Reflection

Because clearly it is in the weeks like last week when we need to do the most to find our way on the path, right? It is not when the world is crashing around us, because then we rely so much on something greater than we are that it is not hard to find a point in the sky and triangulate our souls there -- we long for focus and direction so much in those moments that we will embrace God's mind easily and let his hands pull us along. It is also not in the times of calm and peace that this work is hard. When your mind is still, going to the calm lake or the orange sinking sun or whatever the finest edge of your soul is is also easy, because there is nothing to distract us.

No, it is in the weeks when practicality and distraction speeds your life and your mind up that this work is hard. When a million things that should not cause static in your mind cause static. When silence is a forgotten concept left in the hamper with the three weeks of overdue laundry. When your choices are to spend your time working - working every minute - to maintain self in the face of expectation. When, even if it's briefly, it is easier to be ugly than beautiful, even if you already know yourself to be beautiful. That is when it is hard.

I am proud of myself this week. I didn't always succeed at fighting off the world and its impact on me. I had ugly moments. But I long ago learned to forgive myself for those. You cannot hate yourself for hurting somebody, because you will always hurt somebody eventually. You cannot hate yourself for falling short of other people's needs, because no matter how much you give, other's needs will always expand to take more (and yours will too). You will never be able to give anybody all that they want from you. It's the nature of the vacuum of the soul. And you cannot hate yourself for falling short. And I have learned that the hard way many times, because Lord knows that I have hurt people deeply in my life. I hurt people this week. I fell short of what people needed this week. I got lost in the noise and couldn't find my still lake or my sinking sun and when that happens I lose myself - and the ability to be my best version of myself.

And then today I found my way back out of the brier bushes and onto the path. And it was hard work to get there. A conscious choice to come back to the silence. I am proud.

Takeoff and Landing

In walking
through the airport -
the tremor of motion
outside of me -
I feel
finally
still again,
having at last found the moment
I was searching for all week

All of the people I brushed my
hands against
still dusted in particles
on the tips of my fingers,
licked onto my tongue
as I remember their tastes
and long to digest them

My cruelest cells were
abandoned today
in the flakes of my flesh that
shed onto his sheets,
sweating in the hot afternoon.
Somehow in putting my arms around
a man,
I found myself back in myself again

It is too often easy
for me to forget
to choose to not be alone,
or even to realize that it is choice
rather than natural order,
remembering that I am
perfectly designed
to connect like unspooled thread in knots.

Too often I prefer
the silence of my bohemian home
to the touch of a hand,
to the radiation of a mind
to the warm gossamer of a soul.

Too often, I choose
conservation.

I am designed for hand holding.
I am designed for entangled sheets.
I am designed for dinner conversations.
I am designed for morning hugs for warmth in
cold weather.

When I begin to fail, is when I begin to
believe that is easier on my own.

No, truth would be that
it is easier on my own.

When I begin to fail is when
I choose to avoid the work of
making knots.

I am designed to breath love in and out.

Walking through the airport
I feel
finally
still again.
My heart expanded,
once more,
to fill the bulkhead.
My eyes again
seeking out the smiles of
people who do not realize that
they are not strangers to me.

Easy Vs. Hard

Here's what we know. It's easy to be one with everything that you're trying to be one with when you're with people you adore in places like this:







In fact, easy can even be the day that you get back and go drinking at Wild Bill's, if you're going drinking with somebody who's known you since you were 14 and who understands every twitch, laugh and itch and when you're with him you are 100% comfortable inside yourself. And you know who you are.

Hard. Hard is what comes after four days on a mountain and one night with somebody who owns part of your heart. Hard is when you come back to work and it's the second week of preseason football and everything needs to go out the door PLUS you have to give up two days to roadshow presentations for a product you've developed...and that means working until 10 for several nights to get ready for that. Hard is coming back and Toni is busy working on the party of the century with the top of the Eiffel tower rented out and a stripper in a cake, so you have to deal with dozens upon dozens of bachelorettes, all of whom have needs. NEEDS. Hard is when more than five of the people closest to you are having some kind of legitimate drama and you can barely find the time to sleep let alone the energy to talk with them (but phone calls are coming, promise). Hard is not enough time to work out so you actually feel more tired. It's not enough time to clean so you're not motivated even in your own home. It's coming home one day and going into the spare room and realizing that the cats somehow got into your pattern basket and tore up eight years' worth of collected sewing patterns. It's bouncing a check because you straight forgot which account another check deposited into. Hard is when you spent the last weekend telling a boy you're crazy about that he sucks because he can't find enough time for you, and then every time he calls to ask you to spend time with him this week saying "I'm too tired" or "I have dinner plans" or "I'm headed out of town again this weekend." Then you feel like an ass and a loser because you were given what you wanted and you couldn't even really accept it. Hard is missing your friends when just a week ago you had plenty of time to email and call them at your leisure. It's actually having to say to people, "If you love me, don't respond to this email for a couple of days." How crappy is that? It's getting so angry at work that you storm out and then let loose with a barrage of really negative and mean things at people. It's realizing that you fell asleep on the couch with a jar of peanut butter in your hand and now it's all over the spare blanket. It's looking at your calendar and not understanding when this will stop.

And you try. You try to get quiet in your head. Soak in the sun. Fall asleep peacefully, but when your life races your mind also races and it's hard to shut it down without the tools you would normally use (distance running, swimming, early mornings, nights in somebody's arms). Each day you say "Tomorrow is the day I will wake up with the sun and be back in my mind again."

I've failed a lot this week. I have not been quiet or still. I have not even been very nice as a person. I have definitely not been present for people the way I want to be. And so tonight I'm forgiving myself, and tomorrow I will get up with the sun if it KILLS me and get back into my head. Because the only way back to a place of centering is through work, and I've prioritized the wrong work this week.

Sometimes it is easy and wonderful. And sometimes it is hard. This week was hard, but that will make the moment when I find my core again all the more worth it.