Gather 11.21.2013

Each year, around this time, I start gathering up my journals. Not just the ones from this year, but as many as I can find. My rule is to always, always be honest in my journals-- even when it hurts, even when I can't bear to be honest in real life. So these journals, they sometimes hold parallel realities: what I knew vs. what I lived.

My favorite journal was penned in 2009. It's red (the only non-black journal I've had in over a decade). I kept this journal when I was having daily panic attacks that left me incapacitated. It's filled with fear, sadness, and intense emotional and physical pain. A lot of the entries are bleak; I wrote a lot about not knowing if I'd ever overcome the panic attacks, wondering if it was all too much to deal with, wondering what the scarring would look like if I ever managed to heal.

That journal, though dark, depressing, and filled with pain and suffering, is such a testament to how much I (we) can endure, and how something better is waiting to emerge. That year is still teaching me lessons about how to be more honest, more open, more healthy, more happy. I'm a better person for it.

We're stronger than we think. 

Gather: 11.20.2013

Autumn (continued)

9.

I've set a place at table
where we'll gather

and feel all the good things

warm
safe
nourished

where the fruits of summer's labor
have not yet gone soft
and produce a feast worthy of fine dishes
but our cracked and worn crockery will do

a feast
to be grateful for
to linger over
to tell the story of

some other time

a humble feast
rich in intention
extravagant in simplicity
abundant in heart

and we'll share more than we thought we had
with a lightness that surprises us
with a heaviness that grounds us
with a feeling that we'll wonder if we can keep with us
in the days that follow

so, I've set a place at table 
and I hope that you will find it.

Gather: 11.19.2013

Quite house, still, calm
They will arrive one by one
They will fill these four walls
With laughter
And conversation
With celebration
And love
We gather
We eat
We smile
Dinner after dinner
Meal after meal
Tummies full
Hearts swell
Birthdays, holidays, every days
We gather
To laugh
To celebrate
To love

Gather, 11.18.13

Gathering Fish, El Tunco

A shirtless man throws a net, bright green,

into the murky shallows at the mangroves’ edge.

He wades in chest deep & hauls the lines, hand over hand-

several coin-bright fish, snagged.

On shore, the man plucks them flipping from the tangle,

tosses them into a plastic bucket.

From a distance I watch the wet blinks of silver,

their brief, furious writhing,

wonder:

what is it like, to drown in air?

Thick as tar pits & oil, or thin & harsh

like desert air, or the acrid grit of smoke, car fumes.

Or just the feel of reaching

in the dark for what is not there.

The fisherman, net picked clean, casts again.

Beginnings: 11.15.2013

Beatrice winced her eyes shut tight. She was ready to see the sound of her heart falling to the tiled floor, shattering into a million pieces. The double strip, a sure sign of the beginning. He was going to leave.

Daniel, a man of routine and instruction and of rules and regulations. A man of calculated risks and ponderings and of worse case scenarios. He had the plan all down pat. He had looked at this picture from every single possible angle. When he got home. He would start his own beginning. He was going to leave.

Beatrice held her own and used her own momentum and love and desire to turn the cogs. Each wheel click moving another click of motion. The intricate clockwork of rotations and cycles leading to something bigger than her. She knew from that moment that Daniel came home and started his own beginning that she never knew when the clock would strike. Or what the clock would read, for that matter.

Daniel, a man of routine and instruction and of rules and regulations. He knew his math was good. He was being logistical. He was finding his own way. When the double strip story trailed off her tongue in the sing-songy way it had twice before he let his emotions cloud the reason. Objective became subjective. His mind couldn’t function that way. It was messy and hazy. It was the beginning, again. Again. Again. Again.

Beatrice saw in his eyes a patterning of a spiral staircase. pupils circling the center and spinning wildly out of control. She reeled and pulled. She worked like a fisherman working his nets working each rope as to not lose her precious breadwinning catch. Her passion for her trade, for her love, was slippery rope slipping through her fingers in a frigid squall like night lost at sea.  

It was the beginning, indeed. The beginning of very hard times.

Beginnings: 11.13.2013

Autumn (continued)

8.

Every morning is a tiny new beginning
a series of them 
over and over

and I gaze in the half-light 
through smudged glass 
wondering if it's as cold as it looks

outside

where the edges grow sharper with each
passing moment of sun rising over the hills
where the movements of other waking creatures 
filter into my thoughts and disrupt my inner soundscape
where I stand for a moment and find the quiet again

and we shake hands
this new day and I
like long lost friends
but somehow
also
like we've only just met

taking in the curious feeling
we look at each other
for a time

feeling that morning-time is different than other-time

stretching
holding
nourishing

then we laugh
because we realize we are still holding hands

and I bring the new day closer to me
full of hope
full of promise
full of so many beginnings

we embrace
and suddenly
I'm alone

but I know that I'm not
not really
and walk forward into the morning.

Beginnings: 11.12.2013

Sometimes, the beginning of something great comes disguised as an end. Sometimes, something painful gives you the motivation you need to try harder.

I started the current incarnation of my blog a year ago. Exactly one year ago today, it went live at it's current URL. It was a fun thing for me to do to document my life parenting a rambunctious 2 year old. It gave me an outlet for my thoughts, a safe place for my words to live.

I never really had much confidence in what I wrote, I just enjoyed the process. Seeing the words on the screen or page felt cathartic. Sharing on such a public forum was nerve wracking. What would people think? Would they like what I had to say, would they like me?

Over time a small group of followers assembled. Mostly family, there was also a friend or two who would regularly read my work. They liked it. They liked me. My confidence grew with every word of encouragement.

Then, I was offered a column in our local paper. I would get paid to write. I was beyond excited but even more nervous. I still felt new. I felt like I had no idea what I was doing. I decided to set aside my fears and go for it. At worse, it wouldn't work out and I would resign. At best, I would be a paid writer.

Excited and needing to share some nervous thoughts I shared the news with my friends and family. Everyone was supportive and encouraging. Everyone but the one person I wanted to be, a fellow writer and friend that I looked up to.

The lack of support led to the demise of our friendship. I immediately blamed myself and assumed my writing was no good. That I had made a terrible decision and shouldn't have taken the position. I doubted every word. If someone I thought to be a great writer couldn't support me, how was the general public supposed to?

My first deadline came and I went for it. I had committed to this adventure and didn't want to disappoint those who were supporting me. Meanwhile, my blog posts dwindled. My personal writing came to a halt. I allowed this blame and self doubt to derail me. I lost my footing and took some time to figure things out.

What I didn't know was that this dark time, this struggle, was the beginning of something. Slowly the support grew. Strangers stopped me in the grocery store to tell me how much they loved my column. I started to post on my blog again. My readership doubled the first month I was back. The number of people following my blog on social media tripled in a month. My confidence grew.

Something shifted. I no longer was writing to try to fit in with someone I looked up to. I was writing for me again. I wasn't trying to impress anyone, I was sitting down and challenging myself to be the best writer I could be. I had gone back to where I started. I was doing this because I loved it.

I have produced some of the best work of my life in the past few months. It feels amazing to say that. It feels incredible to have confidence in what I do. In what I love. I have made some of the best friends I could ever ask for and I have connected with some of the most sincere and incredible people. All because of a new beginning. All because of a beginning disguised as an end.