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...

beat it...

"just because everyone can't do everything, doesn't mean somebody shouldn't do something."

these are great, good words taken from Joel Salatin, a revolutionary farmer and speaker who travels all over the world advocating for a more self-sustaining and historically normal approach to our food and our planet.

they are also taken from the book my father and i have elected to read, he and i, two members of the world's smallest book club. each week we slog thru a chapter or two, then meet over the phone to discuss this week's gleanings.

And Salatin does this great thing... especially for egg-heads like me and my pa, who would be just as content to debate the hell out of a thing, and then let it glisten forever in the abstract, unmarred by any stain of pragmatism or slovenly implementation. ... He gives you homework.

Whether he's talking about proper use of land or livestock, water usage, herbivores, urban farming.. what have you.. at the end of each well-written and thoroughly researched (and embodied!!!) chapter, tools for the trade. so, you too, gentle reader, may begin to take those first faltering steps down the path to normalcy,, self-sufficiency, all that....

it's great.

and it rings a bell somewhere in my brain.

as someone who operates with a head full of lofty ideas and grand imaginings, it is oftentimes exceedingly difficult for me to put one foot in front of the other, as it were. In my head, rings bells, trumpets, a symphony!!! and in my hands i bang a tiny, tinny tambourine... looking at my ill-shaped instrument, i bemoan... how does one make music with such a thing?

by doing it. start banging that drum, damn it. it may not sound like the footfall of angels you've got going in your head, nor the cacophony of beauty that's looping round and round on instant replay (but only just for you.. unheard, unsung, unknown by the ever-waking world...)

Begin it.

Begin it.

so many things to occupy a life, and indeed this world, in the fashion in which we dream... so many systems in place, of government, media, big business, blech.... conspiring to keep us ever-marching to the beat of a zombie, meat-head drummer from some awful '80s hairband... beating off with a drumstick in his hand...

the song played so loud, the soundtrack looping for so long, we forget.... we helped to write these notes... we began to hum this tainted melody once upon a time... before the tune got permanently lodged in our brains... to exclusion of all other music... and sound...

we can write the notes anew. even if we don't yet know the tune.... i've got a hankering for a great opening line... i bet you could help me with the refrain.... the bridge we'll build when we get there...

i get overwhelmed by the brokenness of the world.. indeed the brokenness of myself as well. how many grand, wonderful amazing things i would like to do... pull a ghandi and "be the change i want to see in the world".....

and i can't do it all today. no one of us can. and there's the trick. and there's the beauty of the thing..

without an orchestra assembled in our basements, we simply begin by doing what we can... a sprinkle of change here, a snippet of revolution there.... it sounds like rain and it sounds like footfalls and humming...

i grab my drum. you take your ill-strung fiddle out of storage and let's start to play. maybe invite the kids from down the way with a cow bell or two... my neighbor's got some spoons, a harp and a cuppa' sugar to boot. let's roll. ...

what is the sound of the many, hundreds of thousands.. maybe more... of someones doing something... something vital. something real. something precious and amazing and compassionate, brave, ingenious and grand.

of us all, minute little someones, conspiring each day to do the something - the burning beauty waiting to be born into the world... and us their patient, humble midwives.... conspiring to create an Anthem... drown out the dirge....

start humming. let's make up the words as we go along. i have a feeling.... the sounds of a million someones... therein lies the Song.....

stripped....

around the world in 30 days!!! or... just.... the contiguous US.. in 21. or so. .... (just don't sound the same...)

.....and thank goodness for travel. of any sort. because it pries you open. helps you to see what you're missing... the good, the bad, the terrifying... and the peculiarly & unexpectedly beautiful.... the orchids blooming in the cracks of cement... days spent communing with a long stretch of open highway and my thoughts... reminding myself to breathe, breathe.. be still... Enjoy.

....days of napping in the back seat, ensconced like a giant human S...waking up with a stiff neck to view the world.. anew.... days of road food & NPR... of blisteringly strong coffee & motel sheets.... of gorgeous rock formations and the dancing of the light... of clear gulf waters & magnolia trees bowing to the ground.... of reminders of home.. of the joy of forgetting.... of travelling to the end of the road... and finding you had a home... a face & a fellow... perhaps you'd forgotten... of warm & rowdy & scintillating conversation over an afternoon's third round of canned beers... of rest... of sunshine... of heat.... of prying your head out of your damn ass long enough to wake up and see that there is a surplus of spunk & beauty EVERYWHERE!!! .. if you know how to tilt your head and look.. just right... of yes's & thank you's & please. Please. Yes. MORE. ... let this ever-unfurling journey continue... without... Within....

and i am reminded that people are people.. everywhere you go. the same.. just.. Different. and as much seemingly bad is marring the world today.. there is so. Much. Good. Shit. Yes!!! it just becomes a matter of what you are staring at... and so you follow... so you become....

and i am reminded to get off my high horse, temporarily abandon my flowery speech & high-minded asceticism... and abandon all names.. all credos... and to just be. humble. simple. Breathe. .... for there are many things which i aspire to... beautiful words & notions... pillars of word & vow unfurling day-after-day, a large, pink cloud nestling my mind's eye...

and i am reminded that this means nothing - NOTHING!!! if my perfumed words & honeyed descriptives amount to a putrefied hill of beans.. worse! ...."if i can move mountains but have not love......" ......

it is like my good friend Noah says... a self-described Buddhist.. and athiest... how would you characterize this brand of Buddhism you practice there Noah???.... simple, he says.. with an ever-present glint in his eye... i live by 4 simple words.. Just... "Don't be an asshole!" .... and it's great. and it's sterling. and, in a way... amazing.. in it's ability to reduce all the evocative images i keep stashed in my head.... memes on how to be, and how to live & the sacredness of things & life & bla bla bla.... Noah takes it down to a science.. exacting & true.

Don't be an asshole. ...

think about it. ....

covering so much with such minimal verbage... don't take what is not yours... be kind. always treat others with as much integrity & respect as you possibly can!!! (even if you feel you've been shafted in this way...) ... look for the good. ... recycle. take care of the planet that has made your own human life possible... etc. etc. ETC....

and so for the moment, as the last leg of my journey continues... i temporarily am stripped of all my high-minded badges and -isms.... i step down off my petty soapbox & party platforms... i give up. i pledge my allegiance to these simple words...

...because in the end... eloquence serves me little... poetry turns toxic... distasteful.. foul.... if the life that i am leading... bears no resemblance to my faustian semantics... say less. do more. and let your own life & light shine so humbly & Brightly... there are no need for words.....

i have been thinking as of late about attachment... about specifically the things we attach ourselves to... hmmm.. for that matter maybe the ideas & people too.. funny...

when i was 14 after several overpriced trips to several different doctors, i was diagnosed as bipolar. recognized as a disease in modern medical literature, it is when "the patient" swings from bouts of mania to severe bouts of depression.. there are about a gazillion variations on this tune. everything from mixed mania, hypomania... prolonged hypo/hyper depressive states.. etc... (it's kind of amazing in hindsight how many bullshit psychiatric terms we can coin just to diagnose what is essentially the human condition...)but i digress...

at the time i remember thinking Yes! Finally! A name, a label, a safe, stringent set of terms & descriptors that tell me what I am going thru!!! Halle-loo-yah! Thank ya Jeezus!!! and then you read on... in much of the literature (which is mostly aimed at helping others deal with & compassionately navigate the tumultuous waters of their manic-depressive loved one's state) you read about what happens to a person "under the influence", so to speak of a manic or depressive phase.... For Mania: anything from loss of sleep & appetite, to huge bursts of energy & creativity, visions of grandeur, rabid spending sprees... taking on large debts or massive projects.... And Depression, the ugly mole-faced step-sister: ... weight gain or loss, social isolation, withdrawing, inability to cope with the tasks of daily life, sleeping for hours on end... you get the bit. and somewhere in these lines, after the initial relief you find the slightest trace of... what.... well... i dunno.. i halt to put it into words... simply put the rational, sane, compassionate party reading said text is heartened to not take the actions of a bipolar person completely seriously or try to relate to them rationally during a manic or depressive episode (which begs the question... aren't they pretty much always in one or the other??!?) ... rather.. wait until a time when they are functioning in their "right mind" (and properly medicated, to boot) to try and reason with them.. and negotiate the inevitable fall-out of their hyper-manic or hyper-depressed states... much like you would choose your words with utmost care to speak to a child.. who has not developed the capacity necessary (so we believe) to digest your input straight from the tap, as it were, so too, for the manic-depressive we must weigh & water down our words... from such an altered state, they are unable to relate to you (the sane, salient, normal one, let's recall) in a rational, objective way. Huh.

This is fucking infuriating.

...

is this to say that my husband, who suffers from a hearing problem, needs special treatment, as it were, when relating to him one-on-one, mano-a-mano... teatime, coffeetalk style? does my sister, who suffers from the occasional bout of fatigue and a spot or two of psoriasis - must i choose my words carefully for her, knowing that she is under the influence of these things??? what of my friends who smoke cigarettes (which we know.. alters brain chemistry.... duh.. why else do it??)do i need to cater my speech to them, knowing that they are not functioning from an optimal place?

my neighbor has been known to get up at 1 o clock in the morning.. and start working on a project.. should i alter my context of conversation to him knowing that he keeps drastically different sleep patterns & modes of creativity than I do?

i have friends that watch a lot of TV (and don't Tell me that that shit don't alter your brain chemistry, folks... ha. ...) do they need a light hand when discussing the finer workings of things or the essential bits of life? ???

i have friends that do a lot of yoga, drink a lot of juice & spend a lot of time outdoors... maybe I should watch what I say to them as well....

There are times when readily don this diagnostic crown that I was given some 15 odd years ago. i lean into it. and heavy. at moments when I am down, unable to pull myself up from a slump of days or weeks.. wondering why life does not hold the joy it once did.. even a day, a week ago... why? i wonder? why is everything so effing hard? and then i remember.. oh yeah. this is part of that wave they were talking about.... "the depressive state" ..."all part of the disease" ... "this too shall pass".. I am Bipolar. ..so they say.

and then the Heights!!! the glorious, brilliant luminous heights! where words & thoughts, images, brilliance & compassion flow freely.. as if tapping the vein of some gorgeous body of Life.... full, fluid.. eva-frigging-nescent!!! and it is me... the truth of me.. this is who I am!! not that sad, sorry creature of a week ago who could barely rise from bed or muster much more culinary skill than burnt toast or leave the house... This - this lovingLife, glorious Byzantine creature that has emerged - THIS!!- is my truer nature. Surely. It must be. ...

and rather than let the wave pass thru me, around me, underneath me, about me... i ride it.. hard... trying like mad to grip the reins of this wild thing... to see if I can hold onto the feeling of Yes! of good. of bliss.. and let the bad drain away... but it isn't like that . That's not how we roll.

Into each life... a little rain... in the form of hearing loss.. disease, fatigue, odd & funny skin eruptions, weight gain, weight loss, cigarettes & alcohol, anger, frustration... Joy, elation, love, beauty... wheatgrass, twinkies, brown-papered packages tied up with string... these things... a little rain must fall..

It is the stuff of Life. and sometimes the rain is heavy & gray.. and bids you to stay indoors.. perhaps longer than is healthy or "good". and sometimes it's light & airy.. pliant & delightful... & smelling of earth & plants... inviting you to Dance & jump barefoot into puddles... it feeds the stream...

and there is no pill for this shit. there is no proper diagnosis. there is no cure. It is Life. and you can't take it all too seriously i am told. and you can't be afraid of getting utterly messy. and Wet.
and thank God.

and we do the best we can... and try, yes, Try... to not attach ourselves too strongly to any of it... our grandeur, our failings... our foibles.... our scars.. our demons... our Angels.... we keep moving... with an open heart (or as open as we can...) and stay the Vessel... that Life... in all its' vertiginous Beauty... can Occupy.