my legs splashing over the edge of darkness

What is so utterly invisible
as tomorrow?
Not love,
not the wind,

not the inside of stone.
Not anything.
And yet, how often I’m fooled-
I’m wading along

in the sunlight-
and I’m sure I can see the fields and the ponds shining
days ahead-
I can see the light spilling

like a shower of meteors
into next week’s trees,
and I plan to be there soon-
and, so far, I am

just that lucky,
my legs splashing
over the edge of darkness,
my heart on fire.

I don’t know where
such certainty comes from-
the brave flesh
or the theater of the mind-

but if I had to guess
I would say that only
what the soul is supposed to be
could send us forth

with such cheer
as even the leaf must wear
as it unfurls
its fragrant body, and shines

against the hard possibility of stoppage-
which, day after day,
before such brisk, corpuscular belief,
shudders, and gives way.

“Walking to Oak-Head Pond, and Thinking of the Ponds I Will Visit in the Next Days and Weeks”  ~ by Mary Oliver

the devil’s loose

life leaves us waiting.
pin pricks draw blood invasive longer needles cut through bone.
waiting again for test results.
he said it came on suddenly.

i’m not yet ready to let go of you. you who i’ve come to know just recently. you who’ve been in my life entirely yet shadowed as any father can be. my many miles away feel like a tightening grip on my heart squeezing just enough to restrict the bloodflow to a trickle, forcing me to sit down.

lightheaded.

wait and maintain some sort of normalcy. bone biopsy. breathe in breathe out. wait to see if it’s leukemia. breathe in breathe out. too many miles make me crazy, make me itchy for flights and wondering what i’d do when faced with the answer anyway. would i stare into those eyes and simply just ‘be’?

what does one do with something that weighs so much?
i’m not yet ready to be fatherless.
and so we wait.

the sun is out again as if all that rain never happened. this is the way of communication, words are typed then swept under the rug. the sunshine has people walking around, blades of grass under their feet. unaware that death is all around.

i don’t know what else to say or do.
so i try to reach out anyway i can.

i spill it to most everyone in hopes that it will somehow dissipate evaporate disappear into thin air and we can all pretend like this never happened. but illness and unknowns divide themselves into molecules, particles caught in air. they swirl around us, until we accept and understand that we are all one life force breathing them in and out. and there’s no greater word than love. and hope.

i don’t know what else to say or do but keep him in my thoughts. he’s safe there.
keep him in your thoughts too, won’t you?

the devil’s loose:
“why don’t you give yourself a rest
give yourself some room
you can’t get your arms ’round everybody
you cannot carry the doom
of the living and the dying
oh, how easily you bruise.”

passing thoughts

*hello pity*
you look a little green around the edges, pity.
that vein in your forehead is bulging again.
but you look strong today, like you just might bully your way in.
when i close the door on you, you find the window…
you sneaky bastard.
hey, pity… i’ll sit with you awhile.
i’ll see you, acknowledge you….
and then you’re outta here.

i’m awoken friday night to the gagging cough that screams illness and the sleep talking that whispers fever.

saturday is a blur of sleep induced fever chills lethargy on the couch with movies while momma frantically does work between temperature checks and doses of homeopathy.

ingestion of nothing more than three saltines in the span of twelve hours. momma grows grey hairs. we both go to sleep at 7pm.

sunday he awakes chipper full of dreams that broke with his fever, wanting food food food and momma’s eyes are pounding with migraine. life is never easy, never in sync. always syncopated tripping you up changing plans of bike rides and birthday parties into the smell of sickness and dim lights with only the glow of a computer screen for companionship.

by sunday afternoon chores call and i drag my ass out of pain, i pull and tug out of need with the power of chai, caffeine, and too many pills. our cupboards are empty and yesterday it didn’t matter but today? today we are starving.

i don’t want to always be the errand runner. the chore completer. i want to be fun too. but sickness always steals my shift it seems. it takes pins to my party balloons with a wicked laugh. mommas’ a drag. always the one to trim nails, trim hair, enforce bedtime, set the alarm, pack lunch, say goodbye say hello.

not anymore.

i shield my eyes with sunglasses and we step out into the world. not much has changed since we’ve last seen it 48 hours ago. not much has changed other than our perspective.

fever spikes in the car and i gulp down the thought of a day missed from work. welcome to my world testing the boundaries of “24 hour fever free” because we have to pay the bills.

when did i become this?
will i ever return to who i was before?

life is the illusion of beauty.
or, it’s beauty so true you believe it unreal.

golden

maybe the earth wasn’t spinning so effortlessly afterall. we take it for granted, don’t we? this spinning. this world that seamlessly comes together for us to walk upon.

maybe we hit a kink, a bump in the atmosphere. we stumbled and tripped and that’s what threw us off our game this week. faceplant in the dirt.

look around. there’s beauty down there in the decay and rot. it reveals itself if you’re able to open your eyes.

now instantaneously, the sun shines golden. as if we were suddenly jolted into fall. push, stumble, trip.

huh? wha?

simultaneously clumsy, all of us.

but happy to be here, right? with the sun shining golden orange. coming in sideways through the trees showering everything in a mellow peace of autumn.

paddler

the first time i saw you, you were all sweat stains and pigtails. hoisting your kayak onto the roof of your honda. ass in the air, knees pressed to the concrete. your jeans were frayed.

is that what you noticed?
it was breezy that day.
those patched up jeans are 15 years old.

hey.
hey. 
woof.
i was breathing heavy because that kayak is fucking heavy!
my dog seems attracted to you.

i didn’t see you coming til you were already there and then i’m all tugging at my sweatty shirt wondering how long you’ve been watching and if my skivvies are hanging out cause i’m in desperate need of a belt. it was your profile i saw first. you were scruffy and bearded. your dog has a big slobbery tongue, i like that about you.

your kayak is orange.
yes she is.

that’s stella. i insisted on her when i was pregnant. (insisted, not like i stomped my pregnant barefoot down in the kitchen, but insisted on that color and that model. it specifically rides two, a mother and child.) that was a long time ago, another lifetime.  the first day i saw you i was sweatty and hoisting my kayak all on my own. it felt like a maiden voyage. that day i realized i was stronger than i remembered.

i saw a pair of swans that day and i thought of you.
i didn’t even know your name yet.
you know that swans mate for life.
that’s what they say, but i hear sometimes they split after nesting failure.
i hadn’t heard that, is that common?
is anything ever normal? shit happens. biologists say small parental investment is the major cause of nesting failure.

i was a bit frantic that day, i had to find peace on the water.
you seemed calm enough to me.
hey… wanna come over?
hey … wanna go paddling?

awakening

remembering 9.11

“In those days,
we finally chose
to walk like giants
& hold the world
in arms grown strong with love
& there may be many things we forget
in the days to come,
but this will not be one of them.”

~ story people

leave your weapons at the door

are you there blog? it’s me meredith. ten days gone, i think that’s an all time record. i’ve thought about you. your glowing screen waiting so patiently nodding off in sleep.

truth is i’ve been busy.
but that’s an excuse.

truth is it’s been ten days. three migraines. 326 pages of text. the first A on a quiz. drunken 40 year old sibling rivalry. three homework assignments and one project proposal. divorce papers. childhood sickness. single motherhood. no time for bullshit.

i’m 34 years old, i may be your little sister but i will demand your respect. i’ve got my eyes wide open, bro.

truth is i’ve been hearing voices.
they speak with smiles but their words do damage with the tiniest bit of manipulation. train wreck. no one used to read your blog before the train wreck. you are wrong, you are just like they were. it’s why you always said you weren’t.

i want to silence the voices. they only speak every other weekend across static phone lines. across statelines with drunken emails. they speak with a smile not knowing what they are saying. ‘watch your mouth’ my mother would tell me. i think before i speak. but you, you outpour and i stand in your wake and take it even though i dont’ need to.

this is multi-layered. this is cryptic. this, you will never hear. even though i can see behind the scenes of this blog. even though i know the viewers, the readers, the voyeurs, the stats. what do you take me for?

you are narcissus gazing at your own reflection. downing gallons of liquid lsd, you think you are god. but i remember the wild eyes as you turned over our solar panels one by one, we were being watched you said. meanwhile you’re taking pictures of yourself with your dick blowing in the breeze. now tell me who’s being watched.

you, narcissus, you are all the same. you were the cautionary tale used to warn boys not to be cruel to their lovers. words spin back to you, revolving around you. the sun.

i dislike having to be redundant.
i told you no more hate.

so instead of reaching out, i reach in. close doors. hibernate. and i find the voices that speak beauty from the west coast. i revel in conversations about all that is human. this is truth. this is life. reality. i find the voices that reach out to me from the east coast about connection and family and photography. i wrap them around me and find comfort in that solitude. in that deep rooted feeling that we are not alone. and that we are all the same. that’s what i turn my focus to.

i focus on school work and text books and photography adventures and future gigs. i will not play the hate game. instead of words i focus on images because that is one thing you can not taint. you can not take an image of mine for anything other than how i see.

blog, you’ve been patient. and kind. and i’ve been putting you off blaming and pointing fingers to everyone else but me. reoccurring nightmares… bubblegum stuck in my mouth. me, unable to say what i need to say. unable to scream. unable to shout. i blink myself awake and panic myself to breathe.

i am the baby. the little sister. you don’t see me as anything more than that.

just wait. just wait til my kayak hits water for the first time in over a year. then i’ll have something to say. something positive to focus on. just wait.

until then, leave your weapons at the door.
don’t come around here anymore.

 

ode to shel silverstein

it’s official…
today was my first day back to school! it’s true, i’ve decided to finish my english degree and i’m so very excited about this journey! it’s going to take some getting used to being a college student after my 14 year hiatus, but today was a good day.

to celebrate… after school, river and i spent the afternoon at the library. we spent over an hour together~alone in solitude and laughter. cruising the shelves and sitting in cozy chairs to read a few.

as i picked up The Missing Piece and began reading it to him, i was very very thankful to be on the path i am on right now. me, my life, my choice. because there’s no better place than this… and it’s exciting in every direction. (this is true and not just because i tell myself it’s true.) exciting may mean exhausting, overwhelming, joyful, tiresome, and wonderful all wrapped up in one package. it’s exciting nonetheless.

wish me luck, because here i go!

from Shel Silverstein’s The Missing Piece:

And as it rolled
it sang this song-
“oh I’m lookin’ for my missin’ piece
I’m lookin’ for my missin’ piece
hi-dee-ho, here I go,
lookin’ for my missin’ piece.”

One time it seemed
to have found
the perfect piece
but it didn’t hold it tightly enough
and lost it.

Another time
it held too tightly
and it broke.

So on and on it rolled,
having adventures
falling into holes
and bumping into stone walls.

And then one day it came upon
another piece that seemed
to be just right.

“Hi,” it said.
“Hi,” said the piece.
“Are you anybody else’s missing piece?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Well, maybe you want to be your own piece?”
“I can be somone’s and still be my own.”
“Well, maybe you don’t want to be mine.”
“Maybe I do.”
“Maybe we won’t fit…”
“Well…”

crossing over

crossing the river in town… the pull is so strong, it’s like the swirl of current passing me by. whether it be morning light or evening sun. everytime i cross the river, i look east and west. the lure of water is irresistible.

this morning i was driving north enjoying what i feel in my bones to be the start of autumn. it is, indeed, not the start of cooler weather. but something in me, in my body, regulates back to school and fall with cooler evenings and band practice on lit football fields, sweatshirts and socks. something in my chemical makeup longs for the crisp air and crunchy leaves. it’s so strong that i can convince myself that here, even in texas on a 100 degree day, that fall is almost just around the corner.

keep dreaming kid.

as i’m driving this morning, i keep my eyes on the road. i can see the golden sparkles shimmering in my peripherials. i resist the urge to turn my head and look, and instead keep my eyes on the road and watch those driving past me, heading south.

driver seat to driver seat we are just a few feet from each other across the double yellow lines. we are all the same. each one of the people i pass turn to look east or west while they cross the bridge too. what i notice is that they are also unable to keep their eyes off the water as they drive across it.

this makes me smile.
i am not alone.

a friend of mine recently asked me what brought us to texas.

for eight years my response had become so routine that i said the words again, but this time as i was saying them they fell out like pebbles, like stones in my mouth that didn’t belong. for once i really knew the meaning behind the words. what i said was my usual response, the one that slips out from over use. “i was tired of being cold.”

we all had a good long laugh at this. now that we all have endured not just the hottest summer in texas history but two of the hottest summers in recorded history, back to back. simply said, life has been on fire these past two summers. in more ways than not.

the lure of texas was kayaking year round.
i turn to see the river pass me by as i cross over it.
i haven’t been in my kayak in over a year.

living outside on top of a rocky mountain in colorado will bear the frigid down into your bones. it takes years to evaporate a 10,000 foot elevation.

“i was tired of being cold.” i said, for the millionth time.
but i knew it wasn’t all true.

how often does what we say, our response to life or difficulty, become it’s own entity? the phrase of emotion takes on a life of its own. words become rote, losing the meaning behind themselves, convincing you they are truth because they have been repeated so often that you forget them to be nothing more than an excuse.

this, has become like that.

living remote in the rocky mountains was extreme. and yes, living outside for half a decade makes you cold, colder than you could imagine now. but in truth, it was the sharpness of it all that drove me south to texas. it was fear.

the steep rocks slipping away to piney tree tops is what began to catch my breath. beautiful, for sure. but able to take a life in an instant. bam! the sharpness of the land took my breath in panic. one wrong move, miscalculation, momentary lapse of reason and it really meant death. tired of snowshoeing uphill after work with gallons of water and twenty pounds of propane? go ahead and lie down in the snowbank. go ahead and lie down knowing that you won’t wake up. that is the truth.

truth is joggers being eaten by mountain lions.
bears ripping through the walls of our dome.
hair freezing and snapping off like dried straw.
truth is boiling water to bathe.

life was extreme and brutal and fragile and yes, wonderfully alive. but the fear of living on the edge of that sharpness with toes sometimes dangling over, made me realize i was stopped cold. i was frozen in fear. it all came down to the ticking bomb of my mid-twenties. the want of procreation, the drive for family, but not being able to keep them safe in that environment. this brought on my first meeting with anxiety.

i did not know it as that back then.
there are alot of things i did not know back then.

there are stories there… in this.

one day i’ll be distant enough to climb those mountains, to grab a pen and unlock that door, to tap into the tipi days. but i think i’ll need to have my feet on snow in order to do that.

change in weather

“it’s a beautiful day!” river exclaims as we walk out the door, heading to school at 7:30am. it feels nice out, a brisk 82 degrees so early in the morning. i can see it in the sun though, the change in weather. even though the temperatures will reach above 100 degrees again today (day 67) i can tell we are nearing september.

i crave things i simply cannot get here.
and that’s going to always be a problem.
“when will you ever be happy?”
i think i know the answer to that.

this afternoon the wind picked up, the sky clouded over, and we finally got a release. it rained and i could hear neighbors all around me rejoicing in the weather.  we couldn’t resist the urge to feel it ourselves, to get wet and remember what it is to be human. we’ve been parched all summer and it was refreshing to feel something different for a change.

i miss seasons.
i miss being a kid enjoying the seasons.
i feel like i want to give him more and more and more.

earlier in the week we hid indoors, we thanked our lucky stars for air conditioning, we ate ice cream sandwiches fast so they wouldn’t melt away. we soaked ourselves in the pool.

cannonballs and baby dolphins.
mermaids and sharks.
we are nothing but loudness
and joy bubbling over when we swim.

there was no missing the bronzed bikini’d babe, poolside reading in a chaise lounge. she set down her book to go for a dip. i caught a glimpse of her title, Why Men Love Bitches. 

really? for real?
that’s not a world i want to live in.
games in place of honesty.
where am i anyway?
and how did i get here?

“momma, sometime…let’s go pick apples.
i want to pick apples to make apple pie.”
my reality craves a much simpler time.

sometimes you get so close to the fire that you actually go up in flames. you actually catch fire. and because of this, you begin to think that it’s always like that. that the combustion of life and spirit is the rule and not the exception. because of the heat you might believe that the world is a hot angry furnace. it takes some time after the burn to realize that the world is in fact, 70% water.

people are genuinely good hearted.  this i believe.  how long ago did i forget? how long did i nod and agree, my lips forming the words that my heart was not yet believing. my skin had to heal for me to realize that i was right all along.  

the world is a beautiful place.
men don’t love bitches.
i am genuinely happy,
but i’m happiest where the land meets the sea.
rainwater is nourishment for the soul,
and love is truly what makes the world go round.