free... at peace.. but right now.. i want him to fucking wake up. take this screaming baby.. and let me bury my head in this lumpy old pillow - and weep...

because we are ten days into the new year and already i have abandoned my virtuous juicing and salads regime.... because i was doing so good... staying up late while the sick baby slept.. and admiring my slowly emerging svelte-esque form... trying on the clothes that hadn’t fit for so long.. admiring the new hollowness of my body... so good.. so good... it’s finally happening, said the quiet smug voice in the still wee hours of the morning.. but now the baby is crying.... and i’ve eaten cereal for 3 straight days in a row.... sat on the couch, gazing into the annals of the television for hours on end, instead of going outdoors, running, doing yoga - or making the salads i ought to be making... chopping carrots, chewing celery... and the scale says two pounds heavier than it did the day before... and i’ve been chubby and unhappy my whole damn life and blah blah blah.... and nothing.. no nothing’s ever gonna turn out the way i want it to. absolutely nothing..

and then i’m coming down the drive.. doing my usual breathless whisper of prayers as i vacantly speed off toward my day... remembering if i can to say thank you... for a strong body and a healthy beautiful baby... for a sweet good man and a beautiful family... for the mellifluous opportunities and blessings that accompany my life on a near daily basis.... thank you thank you.. i remember i remember... and then... may my words be a blessing... use this body.. use this voice... may it be.... and bla bla bla..

and on the radio there’s a kid in a tree - and you can hear it - the smile in his voice - though he’s been there since before christmas... spent it up there on a platform shitting in a bucket and subsisting off stale bulk granola and powdered soy milk.... though he’s fighting probably a losing battle - him and a handful of other doe-eyed-too-young-to know-any-better lovers of trees...up there in the frost and freezing cold evenings squatting on a platform to save 800 acres of trees which are “slated for destruction”... and he’s chatting with the radio announcer with that incessant grin lolloping in his throat... coating the words and silences with their gracious tenacity... it’s beautiful up here he says... and in his voice i can hear it - i believe it must be.. and i hope that he wins.

on to the gym - where i quietly lament the fact that my ipod will not play my favored playlist, another grumbling in addition to the fact that of course i was not granted adequate time to prepare... how am i ever to excel - to exhibit any snippet of my indwelling brilliance, thoroughly covered in dust by this late-night mommy saggy-boobed veneer... how am i ever to shine, damnit... inwardly outwardly.. at all...

use this form and this body... use my voice and these words...
may i be a blessing..

and into the woman’s locker room where my eyes are first accosted by a towel-clad woman... clutching the inadequate cloth to her chest, as her wrinkled mounds of flesh trail absentmindedly behind... slowly, with steps both plodding and painful... her gray head bowed watchfully to the floor... the work she had to do just to get here today.. to bring herself here.. find her way to the morning... ill-fitting spandex swimming suits and latex powdered caps... not enough to cover the stringy hair beneath... what host of ailments resides in this body... that has withstood so many days... months and years.... what loss.. what moment of coming-to-grips with this new encumbrance... a new wave of infirmity... and yet.. she’s here... watchful eyes smiling.... like the voice of the 21-year-old tree lover on the radio... the inwardly upturned edges of lips embossed on cells, livers, thighbones, kidneys, and heart... welling up to meet the surface.... teasing the corners of the face into a glimmer of light... Yes. they seem to say... look at all i have seen.. all that has beset me... what i daily must endure.. and still i am here... i persist... and what’s more... i have joy.

Ganesh.. Ganesha.. Jai Jai... Placer - & Remover of Obstacles...

and I cannot fucking believe myself.. Jesus, Amy. What a lack of eyes - such blind perspective - a life without sight. For even in my little micro-sphere, there exists suffering like I cannot even imagine - problems I have never encountered... stymies I can not conceive... and still I bemoan.. lament... my quaintly tragic outpouring of fate... my baby is sick. i cannot sleep. it is hard to lose these last ten pounds. my hundred dollar piece of handheld machinery is not instantly emitting the sounds of my choosing with the whim of my thumbs. woe am I... oh woe is me....

Ganesha - use my words, my body, my voice.... grant me more obstacles - place them firmly in my path that I may learn - that I may see - may the rocks I encounter grow larger, slippery and opaque - may my fingers and feet grow strong by climbing through the muck you steadfastly place before me - Jai Jai - may my skin emerge bloody and torn, ravaged by thorns and stealthy underbrush... may my breathing turn labored as the ascent before me grows steep, formidable... grand... may i be so utterly absorbed with the climb, immersed in the humming and forceful inhale of breath - that when I finally uplift my head - to take a look around - absorb the view - my eyes - once clouded in puffs of smoke from pursuits trifling, vainglorious & hollow - shall at once be drained clear - tears poured forth from the beauty of effort - and the obstacle I once encountered - the gift of sight - ability to see things clearly and rightly - pupils wide in the full recognition of so much grace abounding in a single life - Jai Ganesha - Jai - keep my worrying hands at work - busy doing good - so that I may finally pry my head out of my own damn ass - and finally - resonantly & gratefully - See. ….

prompted...

Today's Writing Prompt:

Tell me about something you very much wanted, but were afraid to begin.



..... i have struggled with beauty all my life.... as in... clinging tightly to the gorgeous, crystalline, purely-imagined fragments of beauty that rose up in my brain - huge, hallowed monuments of perfection in my brain - a project maybe, an idea, even a picture of who I wanted to be... close my eyes and imagine this rarified vision - complete, shiny - new - without deflect or flaw - all-smiling, all-dancing, all-sparkly and grand....

so enamored of the perfect thing emblazoned inside my eyelids that i would squeeze them tight, not wanting to part with the pristine-ness of such sight - knowing that when i opened my eyes, it would be gone - the wallpaper changed back to something far less lofty - and i would be confronted by the unglamorous reality of life - as it was - as it IS - and continues to be - messy. scrappy. beauty not coming out to dance and do a shimmy for you with a perfect pair of tits, but rather more a mousy, bookish brunette - whose gorgeous-ness is revealed quietly, slowly - in the work of her fingers, the gentle, graceful way she flicks her wrist, the small, loving precision of her feet and hands.... as if you showed up day-after-day to behold and learn the ways of this at first un-beguiling creature (called life, don't ya know).. her beauty would not bowl you over. no... in fact, at times, she would seem to be so plain, so god-damn ordinary and dull it could cause you to weep..

but if you chose to stick it out.. remain.. travel by her side and commit to allowing that beauty to slowly eek its way into view - reveal itself to you - in ways mostly quiet and un-sophisticate - you would find - eventually - that what once seemed so plain - so dull - lacking in luster and shiny perfection - well this thing - contained so much frigging Elegance, such flavor, such Verve!!! - your eyes could barely contain its sight...

As if by the mere perpetual act of looking - with the clear intention of wanting to see.... your eyes would be cleansed... your vision righted... your pupils grown now accustomed to the now warm light of day - not craving the gleaming darkness of inner fancy - open to the sun - not drowning in the imagined landscapes of lunar fantasy....

geez, i've got a way of be-laboring a point....

so i mean to say....

rather than waiting till i've got it right, till a thing is perfect, rosy, gorgeous, just-frickin'-so... i'm making it my practice... to bring forth just what is.. right now.. my imperfect offering.. whatever it may be - it ain't perfect. it ain't clean. it's not anything that will send you into paroxysms of ecstasy or delight.. but it's honest.. it's real... it's something. and it's there.

and hopefully, we'll find... each one of us as we got about this lovely business of bringing our messy, gorgeous, imperfect selves to the table each day... that if we're willing to rub our eyes, tilt the head and shift our gaze ever so slightly - there's so much to Behold... it makes perfection's gleam look dull by compare...

Here's to a week of beating, broken Beauty. May you offer it up by the bowlful...