Letting Go: 09.17.2013

The end of the summer is on the horizon.The weather here has already made it's shift from humid to crisp. There is a scent in the air that makes every ounce of my being feel hopeful and renewed.

I am happy to watch the mercury fall and the summer slip away. It was one of the hardest of my life. There was an enormous amount of change that I didn't cope with very well. I didn't adapt the way I would have liked. I didn't go with the ebbs and the flows. I fought. I hung on. I slipped away from who I am and who I want to be.

Good bye summer. I will happily let you go.

I will let go of my expectations. I will offer a hand to those I isolated up there and help them down. It is unfair to leave them there with my unrealistic expectations of perfection. As I help them down I will allow myself to come down as well. I will leave perfection for myths and fairy tales. I will embrace my reality with it's many flaws. I will find perfection in all that is imperfect.

I will let go of my emotions. Emotions that I keep bound and caged, away from the eyes of others. I will allow myself to feel exactly how I feel without apology or embarrassment. I will be gentle on myself and no longer beat myself up for being human.

I will let go of grudges and hurt feelings. I will allow myself to feel them but I will no longer dwell on the things I cannot change. I will move forward and only look back with a smile.

I will let go of fear. Fear of rejection, fear of ridicule, fear of being afraid. It ruled my life this fear. It is time to let go. Just let it go.

As the cool breeze falls across my face I let it all go. I let go of past mistakes, bad decisions, hurt feelings. I let go of it all. I let it go to wherever the thick humid summer air is going. I don't apologize. I don't regret.

I just let it go.

Letting Go: 09.16.2013

"What is it about us human beings that we can't let go of lost things?"

Leslie Marmon Silko from The Turquoise Ledge

All three of us, my sister, brother and I are named after St Anthony of Padua, the patron saint of finding things. There was so much invoking of his name growing up that St. Anthony started to feel like a long lost Uncle who lived far away but was present nonetheless. (A side note: If you were to gaze upon the dining room wall you would find family photos of my parents, brother, sister, grandparents, aunt, uncle, cousins and Pope John Paul the Second. We weren't blood related to the Pope, but his being Polish, Catholic and the first Polish-Catholic Pope was enough to earn him family wall status). St. Anthony was also 'in da house' in the form of statues, pictures and holy cards. The unshakable faith in his abilities to locate lost things never wavered. He always had our backs. Somewhere along the way, I graduated to a first name basis. Whenever I would lose something, I'd say this prayer:

Tony, Tony look around
The (name lost object) must be found
By (make a deadline: Friday, 2pm, one hour, immediately)
And I thank you in advance, Amen.

He never fails me. Before I adjusted the prayer with a time frame, I thought his powers were waning. But then I realized he was on Saint's Time, which is very different than Human Time. So it helps to be clear in the request. It is also imperative that you make an effort and still look for whatever is lost. You can't just pray and then kick back with a cuppa. It just doesn't work that way. I have friends who call me up when they lose something to say the prayer. I'm sure it would work fine if they said it, but perhaps they feel I have an 'in' because of the family connection.

I will be honest, I don't know how well it works for lost dreams, childhoods or loves. Finding the place where love soured, the gathering of instants that led to misunderstanding, the uncomfortable pile upon pile smothering the raw and real of the matter because it was just too intimately painful to look at...until the heat from this emotional compost pile erupts into flame, these things I do not have a Saint for. Finding keys, a parking spot, an apartment or job are better bets.

I remember the moment we said the final "D" word. We were in couples counseling and things had come to a head. It looked like there was no way out of the pile upon piles. We lost our way and took two different roads home. I had been holding on for so long, holding on to assuage my biggest fear, trying to keep the container from leaking, but just couldn't anymore. And when I loosened my grip, I watched in horror as it all slipped through the cracks.

We married in a redwood grove and part of the ceremony was a handfasting. Our hands together, as if in prayer, and a cord was tied around them. A simple knot, as if one were tying a shoelace.

Now as I tie this True Lover's Knot
You two are joined as one
Gentle are the bonds of this union
Pull one way and the bonds are strengthened
Pull the other and they are loosened 

The cord was lifted off of our hands and we kept it in a safe and special place at home. Even when we separated, I never lost track of it.

After we filed our papers for divorce, we chose a day to go back to the redwood grove with our dear friend who officiated the ceremony. There, we put our hands together once again. The cord was placed over them. Words were said and then the cord was untied and cut. Our spiritual bond severed, we buried each half in the grove.

That hot summer day in the shade of the redwoods was devastating. The kind where you can't breathe anymore, where you buckle to your knees and wonder if there is anything out there resembling a God, where you look around and what you thought was a trajectory of your life lays in a muddy puddle. All the hopes, ideas, dreams of what love is buried in the earth.

But time has a way of offering soft perspective on the hard edges of life. I didn't stop breathing. I do believe in something bigger than myself, call it God if you like, and the muddy puddle was one of my best teachers.

The truth of the matter is I never let go of the man I loved and married. I let go of the marriage, of that rendition of our relationship.  But never the love and affection. We are still friends today.

Holding: 09.14.2013

Posted by this week's guest writer, Casey Bauer. Casey likes sarcasm, sitting by water docks, and the word "idiosyncrasy". She doesn't share her writing often, but if she does, it means she really likes you, too.

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A perpetual presence of lack lodged in her larynx: it was like she had been holding her breath for years. Her head would swim as delirious cloud bubbles bounced around inside, making words lose their syllables and punctuation fall flat. She hated these moments; moments so strong, long, and full of such a yearning for that someone, it was like witnessing as air and words, the two things she required most, rid themselves of oxygen and literacy, only to be replaced with a swooning head and a sore heart. But even worse than this? Time. Time as the single, tormenting constant standing in her way and slowly tightening its grip on her neck.

Needless to say, she and Time never stood steadily on the same soil. Never did Time have faster feet, than when hers only wanted to anchor, and never was it so slow, than when all she wanted was to race ahead into the arms of that someone, and forget that such a thing existed at all. Any excitement built up in her stomach would melt away whenever she looked at a clock, and she would kick herself, realizing that she was losing some sort of sick game. Instead, she liked to replace the concept of Time with the notion that the world hid tunnels in our backyards that made dipping in and out of moments as easy as exhaling. She imagined little notes scribbled by friends and family all over the world, waiting for her at the entrance of every moment. They would invite her to join them and have a cup of coffee, day or night because, well, caffeine intake didn’t matter when Time didn’t exist, and why would tunnels exist at all if not for the sake of using them for spontaneous coffee breaks with loved ones? Breathing would flow like laughter, and breathless, light-headedness would be a thing of the past, the “past” being a Time-related concept hardly anyone would understand how to grasp.

But as Time diligently reminded her, she could only hold her breath for so long. After what felt like years with this delirious cloud bubble bobbing around inside her head, she was finally able to do the one thing her body was telling her she wanted to do. Had to do. She exhaled.

And it was then that an ecstasy flooded her limbs with a weight that made her sink lower, yet hover higher, than whenever her last real breath was. That miserable time of lack had passed now, and here, in the midst of that face, that touch, that voice, that moment that plucked her pitiful pulsing pith, here is where the words flowed freely and the oxygen swam through her entire body. Here is where she found herself living her dream of crouching in her imaginary, liminal tunnel between Here and There, a place where she would never have to say goodbye or hello again, and anyone she had ever loved crouched in the tunnel with her, sharing their coffee and laughs.

But as quickly as it came, it also passed, and she received a swift smack back to the waiting game all over again, being forced to inhale. The countdown rewound as she felt that familiar lack of oxygen in her larynx and the beginnings of a head swoon. It wasn’t welcomed, but she was refreshed and ready, because didn’t someone once say that waiting was always worth it?

Well, at least she got really good at holding her breath.

Holding: 09.13.2013

Poop.

I’m driving, cursing every car in my path. I feel sweat beading up under my bangs, on the sides of my neck and the outsides of my arms. With the culmination of sweat my anxiety rises. I’m in the throws of a colitis flare up and I have got to go. It’s coming and it doesn’t care where I’m sitting. The driver’s seat, the couch, crouched down giving a toddler a hug goodbye or the toilet. It doesn’t care.

I’m holding it. Its coming though. I can want to hold it more than I want anything but really...it has a hold on me. And I just can’t keep holding it.

****

He walked into the bathroom, chin tucked down a little and eyes shifting from left to right. Examining the level of safety he would feel after turning on every single light he evaluated and moved forward. The awkward shape of the room left portions unseen. An unsafe obstacle, possibly able to overcome. After all….he had to go.

He held his hands close to his face as if to cradle it protectively from the images on the screen of his memory.  Each step was slow and unsteady and each breath was baited at the thought that at any moment, out of any of the drains, in any of the receptacles in the bathroom, would unleash his current greatest fear. The tub of goo from the Ghostbusters movie. He has been told it could come out of any drain. Sink, tub, shower and yes….the toilet.

The poor kid has been holding it for two days now.

The poor kid is six.

****

He’s expressing the desire to use his cute little yellow training potty. He thinks it’s a pretty neat trick. Hell, it gets a rise out of us parents every time he pees in it. We jump up and down, we shout “Hooray!”, we all do a happy dance. He gleams and shines like the stars in Newfane on a clear night in December.

He’s still not quite there yet. And while I know it and while I’ve reassured him its okay to use his diaper still I can see the anxiety as he shouts “POTTY! POOPY!” and rushes to the bathroom.

I follow him and help him to undress. He sits and its still too new. Its still too scary.  He can’t let it go. We diaper up or go with the birthday suit. But he still has to go.

You can see his strain and his sadness and his shame, all created in his head as he works it out, while he stops holding it.  He’s been holding it all day.  

I give him a comforting look and say that he did a good job. I reach out offering my arms for a hug but he’s angry with himself. He tells me to go away. I tell him he did a good job and step back. I extend my hand and he takes it we go off to the changing table and I tell him…."You did a good job."

Holding 9.12.13

Ideas must be concrete; they absolutely have to be. I've been holding on to one unchanging notion for so long now. I've been holding on to the notion of you and I walking through the golden-green fields of tall grass, making our own path, for over ten years now. That's longer than I've held most of my jobs. That's longer than I've held on to certain personal beliefs. Thats longer than I was interested in the Catholicism I decided to convince my family to return to when I was 7 years old. It's longer than I've held on to many ideas of salvation or growth that I once did.

I've been holding on to us for so long...

 It's funny how I hold back my questions and feelings about it sometimes, that I may hold your attention longer; I hate when my words make you anxious, freeze up, and hold it all inside. 

I love holding on to your physical form as much as this idea of us...but I'm learning to allow you to hold yourself and not get in your face, which is difficult, since your face and body are my power pellets. Allowing me to hold off the encroaching ghosts of fear. Allowing me to eat all of the negativity and turn it into a high score.

 I've not ever held a love this strong. It's nice to finally see how to cradle it in our arms in a much better way. How to appreciate its weight, and how to support its growth and glow as it radiates forth from between us.

I will hold back neither all of my feelings nor all of my intentions. I will fight to my last breath to hold you above anything else in my heart, spirit or mind. 

I'm holding on to my last threads of sanity, while the strands of patience attempt to hold fast. I'm holding out. I'm holding out for only you. I'll always  hold out for you. I'll always long to hold you. I only want to hold you. It feels so good to hold you.

Holding: 09.11.13

i wear her watch
sometimes

even though the batteries 
have long since drained

i wonder what she would think about that

just a way to hold

sometimes
memories need an anchor

i noticed it
at least i think i did

when we worked at a puzzle until the whole afternoon had drifted away at that card table

when we cut the sugar cookies 
and you didn't mind that i infused the dough with so many hues of food coloring that it finally settled on puce

when you carefully measured 1/4 cup of chocolate chips for me to nibble on while I did my homework
i never questioned the measurement
just tried to make them last longer than they did the day before

i can only remember you in those ways when i wear the watch

you weren't wearing it
the last time i held your hand

i'm glad for that

Holding: 09.10.2013

I had a revelation.

It wasn't earth shattering. It didn't blow my mind. It was a quiet, simple revelation. One that I needed and will continue to hold on to.

I spend a lot of time planning, day dreaming, and otherwise thinking about tomorrow. I was so swept up in this notion of being prepared for what the next day will bring that I realized I had missed today.

I had missed the thousands of tiny moments and details that made today amazing. I was blinded by the glowing promise of tomorrow, next month, next year. Meanwhile, today, this moment, slowly went away, unnoticed, under appreciated.

Yesterday I did the same thing. I planned and scheduled. I prepared and I budgeted. I had hopes for the new day.

Today was the new day. The day I focused so much time on.

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Instead of relishing it's arrival and enjoying every minute I had so painstakingly planned for, I started the prepping and planning all over again.

For tomorrow. Which will never come. Instead it'll be just like today. Unless I break the cycle. Let go. Focus. Enjoy the moments that make today so good.

I will focus on the present. On the details all around me. I will appreciate all the day brings so that tomorrow can be appreciated, too.

I will hold on to today.