life – Spread Your Dreams

sixteen returns

I was contemplating all the things I contemplate when I masturbate. The places I’ve been, the things I’ve done, a couple of the people I’ve done- because they’re only a couple that really turn up in the darkness of my solitude- and amongst all of those thoughts 16-year-old me came roaring through and mad-as-hell.

Suddenly, we were back together on a train in 1991 and heading into Athens, Greece. She looked at me and said, “What the fuck happened to you? We were going to see the world, learn languages, fly planes, embed into war zones. TELL THE STORIES. Where you are today … that is not US, but I am stuck with YOU. I did not sign-up for the bullshit life your decisions have made for us, but there I am- sitting with you in a fucking office- day after day- feeling blood pressure and cortisol spike.”

“I get it. I don’t want to be there either, but Arwen is my heart and I can’t live all those dreams things until she’s launched.”

“I love her too, she’s my kid too and she wants the adventurous life you HAD, but better. SHE said it. So why did you fuck it up? Why did you stop being free and living your adventure?”

“I fell in love a man who had potential.”

“Was it really love,” it wasn’t a question, she knew the answer.

“We know now it wasn’t … it was hope, but it felt like what I thought love should feel like. I fell into the arms of what-if and potential felt safe.”

“You/me/us. We were the ones with potential. We always made our-self safe. You let us down.”

“I am fully fucking aware, but I love my kid and WE will get to launch soon too. The dreams never stopped, they just got delayed.”

It was enough to calm the 16-year-old that still sits within my heart. Her dreams will come true.

new year, new day

happy new year … time is shorter than ever for us and I intend to sop it up with glee. I will write more and read more and walk more and watch the world instead of screens and meet new people and try new things. I will keep in learning to fix old things and re-use instead of replace. I’ll meet more dogs and observe more birds. I won’t keep my mouth shut when my soul nudges me to speak. I hope to share most of my days with friends, and maybe lovers, but space and time will not be wasted begging people to join me in the joys of life that I have left to celebrate.

Some days will be hard. Some days will be sad. Some days I will want to be entirely alone and feel even more empty, and it will all be too much, but those days will pass, as they always have because life is cyclical.

I will miss some things and be surprised by tripping into others- I won’t be stingy with my presence by worrying over where I could be- I’ll open my heart and marinate in where I am. If I am no longer engaged, I won’t lose myself in wondering if I should stay, but arrange a graceful exit- or just cut strings depending on the situation.

In this new day, let it be known both my home and heart are always open to break bread & hold space for others who want to grow, heal, love, and live. I am here to celebrate each of us and to hold you when all you can do is cry because the tears prove we are still surviving.

We are each a beautiful soul- each a speck of the universe that is a universe in each of us. It is inconceivable that we are in these meatsuits topped with an organic computer, the likes of which the most advanced of the organic computers can barely conceive, and we just incoherently fumble through our lives- barely looking up from the machines we’ve made and are now using as oracles to guide us on how to live. It’s an obscene waste of the miracle of life’s magic and while they are useful, I vow to re-connect with the world beyond the screen, using these machines to grow human connection, rather than limit my time from others. I’m 50 this year and life is only going to get bigger. I’ve been learning and letting go and now I get to use all those tools to really begin loving & living.

From those of you near my age (or for godsake younger), I don’t want to hear how your body is too old now or how something you loved can no longer be done. Do not excuse yourself out of living because you’ve lived your days into a bored or stifled place. Your body may ache from inertia, but it’s not done unless you let it be. Each day is a new day and each day we are gifted a choice whether or not to let our soul shine brightly through the conduit of our meat suit or to let our soul dim. Our big ol’ brains will work to compute a shoulda-woulda-coulda triangulation of the easiest path of decisions on living to draw out the baseline shelf life of your meat suit, but is that really that life your soul deserves? In the end, our brains short circuit and our meat suit ceases to function, but that small voice that has believed in you more than your brain could ever imagine … that soul light wants to shine. Your soul doesn’t want to live at baseline, your soul wants to be the MVP of it’s universe and as we are each a speck of the universe and a whole universe within- BE your MVP.

I will do nothing if not encourage others to declare the same joyfully reckless assault against inertia & apathy. We haven’t survived all the bullshit life has thrown at us just to sit in the corner and wait to die. Every day we wake up, life is a new opportunity, a new story to write. Let your soul shine. Claim your story.

free range mama

I was sitting in a very hot bath, enjoying a semi-silence, but Zach Bryan cooed in the other room.

The other room, my daughter’s was a spotless room, because she cleaned head to toe, while she had COVID, but no fever that day. As I sat in my bath, she was completely locked in on her chemistry, advanced chemistry, thank you very much. She’s incredibly capable and it’s fascinating to watch her navigate this complicated world with such grace.

Meanwhile, my room was a complete disaster. It’s true. I had worked all day, and it was not as bad as it had been in the past. I suppose, at least, clothes were not strewn across the floor, but random computer cables were and jewelry adorned my dresser top with scattered indecision. There were papers out because I had thought I might need them someday, and that someday has passed, but I hadn’t had the gumption to toss them yet. There might be another someday. It was just a hot mess.

But I lounged in my bath and I dreamt about a future where I can spread my dreams. My future and what I want to do and where I want to go in this world. And I know I want a place.

I want a place that my baby will always be able to come back to, a place that both of us can always call home. Presently, that’s my mom’s land, the last bit of our family land. I know my mom won’t always be there. She will die at some point. It’s just the guarantee of living. Once she dies, I don’t know if I still want the land where she lives. It’s just outside of Austin and it will get busier and more crowded. Water will become more of an issue, as we may or may not continue to get rain. And so I thought about it. I thought maybe I will look for a place far north- somewhere where things are damp and green and water and food grows with the seasons.

This idea of place is something to think about for my future, but it’s not required for me. A place in the future comes down to: I want my child to always have a place to come home to. She has commented, “I don’t really have a childhood home.” It’s true, I bought and sold two houses- the first sold because of divorce and the second from being overwhelmed with managing a home on my own. Selling both is one of the few regrets I have in life, but there’s no reason we can’t create one for the future. A place her children will always know, should she choose to have them, and a place she can return whenever she needs.

I want to work toward that and in that, I want a place that I can lock up and leave and go away from for months at a time. I still dream of volunteering with Peace Corps. I should have done it with or without her dad so many years ago, but he said the psych evaluation was foolish and dug his heels in against having one done. I acquiesced and dropped the application process. A bit later, an opportunity opened for me in New York and I was able to leverage that into a move to the City for us. While that was an experience I would never trade, it’s not the calling of volunteer community development and support I still crave. Once my daughter has flown, that will be a goal to achieve- serving in Peace Corps or with another organization.

I also want to hike great distances- the Appalachian Trail- America’s southern borders- at least some of the Pacific Crest- to walk the Santiago Trail in Spain- the caves in France where it is said Mary Magdalene lived after Christ’s ascension. I don’t have a goal to scale any mountains, but I want to see the world on foot. Maybe a little on bicycle, but there’s something about my feet to the earth, step after step, crossing miles and passing through time, that makes me really happy.

While I walk, I want to hear the stories of the people I meet- collect them like a bowerbird, collects shiny objects. I want to collect the stories of people’s lives and wear them in my soul. Woven like the stardust, they are. Stardust that is now only atoms of air that rest upon our ears, and I can carry with me. I want to learn the fiddle so I can play the woven songs into the night.

I want to learn ASL so I can share the stories of people that can’t hear my language. Other languages as well- a babel fish placed in my ear would be a wonderful addition- so long as I can reply to all.

I just want to be of the world, and I want to love within this world. To me, that is love. It’s your soul sharing with souls. Stop for a bit here and there and hither- work in kitchens or learn massage so I can make due. Wherever I go. There’s cooking. There’s writing. There’s organizing. I’m sure I can get it together to be on the waves of the world. Then quietly there will always be a place- that place I’ve set aside for us. Small and simple- accessible from a second bus and a ride from a local to the top of a long road, at the end of which will sit a little house overlooking a nice, low, curving hill that ends with water. It will always end with water.