specks

our lives are made up of these tiny little moments, many of which are so heartbreakingly beautiful. i wonder, in our hurry to be somebody, to get something, or somewhere, how many we miss? i live a simple life, and i know i miss so many. when i catch those little things, hear the words from a song my child sings to himself and realize they are about love, witnessing an interaction between brothers that speaks to bonds that will remain, God speaking thru the tiny voices of children, sunshine glinting off the edge of a person's jaw, these small moments of beauty that become the fabric of your little world...without them your life becomes very threadbare indeed...and we feel naked, lost and vulnerable in the world. Because with out them we are, these little things become those little christmas lights of joy that light up an often dark and lonely world.

untitled ramble

There has been a single goose alone in the middle of an emerald field near my house for a few days now. My heart throbs a little when I see him there, knowing he is at the end of his line. Not able to go further, to warmth, to rest. He's been left behind. And there he stands, its seems he's not even moved an inch, or even turned around,just standing. That goose has been on my mind and oddly, without much explanation, I feel like that. Alone, disconnected from where I'd like to be, whom I'd like to be with, or maybe, rather, who I'd like to be. Here's this creature, surrounded by beauty, but all alone. I wonder, if most of the time we do this to ourselves...put ourselves out in the middle of a place, where nobody else is, alone, then pity ourselves for it? I don't actually have an answer, just wanted to put somewhere, that this goose makes me ache, feel the pull of loneliness, perhaps imprints on me what I don't actually feel, by the pure heartbreaking beauty of it all.
Every day we have the choice to move forward, sideways or backwards...most days, forwards it is...but on odd days, when I see a lone goose, the heart goes a bit askew and heads the wrong direction. damn goose.

The Invisible Lives of Parents

I wonder often about the things in plain sight that I missed as a child. The stress in my father’s voice, the hurt in my mothers as they smiled and made our world right. The pain of a fractured marriage inflicted in front of us, that in our childhood daze, that bubble of self absorbtion, we missed, or maybe didn’t….is this what they call ancestral memory? Is it really just a blip stored in a small space in the brain that pops up…why smells and sounds can recall bad and good both? Why a flash of mom standing in our dads kitchen crying to herself, over an offhand remark about an advent calender suddenly surfaces. I think this was the first time I noticed my mother crying. I was already 7. They were already divorced. Surely she cried many, many times before that. Surely, my father, reading our bedtimes stories, blow drying our hair felt the angst of that break. I notice now, because I feel these thin lines of hurting.

I’m a mother now. I have pain, I have hurt, regret and resentments. All of us grown ups do. It comes with the territory of living in a world of fear and sadness. Don’t mistake me, there is beauty , too. Breathtaking, aching beauty to behold all the time. But as my children merrily play around me, tug on my pant legs, ask for bathroom help, need bathing and off to schooling….I smile and truly cherish them, hiding the turmoil in me. It does surface. They seem to not notice…this invisible life of parents. Invisible as a pink elephant. Not seen at all.

It seems now, so many years later, the pain callused over, I can feel and see what my family went thru. I seemed not to notice then. My marriage is not ending. We have the chips of bone that people get from flinging life at one another, sure. Our parents must have felt the yearnings of youth, their heads turning to look at a fresh face, the pull of temptation to get in the car and drive as far as the road would take them. They must have felt this as I do now from time to time. This means they also felt the intense joy of us kids, the blinding worry when we were hurt or sick, the sort of pained pride as we grew. I’m not sure where I’m going with this except that as I sit sometimes feeling like I will never get my life together at the age of 35, I wonder if this what it means to be invisible.

oh, back in high school

i feel like i should write. i see a blank page and nothing pressing my heart. ms staley, my high school creative writing teacher used to give us each a line from a poem or prose to stem from...i think i'll find one..i started to use the first poem that comes to me when i think of this...Wild Geese, by Mary Oliver, but felt the same stream of thought bubbling up that I've written so many times before over the years....page at random, please stand by..."I live and move here in my borrowed trappings;" from "Wintering" by Diana Kappel-Smith...

I live and move here in my borrowed trappings
straps cutting from that day long ago, bindings from another moment not as long ago
leave bruises
they are not my own cages i'm stuck in, though i do have my own i slip into from time to time
i take them from others
put that skin on my body, put that heart inside my own ribcage
these burdens of others, some intentionally laid, some i've taken on, however unwillingly
i live within
they shape my days and hours

well. a rocky stab at getting into the habit of writing more. of letting my mind go where it will.