i woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.
(though, to be fair, after reading my post from last night, i may have gone to bed on the wrong side and this morning's mood is simply its leftover.)
still. nothing can shake it. not cinnamon toast. not hot coffee. not my favorite blue shoes. not a good hair day. not even tiny kisses from a little grey cat.
i cannot sparkle. i will not try.
actually. that's a lie. i will try. it's just what i do.
maybe i should go away for awhile. maybe i should go away somewhere safe; someplace where you can't be lured by my sweet smile or seduced by my vampire ways.
there should be room for me in the carnival side show, i think, sandwiched somewhere between the fat lady and the siamese twins. look for me there ... corralled in an iron birdcage, delicately scrolled bars separating me from the normalcy of the masses ... seated politely in a chair, beneath a tiny, hand painted sign that reads:
good sunday morning to you. i'm still using too much sugar in my coffee.
i was awake at three this morning. i know - i should have been asleep, but instead, i wrote for a bit and then wandered down to the beach ... embracing my darkness, entertaining my fears and enjoying the near silence and the feel of the spray on my face.
the birds couldn't sleep, either, it seems. they swooped near, teasing the ground and soaring high again. i have been a bird all weekend, turning over and over my sad stories, tackling topics at dizzying heights, aiming for a soft landing and enjoying the flight.
and this morning, my coffee is hot and sweet, the sun rises through the haze and the darkness has gone, save for a hint here and there - hiding out in the shadowy corners of me - tucked in warmly next to scraps of hope. and of insanity. even knowing it's there,though, i still feel a great pleasure to be alive, awake and present.
i think i'll make breakfast.
and for a little while, i'll sit here, fingers and smile sticky from the syrup ... listening to the sounds of traffic, shivering under my armor and looking for ways to calm this storm raging inside my head.
this mash-up of guilt, regret, stoicism and fear is completely avoidable. i can talk myself into anything, including an elevated state of aloofness. i can choose not to care … but if i've learned anything about choices, it's that this would be a bad one. possibly the worst of all.
and so i fight hard against this willful anaesthesia and move forward into the day with discretion and sensitivity ... and a sense of responsibility for my own happiness. it won't be easy. even for a happy girl like me.
when you've been drowning, the first breath is always the most painful.
i am home again. out of the shower and smelling of sea salt and peppermint. wanting to feel warm ... satisfied ... strangely feeling neither. we all know that i can think myself dizzy ... and i am spinning ... twisting ... the images, the sensations of this secret dance, they stick to me. i can not shake them ... nor do i want to.
there will always be shadows i can't run from ... ghosts who brush their cold fingertips across my skin ... but they aren't you. they aren't us. and it's foolish for me to suppose or second guess at a time when i should be content to wait ... and see how things unfold. i ought to be, i can be, i am ... content. to wait.
so the question that begs is how to make peace with something too good to be true? and once we do, can it be explained?
i don't want to wear my heart like a girl in a hurry. i want to enjoy the flicker and know i'll be warmed by the flame. i want to be shattered wonderfully. but you'll have to forgive me if i don't know how to do this. my skin is painfully new.
the question of meaning is for you and i to answer. are we a beginning? or a deep and dying breath? i think i know the answer, but i can't quite reach it. 'use your words,' i think, but it doesn't help. the evening has gone straight to my lexicon.
what i know for sure is that i am happy. the last few days have been blissful and i'm keen to see what happens next.
and i am completely unnerved.
and at this i smile.
have you heard the story of wendy darling and her hidden kiss? the last kiss in the corner of her mouth, the one that her children and her husband all wanted, the one that only peter pan could get?
for me, that hidden kiss has always been faith. and no one could get it. not family nor friends, not even myself. a hundred thousand chances to give it away, but no, i've kept her tucked away-safe from old lovers and new mistakes, so no bitterness bleeds through and the memory of her stays true and dear.
it's ironic, then (or is it fantastic?), that i chose this year to introduce her to the world. this year - the one where i went to war with my heart; this month - with its weeks stained with melodrama and temperance. i have held her up, like an umbrella, protecting me against these extremes of temperature, this folding and pounding; we've stood, hand in hand, as life twisted itself inside-out, and we are laughing loud and long as life is finally displaying the gold hidden within. the excitement, the surprise, the sudden beauty of the everyday has made faith possible.
she is newborn, my faith. fragile and sticky and wet. and yet, in this moment, everything inside me climbs upward. and with her arrival, i find i exist in a perpetual state of hope.
i no longer worry about being broken. a lovely, lovely life is sprouting up from between the cracks and crevices. now, you ask, how does my garden grow? wild and loud and lush.
i no longer wonder how it is i've gone off in eleven different directions from where i began and where i thought i wanted to be. i know, now, that we're not supposed to live with an iron control that excludes those different directions.
i am no longer blind to the series of small miracles that keep me alive. miracles of timing, of impulse, conversations left unsaid, people seen or not seen, opportunities and mistakes lost and grasped. and i've come to not just believe, but to really trust, that sooner or later, good will come to those who do good; joy will be the reward for those who bring humor to others; and opportunity will present itself to those who persist.
in a funny kind of way, the events of the last days are leading me to believe that i can actually will good things to happen. i don't expect immediate results, of course, i just throw my hopes out there into the open air or onto the page and let the universe work its particular brand of evolutionary magic. and in the midst, i find i am calm and comfortable with my settlement. i am happy, high flying, idealistic, looking for beauty and, as always, just a little messy.
and i wouldn't have it any other way.
thomas wolf speaks of 'the ghost of the old eagerness.'
the ghost has awakened in me...in a way that whispers to me in the final moment before sleep comes, when the barriers have fallen. faint, but powerful. i feel something stir inside. something deep and old...making me curious and want to follow its lead.
in those moments, i can feel a tiny wisp of time that hangs in the air, like lightning in a summer sky. and i know something is coming. only, i can't see what it is because it's as if my eyes are adjusting to the sunlight outside.
maybe it's something i want. or something i thought i'd never want, but suddenly find i need. a feeling...not yet fully formed. a part of myself i have never seen. it is not, i am certain, a question of possibility, or of opportunity, or of luck. it just is, in a way i quite like.
i have no expectations, save for the fact that i expect it will arrive - and not according to my whim or wish or timetable. and that one day, i will look back and say, 'there began the thing that would change me forever.'
there is a spot off the beach at doheny where the waves break big and early and often and where, at the end of the day, the sun sits a little longer in the sky, turning the water, the waves and its audience the most brilliant, glittery shade of gold. i like to stop there on my way home from work sometimes, watching the surfers who dare paddle long and hard and deep to reach the swells, watching them race both the current and the sun and listening to their whoops of joy above the crash of the waves and the crush of the wind.
i must look so odd sitting there, in the sand, in my fancy work clothes and my perfect hair. but i don't feel 'odd.' i feel calm and comfortable (though sometimes slightly chilled) and i find the idea of following someone else's joy can almost always lead me to my own.
i haven't stopped there in awhile; everything's been such a whirl. so this evening, if i had my way, i'd steal away to watch the night come down and to give the voices in my head free reign. it's nice having a safe, soft place to land, a place where i don't have to be strong or able or nice, where i don't have to be a good daughter or sister or citizen ... a place where i can just be.
nice. strong. good. of course these are labels i've chosen to wear. i know that. but it's nice to stand naked sometimes. even if someone is looking. especially when someone is looking. thank you for looking.
in my friends, some old and many, oh.so.new, i have found comfort and warmth and genuine affection. and as a result, i find a certain light and lightness turning and returning and so i will heed their gentle reminder that it is not only good, but right, to be someone's first thought.
even my own.
