a letter

pages are torn out. loose leaves. they flutter to the ground like wings without bodies. they were stories. what was. what is no more. but they are stories nonetheless.

the book is empty not knowing yet how to be replenished. not knowing yet how to be. forgetting to trust that it all comes as it should.

i’m in a hurry to write, to meet, to document. to make the history that would prove me not lonely. but that’s not how it works now is it? patience is gifted, not earned with white knuckles gripping the wheel in traffic.

hurry up to get there.
hurry up to not be alone.
hurry up to face time and silence.

the pages are blank.
and although it is beautifully lonely
it leaves me not knowing where or how to start again.

i should write every day. these words i found with no date. one month? two months old? i can’t quite remember. fitting though, for me to find them this day. this day i begin a letter.

To the man in the big white truck,
it’s 82 degrees before the sun even rises. everyone knows the heat makes texans a little crazy in the head. and yet there you are, in my rearview mirror at 7:30am. my four cylinder with the AC blasting just can’t go fast enough for your stress. and for that i apologize even though i shouldn’t, but dude… you’re driving dangerously close to me and my son. me, the ten year old car in the slow lane trying to get up this hill. you are flexing your muscle, honking your horn.

i recognize your anger. i hear it even with my windows rolled up. the speed limit is simply not fast enough for you today. you shout and your coffee breath fogs up your window with spit as it flies from your lips.

CUNT!
would you call me a cunt if we were to meet face to face? i doubt you would have the balls. i doubt you would know what to do with a woman like me.

i have most likely never sat around a campfire with someone like you. you, i will not judge beyond this car, this morning, this word of power. are you the product of this stressful life? a product of a father figure, or simply a product of this  society crammed into cubicles devoid of human contact… forgetting what is decent and kind?

there’s one thing i am sure of, in this so called loneliness: i’m glad i’m not going home to you.

in my dreams

river recently overheard a conversation i had with a friend.  from three rows back in the minivan.  he and his sippy, silently listening.

he’s fascinated with dreams.

“where did river’s middle name come from?” she asks and i begin the story, everything is a story. i like stories. maybe  because everyone has them. it’s what makes us human. every one of us is interesting and different and still the same.

i chat to her about the time just six months after my wedding. deep in the winter of the rocky mountains, the one room cabin, the bed loft, the down comforter.  six years before river’s birth. “his name came to me in a dream.” a series of dreams. each one more real than the next. and so he is malakai.

the next day it bubbles to the surface while he’s thinking. perched on the toilet (my presence required) he tilts his head to the side when asking a question.

“did you dream of me before i was born?”

throughout this week he lets me into his mind by asking this.  and i feel that i can give him no better gift. to know this simple truth at such a young age. “i wanted you before i had you.” i never thought i’d have him. he, the sweet boy that he is. i had always dreamed. but then there he was six years later, the happy accident. how lucky i am that he found me. it seems that the best things in life are never planned.

sea salt

i’m on a deck, on a dock.  and i can pretend that i’m at the coast.  the water is under me and the sun is setting.  this is good.  it’s what i need.  a tall glass of water and five dollar slice of chocolate cake. it better be good.

with each boat that passes the waves move underfoot, a doppler effect of sound and emotion that crashes eventually underfoot.

there i am in the corner. the remote part of the deck, removed from the birthday party happening with bursts of festivities, people dancing on tables across the river.

it’s a river not a lake. it’s a lake not the ocean.

it’s cooler here by the water despite the 100 degree temperatures earlier today.  the boats are beginning to dock for the night. to “anch” as river says.  they come with coolers hoisted on shoulders, they come as the lights begin turning on and the wind blows and all that’s missing are the gulls.

i think to myself i’m not too fond of boats. not these kind anyway. the party boats with bikinis dancing in the sunset. i could do without boats and just sit with the silence, that i’d prefer.

she could smell the beach on me.  the salt air. i’d get reprimanded, scolded for breaking the rules bestowed on me in high school. there was no denying the smell of the ocean.  it was a lure i couldn’t deny.  the beach at night. the power of the wind and total darkness that empowers as it humbles.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

i’m running, taking the steps two by two straight up 775 feet above sea level.  i can hear them before i round the corner. chanting. praying to christ in the dark with their arms thrown up to the sky.  the sun has not yet broken through the clouds.

i walk into it, and past it, around it.  their words are not joyful but painstricken. shouting, questioning, begging, pleading. i came here for the sky. for the water.  the wind is cool but it doesn’t blow salty. and for that it doesn’t quite feel alive.

…yo creo… en cristo… senor..

i stand on the concrete slab of the picnic table.  the blaspheme.  their words fall at my feet.  i step around them looking up.  looking towards exactly what i came for.

i was jarred awake at 4am. the early morning hours of father’s day.

you. you are him.  father to a boy.  possibly two. i didn’t yet know your house in daylight, or the field that stretched behind it leading onward to the sea. but i knew the salt air and this room where comfort lay next to me. smiling, laughing. “let me kiss your lips” you say as if i willed you to existence. pulling your head towards me, a hand in your hair.  you will do things to me, and i want to lick the salt from your skin.  to open my mouth and consume you.

i see all of it there, even in darkness. the sailboat, the trust, the field we would lay down in. you are him, dark haired sailor.

it jarred me awake at 4am. the realness of it. the comfort.  when i had gone to sleep asking “who are you?”

you are love.
you, this dream, are real.
existing somewhere near the sea.

spin around with me

“keep looking at the bandaged place.  that’s where the light enters you.” ~ rumi

river’s upside down on the kitchen floor. “can you feel the whole world spinning?” yes, i think i can. somedays moreso than others. today it’s so beautiful it makes me cry. because i’m happy, because i don’t know why. i used to be amazed that any of us are upright at all, walking around talking and breathing. that was when i was floored mostly, when gravity was too much and pinned me flat on my back in that bullish way gravity has about itself. now i’m more amazed that we aren’t just floating off with the breeze, catching onto lamp posts to keep us grounded… smiles wide and our feet in the clouds.

“spin around with me!” he chants it with feet propped up on the fridge, head down in some strategic yoga pose.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

it’s evening and i’m walking behind him as he does his hurky-lurky bike pedaling. i’m all grins and laughter because it’s just that funny, and life is just that good with glints of sunset in the distance and the fireflies just starting to reveal themselves. i’m laughing because this is what it is, life in slow motion jerking along at an awkward pace.

he sees us and rolls down his window, some stranger witnessing our scene. he waits for us to come closer. we get within earshot… the man points at me and calls out his window, ‘you are happy’ he says. a simple statement. ‘yes, i am’ i say in return. and he rolls up his window and drives off.

it must have been just that important to say it outloud.

it is something to be seen. just as much as the sadness was something to be felt. it’s a beautiful balance. a place i’ve just recently come to.  where people are new in my life and genuinely interested in my story. silence sits with smiles on the couch, waiting for my words to fill the space. ‘who did you used to be?’ i’m finding that i’m finally at the place where i can share what used to be, it’s just like telling a story without judgment, one i know by heart. it’s part my story, part his story, for he will always be a part of me. our stories will always intersect. i am not bitter. i am not angry. i am not sad. i just am. it is what it is. and it’s giving me new eyes on the past and sorting out the beautiful, the amazing. 

it’s june gloom in southern california. it’s the breeze and the scent of jasmine wafting over the rooftops down on Mulholland. it’s sleeping on a concrete slab, living on the jobsite. it’s good times. it’s swimming in skivvies in the fanciest pool ever after a full day of wiring a rooftop of solar panels.

it is what is light and what is dark. there cannot be one without the other.

my heart feels tender for this person i knew so well, although he’s someone i don’t always understand. a person in my life for a decade and a half yet always somewhat invisible, cloaked in feigned busyness. i wonder what the fear is. i wonder. but it doesn’t consume me as it used to.

and for that i feel lighter.

gravity has no hold on me.