tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77628579924853644872024-03-05T21:28:45.443-08:00afterthought composerafterthoughtcomposerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06813736275371156038noreply@blogger.comBlogger634125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762857992485364487.post-47490974222885974062023-11-05T01:39:00.001-07:002023-11-05T01:39:21.782-07:00from, not about<p> when stories carry through the air, across the ocean waves,</p><p>when bombs are bursting somewhere else, creating others' graves;</p><p>when helping hands are lifting broken buildings off of souls,</p><p>and carry, with full force, the weight of how to be alone;<br /></p><p>how do we move and breathe here,</p><p>what part do we now own?<br /></p><p><br /></p><p>three words do I adhere to, three words which I now shout:</p><p>collect your stories </p><p>from.</p><p>from,</p><p>and not </p><p>about.</p><p><br /></p><p>what's required of </p><p>the set of eyes </p><p>that looks with ease away </p><p>from </p><p>dads who hold their babies heads and arms in separate space, </p><p>from</p><p>shrapnel through the necks of infants; whole families erased.</p><p><br /></p><p>from </p><p>screaming children only known as WCNSF</p><p>from</p><p>men who lift the boulder to discover what is left.</p><p>from</p><p>streets we once called streets that now only are </p><p>gone</p><p>and from the homes of humans who've been justified as pawns.</p><p><br /></p><p>mothers cut </p><p>the blood-let of their lineage </p><p>from their tongues;</p><p>their weeping is a whisper</p><p><br /></p><p>bodies cover all the ground,</p><p>dust in lungs</p><p>the noise</p><p>the crush,</p><p>the sound</p><p>the screams</p><p>this distance seems</p><p>remarkable.</p><p><br /></p><p>Weep, </p><p>I weep,</p><p>I ask my grown self what to do.</p><p>When I first learned of genocide and residential schools,</p><p>the anger felt </p><p>created space</p><p>and over time it grew.</p><p>I vowed naively</p><p>if this ever happened, </p><p>I would DO.</p><p><br /></p><p>But what?<br /><br /></p><p>I put my little kids to bed. </p><p>I keep these stories from them, I keep them in my head.</p><p>Every time I tender-kiss their tiny little toes</p><p>or help tie up a pair of shoes</p><p>or gently wipe a nose,</p><p>I think of how I baby them, how gentle I can be,</p><p>I see how hard they cry, when they've only skinned a knee.</p><p>I wonder how they would react, to being split in half,</p><p>or seeing every piece of life they know reduced to ash.</p><p>I wonder what they'd sound like, if they knew that I was gone,</p><p>and daddy </p><p>and gramma</p><p>and grampa</p><p>and aunty</p><p>and cousin</p><p>and every</p><p>every</p><p>every</p><p>one.</p><p><br /></p><p>to mow them down in person, or with a button press,</p><p>blood spilled under fallen stone, or blood seen on a dress;</p><p>burned life in a safe room, or crushed life in debris;</p><p>What difference does it make from whence you launch your killing spree? </p><p>What life is worth more than the rest? What home, what family?</p><p><br /></p><p>some will justify the first, while some defend the last,</p><p>jargon, label, rhetoric, </p><p>belief, idea, caste.</p><p><br /></p><p>Rally, protest, advocate,</p><p>debate, dispute, embrace.</p><p>Honor, listen, witness: </p><p>but do not look away.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p>hate does not solve hate</p><p>hate does not push hatred out</p><p>hate is countered when we listen</p><p> from,</p><p>not just about.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /><br /></p>afterthoughtcomposerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06813736275371156038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762857992485364487.post-38481679708747529612022-02-23T13:07:00.000-08:002022-02-23T13:07:11.392-08:00a note to my younger self <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiKjI_cgQVZhFVt8OavOucLFjEvoIlDf7WUOeCM8ZrvM5Ivgmberp3lM6pD86Z0CElpQi2hJZQ4LaIaV1wVMElTLJV9F4iXZJhgUuVCJ4qviMjjuaSOWywGs7jSBzrbtFbNmwzQTUUsozIbydGpG8vf6233nfU7OOpj4tVf5IXD9HpLOfJSY6ZbGcmZ=s4032" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiKjI_cgQVZhFVt8OavOucLFjEvoIlDf7WUOeCM8ZrvM5Ivgmberp3lM6pD86Z0CElpQi2hJZQ4LaIaV1wVMElTLJV9F4iXZJhgUuVCJ4qviMjjuaSOWywGs7jSBzrbtFbNmwzQTUUsozIbydGpG8vf6233nfU7OOpj4tVf5IXD9HpLOfJSY6ZbGcmZ=s320" width="240" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;">There were days you simply couldn’t see it;</p><p style="text-align: center;">all that was to come and will and is. </p><p style="text-align: center;">The world makes haste to threaten dreaming</p><p style="text-align: center;">leaving us too fragile to begin.</p><p style="text-align: center;">And yet among the as-not-yet’s and almosts</p><p style="text-align: center;">lies one truth that never fails to win:</p><p style="text-align: center;">Tomorrow is a reason to keep going</p><p style="text-align: center;">for with it come the things you can not see yet;</p><p style="text-align: center;">Tomorrow brings us back to our belief that</p><p style="text-align: center;">Dreaming is a threat worth everything.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>afterthoughtcomposerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06813736275371156038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762857992485364487.post-68947926529399699342020-04-28T22:23:00.001-07:002020-04-28T22:23:47.033-07:00for the girlI have watched you<br />carefully, and<br />I have seen you<br /><br />work by force<br />every rail<br />every rope<br />every plank that built the bridge between us<br /><br />hastily<br /> buried<br /><br />I know why you did it<br />it was easier.<br />You were not allowed,<br />so you didn't.<br /><br />This field is laced<br />with the unmarked graves of our memories.<br />There will be no monument<br />to who we were. <br />no bearers will sing<br />there will be no stone<br /> upturned.<br /><br />Every morning, the Messenger comes to remind me<br />you are gone.<br /><br />Every morning, I tell him what I know:<br /><br />I tell him about you.<br /><br />I have crossed this ocean before,<br />anchor-tied,<br />tongue-cut and lifelines set ablaze,<br />near drowned, yet<br />Mercy helped me find you.<br /><br />Our bridge is dismantled. Piles of rubble and dust where once stood<br />the delicate balance.<br /><br />here am I,<br />open hands to the sky<br />open heart to the surgery of your removal.<br /><br /><br />I told you recently, soul alight,<br />No one can steal your joy, dear, you have to let them<br /><br />and the irony<br />is how you still thought it was possible<br />to steal mine.<br /><br />I see these pieces and I raise you.<br /><br />If you stay on that island<br />and watch those fires for a decade, eventually<br />the smoke will clear to show <br /> you, it was not I who moved.<br /><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7QbTYvFQWE7b7yCvRTa5cVAP_KxjYhaymoLvkhpTck2SHSAaDrzX3g_BbPJVa2EEXd65BY-DKej_9XajnZzLsHKT6DNzUVua6yhPnDCL9fn00l2zOrAyxlLKok3BjfSuwkmJu7QJTaaw/s1600/rosie-hardy.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="639" data-original-width="639" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7QbTYvFQWE7b7yCvRTa5cVAP_KxjYhaymoLvkhpTck2SHSAaDrzX3g_BbPJVa2EEXd65BY-DKej_9XajnZzLsHKT6DNzUVua6yhPnDCL9fn00l2zOrAyxlLKok3BjfSuwkmJu7QJTaaw/s640/rosie-hardy.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stunning and on-point photography by the incomparable Rosie Hardy.<br />www.rosiehardy.com<br />insta @georgiarosehardy</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />afterthoughtcomposerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06813736275371156038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762857992485364487.post-55691209001163446992020-01-02T14:13:00.000-08:002020-01-02T14:13:05.837-08:00Hindsight Is 2020<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqxPLUvmGoEOfucnZ1fM4hC7E466ojg9Op6EEqCPh_Q25ZD9E0F0pVDEtbD2FyI4zcTmE77Udjf3aP7LKbI5fomrnLag7haWYfgnh9uq7TLIWyshrR2lwooiaQWbMZJzQiihnQHO7c1vI/s1600/insta+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="443" data-original-width="597" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqxPLUvmGoEOfucnZ1fM4hC7E466ojg9Op6EEqCPh_Q25ZD9E0F0pVDEtbD2FyI4zcTmE77Udjf3aP7LKbI5fomrnLag7haWYfgnh9uq7TLIWyshrR2lwooiaQWbMZJzQiihnQHO7c1vI/s320/insta+1.jpg" width="320" /></a><br /><br />I have been everywhere but here. In time, I will unleash these recent journeys onto the page. For now, I am poking my head above the blanket of necessity to tell you: I am still here. I'm just...not writing. I am immersed in our newest baby and also in the world of our toddler. I am balancing Motherhood, joy, task, threshold, sleep-deprivation, limit, boundless to-do's, wishlists, daydreams, and rabbit holes. I am a thousand people with four hats to share among them all. I am happy, I am working, I am here.<br /><br />And I will be back.<br />
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<br />afterthoughtcomposerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06813736275371156038noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762857992485364487.post-53459769755763433402019-02-02T12:17:00.001-08:002019-02-02T12:23:49.433-08:00The difficult work of tidying upMarie Kondo. By now you've heard her name - and if you haven't, may I ask if there is space to share under that rock? I could use a quiet hideout. For now, though, I am rockless, which means Marie Kondo is everywhere I look. I don't mind; she's adorable. Her impeccable dress and sweet demeanor are so darn wholesome and pristine, it makes me feel like a giant unkempt gangly galoof. But I don't even mind that, because Marie Kondo would never make me feel that way herself. She's far too nice.<br />
<br />
When her book, The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up, first hit the shelves, I hit the road. I have very little interest in following trend for the sake of it. Tidying up? Yeah, I do that every grace-filled day. Besides, we've moved so much in the last fifteen years (almost once a year, but who except our Exhaustion is counting!?) that the art of Stuff Purging now comes quite naturally. So, I forgot all about her. <br />
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But then, her Netflix special showed up, and she was, once again, everywhere. And this time, I could forgo the time and effort of reading a book I didn't really want to read. I could, instead, sit down with a bowl of popcorn and my skepticism and call myself informed. After a few weeks of resistance, I went for it. Change my life, Marie, I said.<br /><br />Ironically, I had to approach her method like she does with clutter: find what brings me joy and discard the rest. That said, there was a lot of good to keep.<br />
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<br />
What I loved about the #konmarie method:<br />
<br />
<b>1) Gratitude.</b> It's where she starts, and her entire process depends on it. I am thankful for my home, I am thankful for these items, I am thankful for what they taught me. Keep, toss, donate, or not; it's all done with intention. Without gratitude, her method falls flat. There's something quite beautiful about that.<br />
<br />
<b>2) She doesn't do the work for them.</b> I was expecting her to sweep into these homes and do all the organizing for the camera and then leave; because, you know, Reality TV. Not so. She enters the chaos calmly and without judgement (in fact, with excitement!) and encourages change with her method, then, just like that, she leaves. The family is then left to work their way through their stuff, item by item. She comes back when that work is completed. She gives them their next category, and on it goes.<br />
<br />
<b>3) The timeline and workload are realistic.</b> Each episode covers a span of approximately one month in real time. There is no quick fix when it comes to setting a house in order. I appreciate that this method doesn't promise a quick fix, but seems to invite a steady pace, and it begins with the acknowledgement that this is going to be a difficult process.<br />
<br />
<b>4) To keep what matters.</b> <span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>“We should be choosing what we want to keep, not what we want to get rid of." - Marie Kondo. </i></span></span>Unlike so many other methods of organizing, the #konmarie method asks you to find the important. The motivation as you start is to hunt through the pile for the obvious joy-bringers. This flips on its head the most common approach to clutter: <i>get rid of it! why do you still have that! you have too much stuff! </i>No, Marie Kondo non-judegmentally says to keep what brings you joy. <span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14px;"> </span>Naturally, as those decisions are made, you will of course remove a lot of items from the home. But she doesn't start there. This is a good thing.<br />
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<b>5) "Does this item belong in your life moving forward?"</b> For the nostalgic (*who are you looking at*), the concept of de-cluttering is kind of panic-inducing. I am a nostalgic collector. As much as I let go, I accumulate more. Every item has meaning. Most items spark joy of some kind. I can attach memory and importance to a lot of <i>things</i>. In Episode 7, she poses the question above to her client, and you can see a visible change as he answers the question, "No." There was a lightbulb there, and it clicked on for me too.<br />
<br />
******<br />
<br />
Before the show, I assumed that the many moves and garage sales and donations I've made over the years have made me an expert on getting rid of stuff, and I suppose, that is true. Many of Marie Kondo's practices are things I already do: go through items by category (check), one at a time (check), organize messy drawers and cabinets in boxes (check). But it was the theory behind these practices that was missing for me. Despite my work, I am still overrun with <i>stuff</i>. Clearly, I was due for an organizational tune-up. I am thankful I caved to the trend and tried to learn more about the #konmarie movement. It didn't change my life, but it certainly changed my mind.<br />
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Now, onto joy.<br />
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<br />afterthoughtcomposerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06813736275371156038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762857992485364487.post-19015937198246822832018-10-22T09:38:00.001-07:002018-10-22T10:50:56.028-07:00Stay<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihIDAQ0ab6FjDDTdzi0Uf0pDeLIJDxiA1zz9EhAEXtcREw4Jjgs0sj6L35VnkdTFGE7ROq7stg7JpJxU8p1ByM-lLWDcM0crEVWfJSKz-04Dbj2AV2xY6TeQGdze0JwX88EJIBVxceyzY/s1600/alivia+savage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="845" data-original-width="564" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihIDAQ0ab6FjDDTdzi0Uf0pDeLIJDxiA1zz9EhAEXtcREw4Jjgs0sj6L35VnkdTFGE7ROq7stg7JpJxU8p1ByM-lLWDcM0crEVWfJSKz-04Dbj2AV2xY6TeQGdze0JwX88EJIBVxceyzY/s400/alivia+savage.jpg" width="266" /></a><br />
I was talking with one of the counselors in my life a few days ago, and she spoke to me about the physical reaction that comes with certain memories. She said that even though the original pain may be gone, and the situation is no longer a "problem" for someone, our bodies can still create a physical response to triggers that remind us of the pain. I know this to be true for myself. I know the nervous energy and analytical anticipation that come from flashback, and these can create results which feel fresh, even though the memory and the hurt are anything but; even though I have moved on from something.<br />
<br />
I've been ruminating on this since she spoke to me about it, and have been recognizing myself in the concept, too. When something triggers an old memory, I can speak about the pain as if it's brand new. This frustrates my counterparts. "I thought we were past this!" is a statement I've heard many times, and I can understand why. I know what this looks like, and feels like, for those who stand with me in the mud of this life.<br />
<br />
How does a person stop feeling pain for a situation without resolve?<br />
<br />
This morning on my very early drive to work, I was playing CBC Radio 2's Nightstream, which as a sidenote, consistently plays some of the best music I've never heard before. This morning was no different: Late night and less sleep than I needed had me feeling heavy in every facet. And then, these words:<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
“Take your heart like a drink off a tray<br />
Play the part, ‘cause we wrote it that way<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Every year that goes by doesn’t change the way it feels<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m alright, with the highs & the lows<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In a place only you & I know<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But I’m through waiting ‘round for a better kind of you.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you wanna go on hiding from yourself<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Would you be so kind and take me off your shelf?<br />
<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In times like these you turn and walk the other way<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Til you find something that makes you wanna stay.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Stay by Justine Vandergrift<br />
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Her words address every inch of my processor these days: the feeling of playing a part for the sake of something, the desire for time to fix things, pain that must be kept quiet, the dichotomy of knowing someone won't change, yet still waiting for them to do so. I have begged to be left out of the story, and then in another breath, wished to return to the reader. Our hearts are, in their nature, contradictory.<br />
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I am working through what it means to let go. I do believe it's possible to feel past pain without considering it a backwards step. I believe every thing we do is forward motion, and the revisit comes from the carry, not from return or regression. But the ability to carry something for a long time, and the physical response creating echos that still make too much noise: these are probably best left by the roadside.<br />
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I am thankful for those who hold me while I figure out what to do with everything I've carried. I'm thankful for those who help me put things down. I am thankful that the days keep coming, the sun keeps rising, those mercies stay new.<br />
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*Perfect image by <a href="https://www.google.ro/search?q=A+L+I+C+I+A+%E2%80%A2+S+A+V+A+G+E&biw=1366&bih=623&espv=2&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiguPuWh8rJAhVGWxoKHXyqBn8QsAQIHA&dpr=1&safe=active&ssui=on#imgdii=jH4H99WuiQzWKM:;jH4H99WuiQzWKM:;Xcn0zW3vPi77xM:&imgrc=jH4H99WuiQzWKM:">Alicia Savage</a>afterthoughtcomposerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06813736275371156038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762857992485364487.post-60080851393646313362018-09-30T08:28:00.002-07:002018-09-30T10:31:25.555-07:00#Metoo is a movement because the stories are real.I was six years old the first time I received an unwanted sexual advance, though I didn't know what to call it back then. A boy we looked after exposed himself to me in our basement. The entire experience lasted 2 minutes. We were not unsupervised. We were playing house, and he wanted to have sex, so he took his pants down. I was six, and I didn't know what he meant, or what sex was. Thankfully, he didn't really know either, and his sudden exposure and his pushing himself against me were as far as it went. Even at six, though, I already knew I didn't want what had just happened, I was very upset, and I created a vault in my soul. No one can ever know. This is the first time I've told this story outside the confines of secrecy and shame. Admittedly? I'm still embarrassed.<br />
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When I was seven, our neighbor's son saw me playing in our backyard, got my attention, and when I turned to say hi, he pulled his pants down and stood there naked. Nobody else saw. As I turned away I remember feeling embarrassed and uncomfortable, as if I had done something wrong. Why did he think he could show himself to me? When I was 8, a boy in my class physically held me against the wall and kissed me despite my protests. When I pushed back to defend myself, even telling the teacher why, it was I who got sent to the principal's office, got in trouble, got a talking to for my behavior. He stayed in class.<br />
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Skip ahead to grade six. I know very well by now that boys will be boys; we all do. I hear them talk about and to the girls in my class, about their bodies and body parts. I see the girls in my class pretend to be stupid and laugh things off so the jokes won't get worse. Thankfully, mercifully, I was an awkward teen, and expressly unwanted and unnoticed by the boys. Except for the occasional cruel joke, I didn't get attention. My friends with breasts, my friends and classmates with beauty, they got attention. Even at twelve, I knew to be thankful I was being ignored.<br />
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When I was fifteen, my sister and I were walking down the street in our snowsuits, armoured against the cold so only our faces were showing. A man walking by stopped, looked intently below our necks and said, "I'd love to see what's underneath all that."<br />
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When I was eighteen, I attended a conservatively minded college, and there it was solidified what I had learned my entire childhood. There were speeches from leadership about it: if a man should desire us sexually, unwanted or not, it was our fault. The onus of responsibility for their behavior fell entirely to us. I was used to that information: it's the kind of information life and learning had given me already, many times over. But I was eighteen, and it was starting to piss me off. I began to say so. When I talked to the guys who'd been raised on the same information I was, it was news to them. They believed, like I did, that it wasn't their fault. If a woman tempted them, they could not control themselves as a result, nor could they be expected to.<br />
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When I was in my twenties, I dated a man who professed publicly to be an upstanding citizen, a man with a congregation of devout followers. Close the doors, and everything changed. Emotional abuse is a brilliant tactic. Fast forward a few months in to the quiet dismantling of my self esteem, where everything I said was wrong and stupid. My self esteem had been held to such a low standard before this, that it plummeted without control. I started to believe him, I didn't question him. He was a man, after all, and my worldview had been carved from a sick tree, where men could behave as they would, and it would always be my fault. So when he started to push the boundaries of our physical relationship, I didn't say much, because I didn't know I could and I also didn't know how to. And then, it was like I turned eighteen again: I started to speak up. He started to get more and more violent with his words, and more abrupt and frightening with his actions. And then one day he picked me up by the shoulders (I can still feel his hands), and tossed me four feet through the room (it all happened so fast, my hair rushed in front of my face), because I wouldn't sleep with him. When I broke up with him, a shameful few weeks later, he told me I needed to repent for being a whore and leading him on.<br />
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I'm 35 years old. These stories have been buried, and these are only the ones I remember after years of keeping things in. I've never been raped, thank God, but I have had to fear it.<br />
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Women stay quiet because we know what happens when we don't. Holding a story in secrecy provides a certain type of solace: nobody cares, because nobody knows. But the real heartbreak comes in this: even when we tell our stories, it doesn't matter.<br />
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What if I had named all the men in this article? The boys I wouldn't: in adulthood I learned they each faced abuses during their childhoods that are traumatic in their own right; because of their exposure, our trauma was shared. But what about that last man? I know he's not a safe person: I was there. After I ended it, I grew strong, found my footing, learned truths that sustain me even now. But I could still name him, and would if it became necessary. Even as I say that, I know, naming my abuser would bring me more grief. Publicity would allow him to deny it and act the victim for my obvious instability. Because no one else was there, I am immediately discredited. He knows as well as I do: what happens to women behind closed doors is a world cloaked in immunity. Bringing those actions to light is a task marred with impossibility. It is only by a woman's fault that an action takes place, and only by her agenda that an abuser is named.<br />
<br />
I am realizing in a new way, now that I have daughters, how important it is for women to share their stories. I needed the freedom, even from the age of six, to say no, to tell without fear of blame. The shame from my childhood only feels that way because of my education: I was taught by a world, and therefore I believed in the way of that world. Now it's decades later, and these stories are as true as they were the days they happened. I tell them knowing how many women could write their own six-paragraph version of events. There is power in story: either to hold us, or to be held by us. Let us continue to free our stories from the vault, so our daughters don't have to make their own vaults, too.<br />
<br />afterthoughtcomposerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06813736275371156038noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762857992485364487.post-57517044932341507342018-07-05T12:56:00.001-07:002018-07-05T12:56:58.377-07:00My girl<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRAOJbc_cEfXCECybJf0r06YcjAkq7ry_84i_Xrn5eA0itfy0d-0ImL2AEpe6NueJDNrYhINzCRRFutPAKnePbl3WheWrNB-tMK0kca0FWke_RNRrxZ4JTutE7xYAZgpiJZA1MVsepLXI/s1600/PicsArt_07-05-12.52.15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="857" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRAOJbc_cEfXCECybJf0r06YcjAkq7ry_84i_Xrn5eA0itfy0d-0ImL2AEpe6NueJDNrYhINzCRRFutPAKnePbl3WheWrNB-tMK0kca0FWke_RNRrxZ4JTutE7xYAZgpiJZA1MVsepLXI/s640/PicsArt_07-05-12.52.15.jpg" width="340" /></a></div>
<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />I wrote this a little while ago: eight months ago, to be exact. Eight months plus ten months plus whatever is to come: these words hold true. Love you, love you, I love you, little girl.<br />
<br /><br />Ten months to the outside world, and fierce as ever. She's rad. A spitfire, a wonderful human, so full of love and curiosity for everyone she meets. She looks openly, stares unabashedly, and watches the world make waves before her. She is joy and love in sweetest human form.<br />
<br />
<br />I have not written much since her birth. Admittedly, I've written very little. This surprises Past Me. Even I assumed her arrival would send me to the page. But in truth, it's sent me far away from it, and into life full tangible. I have not felt the need to reach for poetry because she is poetry; she is every word I've tried to write, and every word I've written. She is my heartbeat and my blood, my soul's now-known purpose; she is the freshest of pages, every time I see her. I have not written much on paper for you yet, my love, but I have written you on every surface of my heart.<br />
<br />
love, mommyafterthoughtcomposerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06813736275371156038noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762857992485364487.post-42997062281632748382018-06-20T08:41:00.000-07:002020-01-15T16:04:51.211-08:00what i would say to youYour pain will never matter to them.<br />
You are fodder.<br />
You are candy for the taking. You are seen as small and sweet<br />
to greedy hands, to mouths who long to feed, teeth that yearn<br />
for another bite; bitter tongues that crave the high of another<br />
one's unwrapping.<br />
<br />
But they don't know you like I do.<br />
They've not seen that you aren't a small thing. They don't know <br />
you are the whole damn store; take as they might, they will never really get you.<br />
<br />
Children chase after the instant gratification of found sweets,<br />
but my dear,<br />
you are an entire feast, and their bellies will explode before they reach your center.<br />
<br />
I have watched them take<br />
take<br />
take<br />
<br />
but honey, I've been watching you, too.<br />
<br />
I have seen the way you magnify under pressure.<br />
I have seen you rally against fear.<br />
I have heard your bones creak as they grow to the rafters, incapable as you are<br />
of being kept to the ground.<br />
<br />
<br />
Am I mixing analogies? Let me be clear. You are a giant, my dear. Your lineage was severed because <br />
they are too small to be a part of you. You were birthed and released, so wear those wings with joy.<br />
<br />
You are a flame and the moths are drawn to you. But remember, moths can only consume<br />
what is not already on fire, and you are that flame: higher and higher. Your life is big <br />
and your heart has the universe and stars inside it <br />
(so reach for those, love, and leave the mud of earth behind you).<br />
Your children rise<br />
to call you blessed<br />
so let the awful do their best, then know this:<br />
they can not touch you.<br />
<br />
<br />afterthoughtcomposerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06813736275371156038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762857992485364487.post-2397147423474456552018-05-17T11:04:00.003-07:002018-05-17T11:04:19.951-07:00FreedomFreedom!<br /><br />Freedom is a choice<br />
in the mind<br />
and the heart will follow<br />
<br />
Freedom is picked when it is not given.<br />
When the shackles slam tight<br />
and refuse to let,<br />
and the judgements come<br />
and the hateful bet on your crumbling outcome,<br />
<br />
Surprise them.<br /><br />Freedom.<br /><br />Freedom from<br />
that tyranny of replication,<br />
of only doing what others think I should, and only then in moderation;<br />
for fear that my assigned tasks will be far-too-done, or not done enough.<br />I can not win, so I will not try to win, anymore,<br />
by this ridiculous standard.<br />
<br />
Freedom!<br /><br />Freedom from their loathing, freedom from grief,<br />
Freedom is freedom, and freedom is belief.<br /><br />Belief is insistent, Belief withstands rain, Belief will remind you,<br />
again,<br />
and again:<br />
<br />Freedom is here now, and has always been<br /><br />
Look! The Eternal Spring.<br />It was here all along, it did not hide. I, it was I who turned my back on it.<br />Laughter rises in the soul and springs up as from a fountain whose only purpose<br />is to bring joy, to bubble up and to delight and to steadily remind us that in the quiet,<br />in the dark, in the day, and at night, it will be there. It will be there.<br /><br />Freedom in the sound and the flow of water. Wash your sins in the Truth for once,<br />and not in the words of another's daughter (she can not speak Truth, it is not in her). Let the<br />trauma of your loneliness be left. Misunderstanding stands bereft, so look instead<br />to the Truth. Find who you are, let their fabrications be, take this new day in your arms:<br /><br />Welcome, Welcome, me. I give you Freedom.<br /><br />Freedom!<br /><br /><br />
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<a href="http://www.rosiehardy.com/1145-self-portraits"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://www.rosiehardy.com/1145-self-portraits</span></i></a>afterthoughtcomposerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06813736275371156038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762857992485364487.post-78373447203401717352018-05-11T10:05:00.000-07:002018-05-11T13:05:43.639-07:00how to be unlikedThe great irony of life is as follows: where we fear, we will face it; where we are nervous, we will encounter it; where we are uncertain, we will be forced to decide. I spent much of my childhood convinced that people were only pretending to like me. I was so certain that everyone else was in on a big secret, laughing without me, playing without me, playing nice when I was there. The fear of being unliked was so deep seated, I came to recognize the way it anchored me as: normal.<br />
<br />
Fast forward through adolescence, early adulthood, and the like. The fear subsides somewhat, because as it turns out, there are some people who seem to be legit. Friends have sought me out, and by nature we don't seek to be close to people we don't like. Someone chose to marry me, and that's pretty rad. My inlaws dote on me constantly; hurdle: done. My community grows. So I'm thinking, I'm all good. I still waver on the wind of it all, though, because seeking to be liked demands a certain kind of finesse. It's a finicky balancing system; oft susceptible to little blips and tiny cracks. When I find out someone doesn't like me, I am siderailed; when they like me, I'm ecstatic. And on it goes.<br />
<br />
Hit that fast forward button one more time. Well into adulthood now. My life begets a story so tragic I can't help but tell it over, and over, and over. Not with anger, but certainly not in secret. Someone I loved deeply who professed that love for me changed the entire melody of our relationship with one final note: I've never really liked you, I was pretending the whole time. If you read that last sentence like I do, it comes out really, slowly. But then, logic and heartache never do go together. This confusion puts our words into molasses.<br />
<br />
Recently, I told the detailed story of that pain for, I believe, the last time. It's a funny thing, really, how the pain can be unrelenting, the need to share it, overwhelming. Then, one day, you finish a sentence and the whole thing leaves you. I told the story of this pain and as I trailed off toward the end, I realized it now sounded like someone else's story. I looked at my friend. I said, "I think I just told that story for the last time." I felt calm.<br />
<br />
How to be unliked? It doesn't matter. Who I am and where I'll go in life have only to do with truth, and self-confidence, and a whole bunch of other things that have nothing to do with whether or not someone likes you. While distortion campaigns are certainly a hurdle, they are only that. Campaigns, especially those based on hate or discord, are passable, and rather meaningless in the long run.<br />
<br />
How to be unliked? Be yourself. The quality of a friendship is based on many things: mainly, what you put into it, and what the other person accepts. If you put something down and someone else decides they don't want it, what choice is that? There are involuntary moments that decide for us what will happen, and what someone else will do is never within our control. So let it go. If you change to match the situation, you will always be changing. This reactive way of being in relationship has a dizzying effect. How to be unliked? Be okay with it.<br />
<br />
The drive to being liked or unliked, or the fear that drives us to one thing or another in order to try and facilitate a certain end...gosh, it's as breath-reducing as that sentence. It's a traffic jam for the emotions; lifetimes stuck in an endless battle to move forward in the middle of a stand-still. My advice is to take the scenic route instead. Deviate from the norm, and let go of those who wish to be dead to you. It begins with intention and encounters exceptional scapes like: personal responsibility, purposeful generosity, action, and time spent on things other than yourself. <br />
<br />
The scenic route allows you to travel with joy and with others because you are looking outward. You can carry and share because you noticed something needed carrying, or sharing; you can move because there is freedom to do so, you can pause or go forward because out here, that is what we do. We seek to be loving, we seek to invite, to build up and not destroy. <br />
<br />
Our family has chosen this route, though we sat at the intersection of our pain for some time. My husband has journeyed this with me and has stood fast as a beautiful human, showing me often what it is to be gracious, kind-hearted, and active in love. There was a time for grief, but now that time is done. So we open on up and let the fresh air cascade over us, tumbling our hair around, sun-squint in our eyes, music playing, singing out loud because we belong with each other. We remember now our melody, and it is beautiful.<br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><br /><span style="background-color: #fdfdfd; color: #252525;">“There is a time for everything,</span><br style="background-color: #fdfdfd; box-sizing: border-box; color: #252525; margin: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: #fdfdfd; color: #252525;">and a season for every activity under the heavens:</span><br style="background-color: #fdfdfd; box-sizing: border-box; color: #252525; margin: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: #fdfdfd; color: #252525;">a time to be born and a time to die,</span><br style="background-color: #fdfdfd; box-sizing: border-box; color: #252525; margin: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: #fdfdfd; color: #252525;">a time to plant and a time to uproot,</span><br style="background-color: #fdfdfd; box-sizing: border-box; color: #252525; margin: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: #fdfdfd; color: #252525;">a time to kill and a time to heal,</span><br style="background-color: #fdfdfd; box-sizing: border-box; color: #252525; margin: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: #fdfdfd; color: #252525;">a time to tear down and a time to build,</span><br style="background-color: #fdfdfd; box-sizing: border-box; color: #252525; margin: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: #fdfdfd; color: #252525;">a time to weep and a time to laugh,</span><br style="background-color: #fdfdfd; box-sizing: border-box; color: #252525; margin: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: #fdfdfd; color: #252525;">a time to mourn and a time to dance,</span><br style="background-color: #fdfdfd; box-sizing: border-box; color: #252525; margin: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: #fdfdfd; color: #252525;">a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,</span><br style="background-color: #fdfdfd; box-sizing: border-box; color: #252525; margin: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: #fdfdfd; color: #252525;">a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,</span><br style="background-color: #fdfdfd; box-sizing: border-box; color: #252525; margin: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: #fdfdfd; color: #252525;">a time to search and a time to give up,</span><br style="background-color: #fdfdfd; box-sizing: border-box; color: #252525; margin: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: #fdfdfd; color: #252525;">a time to keep and a time to throw away,</span><br style="background-color: #fdfdfd; box-sizing: border-box; color: #252525; margin: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: #fdfdfd; color: #252525;">a time to tear and a time to mend,</span><br style="background-color: #fdfdfd; box-sizing: border-box; color: #252525; margin: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: #fdfdfd; color: #252525;">a time to be silent and a time to speak,</span><br style="background-color: #fdfdfd; box-sizing: border-box; color: #252525; margin: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: #fdfdfd; color: #252525;">a time to love and a time to hate,</span><br style="background-color: #fdfdfd; box-sizing: border-box; color: #252525; margin: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: #fdfdfd; color: #252525;">a time for war and a time for peace.”</span></span><br />
<br />afterthoughtcomposerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06813736275371156038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762857992485364487.post-42056003775877169002018-04-21T09:21:00.000-07:002018-04-21T09:21:29.822-07:00smoke signals<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
I am like a fire at night</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
The smoke is rising</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
barely visible against the black sky<br />
But I am burning<br />
<br />
nonetheless,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
I am burning</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">I do not know how to be unliked,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">though this is a constant state</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">and is inevitable</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">especially by those who can find</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">so</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">so many reasons</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">not to like me</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">is it my abrupt manner of speaking</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">or my lack of finesse, </span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.6667px;">does my attraction to difficult conversation</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.6667px;">put you off?<br /><br />Or did I defend my children to a degree you found uncomfortable?</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.6667px;"><br />I don't mean to add to the list.<br />I do mean to ask questions you don't like.<br /><br />I am on fire, even in the night.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.6667px;">Dark night of the soul,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.6667px;">come find me</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.6667px;">(oh, there you are)<br /><br />Help help, give me something else</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.6667px;">to grab on to</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.6667px;">right now all i have are the questions</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.6667px;">no one likes to answer</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.6667px;">the observations too revealing to discuss.<br /></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.6667px;">My penchant for finding the issue</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.6667px;">under the topic</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.6667px;">gets me in trouble </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.6667px;">all the time. But I still can't help it.<br /><br />I fear I became blank-slated,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.6667px;">formed myself in such a way</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.6667px;">so non-offensive,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.6667px;">so delicately polite,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.6667px;">so very careful <br />to put how everyone else feels above<br />how I feel<br /><br />in the moment, I say nothing.<br /><br />The priority is obvious:</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.6667px;">how you feel.<br />How do I feel? I will swallow it.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.6667px;">I will swallow it.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.6667px;">I will bite hard on my tongue and I'll bleed</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.6667px;">and then swallow it.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.6667px;"><br />On the day I burst open, belly full of rot and heartbreak, <br />and there in the form of questions take my years of silent wondering<br />you are overwhelmed, and I am vehemently opposed to any </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.6667px;">more</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.6667px;">silence.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.6667px;"><br />So lie down and find rest in the beds of your former enemies</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.6667px;">because your new enemies don't make you feel as good</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.6667px;">as the ones you once named abuser. Lie down and sleep in peace,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.6667px;">but know this: I am waking up. It is too late for us, Compassion.<br />It is too late, Deaf Ears. You made the bed and I won't lie in it,<br />you made my heart beat fierce and my soul alight<br />with a drive toward bigger questions, sticks in the mud and<br />mouths that speak to the good, toes toward toes until we figure this out.<br /></span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.6667px;"><br />These words are not about you.<br /><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px;">I write because I am on fire.<br /><br /></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.6667px;">stunning portrait by <a href="https://photogrist.com/surreal-dreamlike-portraits-nacho-zaitsev/">Nacho Zaitsev</a></span></span>afterthoughtcomposerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06813736275371156038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762857992485364487.post-35071953853856509772018-03-15T14:34:00.000-07:002018-03-15T14:34:51.511-07:00Heavy LiftingThe problem with calling myself the Afterthought Composer<br />Have I mentioned this before?<br /><br />The problem with calling myself the afterthought composer<br />
is when I have thoughts<br />
but it isn't after.<br /><br />So in the middle of all the shit<br />
trials, deep dives, soul digs, surface scratches on things so out of the ordinary <br />that a surface scratch feels like a fatal blow;<br />
through the deaths of loved ones and the life that goes on anyway,<br />the mid-air of the leap and the swing of the bat before it hits and during the<br />tumbling free-fall of love as it is best learned,<br /><br />the compositions are imagined; they are ideas of paintings and they are the avoidance of words entirely. Blank canvases meet and discuss how much I could be doing; empty pages rustle impatiently, the keys begin to click for themselves, if not only to shatter the crust on the dust of my neglect.<br /><br />I am not yet in the after<br />
of so many things.<br />
But I promise<br /><br />I still want to land here<br />
on the page, on white space,<br />
on free to say and watch me as I write this, on hopes<br />
made real and doubt deferred and truth;<br />
truth <br />
as letters, sentences, splashes of paint,<br />
notes in the ear, melodies under my breath.<br />
<br />Creation. She will move for you, she will shake you<br />and free the dust from its cling<br />
Because this is how she does it.<br />
This is her job, and she takes it quite seriously.<br />
<br /><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVhhlOiWS4qWroP9AjcjkUTagJGCTDphfXJBNxIWXt_kCCGxHYft2j1ynPdp879ADeucmd8eaktKX1LMxY1u3rjRailNzY5YCgL52oebZ2rqxNantnO50jNWMzafgQ8VWXrzIachQ_taw/s1600/earth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVhhlOiWS4qWroP9AjcjkUTagJGCTDphfXJBNxIWXt_kCCGxHYft2j1ynPdp879ADeucmd8eaktKX1LMxY1u3rjRailNzY5YCgL52oebZ2rqxNantnO50jNWMzafgQ8VWXrzIachQ_taw/s320/earth.jpg" width="320" /></a>afterthoughtcomposerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06813736275371156038noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762857992485364487.post-65711929303184377372017-12-31T23:59:00.000-08:002018-01-01T00:16:12.645-08:00Ending with a wordFrom January to December, thirty one days each and the year gone by is...gone. With it, a thousand memories and countless happy moments. I've been off the page, on the grid: both feet on the ground, two hands in the dirt, and life wide open.<br />
<br />
I'm squeaking this in on the wire. As I write, it's eleven forty six pm. There are fourteen minutes until another year starts and I leave 2017 for the books. Eleven forty seven.<br />
<br />
As fast as it all goes I've learned the trick of it. Enjoy the speed, embrace the change, watch those gigantic waves in wonder. As I've watched my baby girl grow through her first year, I have certainly marveled at the passing of time. But I've slowed it, too, by joining her in it. Sitting down, snuggling her to bits; warm naps under grey skies; kiss upon kiss upon kiss. I kissed her toes every time I changed her diaper for the first six months of her life, and almost every time since then. Six months times six more times a thousand times a day is a lot of toe kisses, and I drank in every one. Now she approaches the world feet first, so sure she is that she will land on grace (she will) and love (she does) and probably, more toe kisses. To put her growth on paper would have taken me from her growth, so I didn't. I'm here now, re-drinking it in. It's eleven fifty-six.<br />
<br />
There's always more I want to pen, here. And I will, given the grace of another year and more words. In the meantime,<br />
<br />
Pause. Take a minute, breathe it in. There are lights low and high, countdowns marching onward, frosted breath; fire in the sky over shadows on the snow and life is good. Eleven fifty nine and then some.<br />
<br />
Happy New Year.afterthoughtcomposerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06813736275371156038noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762857992485364487.post-28599935482481572242017-01-31T10:30:00.000-08:002017-02-25T22:28:48.735-08:00the advantage of a moment: planting flowers for the new yearIt's early morning (okay, it's just morning), and my baby is asleep upstairs. She probably heard me type that. When she wakes, I will run, and we will snuggle, and I will forget all about writing for awhile. You may have guessed, this happens a lot. It's a new kind of life, and I am smitten with it.<br />
<br />
The birth of our child has brought a sort of rebirth to our family, as well. In our hearts and handholds, we have changed somewhat. A baby will do that to the ones who love her. The world could be crumbling outside, but one look at her causes everything to be still. Uncertainties solidify. She shifts priorities in an instant, and calms the center.<br />
<br />
As in any birth story, there's pain, trial, triumph, determination, and strength. The renewing of our family, and my personal, outlook is no different. We hold tight to the ones who love us, we let go the ones who refuse.<br />
<br />
Recently, a dear friend of mine let me know that she doesn't like me, and hasn't for some years. I've gone from being someone I thought she loved, to someone she refers to as "that woman." She won't even meet my baby, unless I agree to leave the room first (if you're guessing, no, she hasn't met our baby yet). There was a facade of love and like for a great while, one I believed wholeheartedly. I suppose, though, pretending only lasts so long, and eventually, we have to be true to ourselves -- she had to be true to herself, too, and let me know. <br />
<br />
I remember my mom telling me once, many years ago, how she'd rather be kicked in the shins than have people talk about her behind her back, and I can say now, I agree with the sentiment. Like me or don't, but don't pretend to.<br />
<br />
So why am I starting the year this way? Why bring this up at the beginning? I can assure you, I'd rather not. Besides, this story makes me look like a total asshole. Someone dislikes me enough to <i>reject a baby</i>. It's possible I am as horrid as she has been telling people I am. Why in the hell would I write about this? Because, life has a way of blocking us from the page unless we agree to write about the hard stuff. For all my attempts at writing about something else, I couldn't, haven't been able to. So here we are.<br />
<br />
One moment, one word, one choice; ad nauseum. Time and life spend themselves like small change; the ticking clock and the tally are always running, on our relationships, on our finances, on our visions. These moments, these small bits of ourselves that make up who we are and how we are in relation to one another, they are like nickels and dimes in a wallet. They fill up like jars on a shelf. We are, after all, a collection of everything we've been.<br />
<br />
If we can nickel and dime our way into debt, surely we can nickel and dime our way out of it. This concept has struck me anew as I've processed the loss of, what was to me, one of my favorite friendships. All without knowing, my friend has been hurt or has chosen to believe I want to hurt her. Instead of checking in with me, talking to me about it, or believing I have good to offer, she kept it to herself until she couldn't anymore. Over time, these bits of myself have accumulated for her into something very big. It's the tiny-heavy-gathered stuff that makes or breaks us, anyway. If we, by small acts of insensitivity, have squandered something, it is going to take small acts over time to repair that same thing. If something can be ruined, certainly, that same thing can be fixed, or made new with effort and perseverance. Little by little, good can be added.<i><br /></i>Right? <br />
<br />
Maybe. When it comes to those who will not forgive you, small change in this case looks like self respect, like self assessment, like moving on. It's 2017, a new year, and this time, I choose to listen. I understand there are people who don't like me, and I won't be forcing anything. Former versions of myself would have spent countless hours of energy worrying those relationships into a fix, even if it meant the abandonment of self. But the present version of me just doesn't have it in her. She's full and happy, and will invest her heart only where it will be allowed to grow. I'll pay attention to those people who say it can't or won't, only so far as it allows me to do the opposite.<br />
<br />
And besides, look at this girl I'm snuggling. She's the reason I stay up at weird hours, have foregone previously unmovable boundary lines of self, type one-handed. This year is one for enjoying the village; and the village around this girl and I, well, it's full and beautiful. If you are looking for us, that's where we'll be.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijDR_Yw8cC2-8_QpxAQ4Z68YISqxYrqYD-sv3XhzRtE5iUuaMVPPk66ftuwGgaKku8rfXrQo93FB-oMRepoD_zF3zFqlX53qAQAsdCFcG4axc9xIxURPcuRx4SS8OVtdY29dlvAgVHXMw/s1600/AGBMnb-1389.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijDR_Yw8cC2-8_QpxAQ4Z68YISqxYrqYD-sv3XhzRtE5iUuaMVPPk66ftuwGgaKku8rfXrQo93FB-oMRepoD_zF3zFqlX53qAQAsdCFcG4axc9xIxURPcuRx4SS8OVtdY29dlvAgVHXMw/s1600/AGBMnb-1389.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">photography: www.thelabourunion.com</td></tr>
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<br />afterthoughtcomposerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06813736275371156038noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762857992485364487.post-83009421805834027132016-12-31T12:32:00.001-08:002016-12-31T12:51:33.950-08:00CadenceThe year has reached its culmination point. The rhythm has been set, and it's a pace we automatically found comfort in. Our baby girl arrived under late November's wire; bringing with her a flood of love and joy. We are one month and some days into her beautiful little life, and she's as perfect today as she was when she was born, as she was when she was in my belly. I recognized her right away. They put her up on my chest and she swiftly kicked a little leg out and I thought, "I know that leg." Our first glimpse of her confirmed our suspicions: there she is, the girl we both felt was in there (though we hadn't known for sure, we certainly suspected). Watching my husband love our daughter, calm her cries, soak in her presence, has solved me, as she has solved me. It was automatic; we don't know how to be without her.<br />
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This year and our baby girl's arrival have proved the village. We have eaten, slept, rested, and felt love because of the people around us. My parents love our girl as if she had always been here, as if they have know her forever; they love her without question and it moves me every time. My sisters, from go, have been my number one supporters on this journey of motherhood. They answer late night texts, and tell me their stories, and hold my baby as if she were their own. Our friends have become family, as we lean on their support, and the bringing of meals, and the messages of encouragement and connection. In short, we are blessed. What a wonderful gift to end a year on. </div>
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I'm writing this post in a way I never have: on my phone. I have our sleeping babe on my chest, the cousins are playing around me, and our friends are downstairs, caring for us. I am exactly where I want to be, and my life is surrounded by good. Happy Year, thank you for what you brought to us. Through the hardships we came stronger, through our grief we came out healed, through confusion you brought clarity. And here, in my arms, there's this girl. Thank you Lord for this girl. </div>
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(I will share a photo once I get myself onto a computer)</div>
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xo</div>
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a.</div>
afterthoughtcomposerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06813736275371156038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762857992485364487.post-26287415972384701812016-11-17T13:28:00.000-08:002016-11-17T13:28:12.713-08:00any day now (tumbles)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQvA0tJFCmDy447sC9bLXTDmBDNUWMfzTuNFO6rhhwr351XefraF4KWJm0Ux_Tv032fqKvwPOCKF_PopEMSpDmHr7YDy6Y_mrOCb2-eqSCk6br4b_MYa8AcLrftqMtfRvxYc17GP6Iw4s/s1600/AGBMm-0302.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQvA0tJFCmDy447sC9bLXTDmBDNUWMfzTuNFO6rhhwr351XefraF4KWJm0Ux_Tv032fqKvwPOCKF_PopEMSpDmHr7YDy6Y_mrOCb2-eqSCk6br4b_MYa8AcLrftqMtfRvxYc17GP6Iw4s/s400/AGBMm-0302.jpg" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">photography by<br />The Labour Union<br /><a href="http://www.thelabourunion.com/">www.thelabourunion.com</a></td></tr>
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Any day now, you will be here.<br /><br />Those little feet and my ribs will greet each other on opposite sides; though I can tell you, my ribs will miss the nearness of your toes. <br /><br />Tumbles, you have taken space and we are already so proud of how you've grown. How much more will we love to know you, once you're here? <br /><br />You'll get to meet your Daddy, know love like only he can show. You're luckier for having him than you'll ever know. We're all better for being near him, and you are his; a high honor, all yours.<br /><br />You have brought our hearts so much, and we haven't even met you yet. We have guessed, of course: whose eyes, whose feet, whose hands like our hands will we meet? Whose heart has been carving a rhythm, and in whose chest? Any day now, you will be in our arms and not just our imaginations, and we will live to learn the rest of you.<br /><br />Any day now, you will be here. And oh, we are so ready.<br />
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<br />afterthoughtcomposerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06813736275371156038noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762857992485364487.post-32824918557531010312016-11-08T01:57:00.000-08:002016-11-08T01:59:38.946-08:00Enough, now.I made a mistake. When I miscarried last year, I didn't take care of myself. I was okay too soon, because I viewed myself as someone who needed to be okay. I viewed my tasks as those which needed to be done by someone who was okay. I did not care for me, because I told myself I didn't need to, so reliant was my self-worth on being...<i>okay</i>. My family and friends asked and I was okay, because I believe it is better to be okay than to be a burden. I became so good at convincing everyone I was okay, that I even convinced myself. I didn't talk about the loss, didn't grieve it properly (or without guilt for that grieving), didn't expect anything from myself other than my ability to be okay. Denial became my lifeblood. I did not take time off work. I worked with coworkers who, with full knowledge of the details, spread rumors I had made it up, that I hadn't really been pregnant; coworkers who complained to the higher-ups that my commitment to work had really lapsed lately, and I should be held to a higher standard. So when I was called in and told of the many complaints, I <i>apologized</i>. I stopped escaping to sleep and cry, and within weeks of the loss, was back in full swing, and I didn't look back. There was no room for my grief, even in the rare moments I took note of it. And on the story goes. <br />
<br />
I made a mistake. I didn't take care of myself, and in so doing, collapsed. It would be a good story if I could tell you that I fell apart in private; that my inevitable mental health breakdown was one which happened and was felt by only me, or even involved only me. But so deep had my denial grown, and so had my grip on reality. This is what happens when you do not take care of yourself; real life becomes illusion, and illusion, real life. But I didn't know that, couldn't tell the difference. I woke up one morning, and I, or who I had become, swung. One large bat-crack on the legs of someone I love the most, someone who deserves it least, and in public. I spun paranoid delusions as fact, and people believed me. <i>Because I am okay</i>. They took my word for it,<i> because I am okay</i>. But I had lost touch, in every way, with Truth. <br />
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I still remember the sound of that cracking bat, still remember the exact feeling of the air as it rushed past my hand as I swung. I still remember the sound of the world breaking. I was not okay, I was not okay, and I didn't know what I was doing. But I broke it. I broke my world.<br />
<br />
I call myself the afterthought composer, and as often happens, I find it difficult to write until things are gone, or resolved, or settled, so I can reflect on them. So I can find the lesson and move on. But the effects of how I started this year have written most of the story, and quite frankly, time is up. I made a mistake, and I know now, it's time to move on.<br />
<br />
If you want to know someone's truest heart for you, let them see you at your weakest, then wait. My public mental health breakdown immediately transformed my life into a giant sieve, of sorts. Within minutes, hours, over days, and as the months have gone, there are those who have showed themselves as passing sand, and those who show themselves steady; rocks; unmoving, in my corner. I have lost a lot this year, but oh, have I gained the truth of those hearts who've stayed around me. I woke up that morning and I broke, and by nightfall, was entirely shattered. It took a lot of ruin to see where I really was, and when I saw, oh God, it was so dark. The only reason I am still on this planet is because of my husband, who held me to the earth with what little thread I had left. He clung to me, and it is because of his love that I did not slip through my own fingers. If I pray one thing for you, it's that you know a love like this.<br />
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As I look into this basket of my life, I am surprised. People I was certain would still be here, aren't. They looked at me at rock bottom, and they kept me there. If you asked them even now, you would hear it; I am the worst version of myself. They've used my lowest moment to justify their leaving, they show it to others when they can. They have no remorse for joining those who spend their breath on sabotage (after all, my weakness proved their lengthy, buried point). But, there is good here, too. Because this basket of my life is still full. Full of rocks, boulders, loving hearts and good, good people.<br />
<br />
When I felt like I needed to leave the earth, it's because I assumed my actions had emptied the basket. And they should have. If you ask me, I'll still tell you, I don't get it. I don't understand how, in the aftermath of such a terrible display, I still have people who love me. I still have people who hold me up, see me for my bests, know there is still good in me, and point it out when I can't see it. There are still people who fight for me, invite me, stand up for me, defend me. How easy is it to notice the few who are bent on destroying, and fail to see the many who are standing in defense? How easy is it, to live afraid of what those soul crushing people will say? Too easy, but it's enough, now. I am so thankful for my village, for the shape it's taking, and for those who choose to be in it. That is putting it far too simply.<br />
<br />
It's time to move on to better things, to let go, to <a href="https://www.gugalyrics.com/lyrics-1612678/anis-mojgani-shake-the-dust.html">shake</a> the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znIXyFh6dsI">dust</a>. There is so much good in the world, and I am choosing to see it, to live it, to breath it in and run full tilt into the wind of this beautiful life. And this life is about to get a lot more beautiful. Coming soon, the most wonderful announcement my husband and I could possibly make. <br />
<br />
Do not worry about the sand, it adds not a minute to your life. There is good here; time to accept it.<br />
<br />
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<br />afterthoughtcomposerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06813736275371156038noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762857992485364487.post-1677908723628095742016-08-09T13:53:00.000-07:002016-08-09T13:53:43.383-07:00Eden, pt 2<div class="_38 direction_ltr">
<span class="null">(<a href="http://afterthoughtcomposer.blogspot.ca/2015/04/leaving-eden.html">part one</a>) </span><br />
<br />
<span class="null"><span class="null">The World was all before them, where to choose
<br />Thir place of rest, and Providence thir guide:
<br />They hand in hand with wandring steps and slow,
<br />Through Eden took thir solitarie way.
<br />Paradise Lost, Book 12, 646-649</span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="null"><span class="null"> ~~~~~~~~~~ </span></span><br />
<span class="null"><span class="null"> </span> </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> Rooney Mara in Vogue; by Mert and Marcus</td></tr>
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<span class="null">All the world is before us, and it is too big to face alone. Our wandering is slow; our attempts to rail against the slowness rush us heartily into vast decision, and the search for meaning. We walk hand in hand, like Milton’s fallen, but this togetherness is a cruel joke; hands must part to do the work. At the base of our very humanity, we are alone. Solitude is a natural state; enforced on a will we’ve been told is free.<br /><br />
The truth is, we have not moved on from the struggle of Adam. We are all standing at the edge of the world, looking for a place to rest. Though, we know by now, rest is elusive. The act of completion isn’t ours to make. Our exile from the garden was the loss of peace, so our search for resolution is never finished. There is no rest for the wicked, and, as the story goes, we are wicked. Eve and I have a lot in common, after all, and the fruit of the justified upper hand appeals to me (and has lost me), too. <br /><br />
There’s an irony in the story of their exile, though. Adam and Eve walked out, under the eye of Providence. Imperfection demanded separation, but God could not bear it. He told them to get out, and followed them anyway. This new creation, so newly disappointing, was not ended, but rather, sent out to flourish. They were tasked by their seed with the salvation of humanity, though they themselves had doomed it. God left them in charge of the world when they could not handle Eden.<br /> </span><br />
<span class="null">Though Providence may guide us, Providence eludes us, too. He is always moving on, and so we must move on. From our losses, from our deaths, from the peace that comes with entitlement; we don't get to rest. We must move on.<br /><br />
To what? </span><br />
<span class="null"> </span><br /><span class="null">
To work, which is the burden of our life.
To life and loneliness with others.
Even held hands must part, to do the work of trying.
<br /><br />All the world is before us. It is too big to face alone, and yet in one instant: we are and are not.</span></div>
afterthoughtcomposerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06813736275371156038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762857992485364487.post-67451542147312277162016-03-26T10:53:00.000-07:002016-03-26T12:50:29.142-07:00Sunday's coming.Sunday's coming; Anticipation's rest.<br />
Sunday: wherein the very bests will be upon us,<br />
cause our heart's rust to be made new.<br />
<br />
I used to imagine the storm was calmed with ease;<br />
what a smooth surface, what a nice picture. Then a whisper came.<br />
There is no surface healing; all healing is soul deep.<br />
Jesus doesn't hand out band-aids, does he?<br />
That body of water was not merely made straight so he could walk,<br />
no: from the storm which caused its thrashing, it was freed.<br />
The water was calmed<br />
<br />
not just on the surface, but in the deep.<br />
In that light I thought of my life as that very same sea; how in my feeble<br />
boat where from I cast my desperate attempts, through wind and waves,<br />
I beg the Lord to come here, calm me, walk through my life<br />
as though my life were sea, and storms are raging.<br />
<br />
Sunday's coming,<br />
and in bliss, like sun after sleep, we'll know:<br />
past surface, down into the deep, He's healed us.<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />afterthoughtcomposerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06813736275371156038noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762857992485364487.post-80911855294377923162016-03-25T13:50:00.000-07:002016-03-25T13:50:48.784-07:00Friday's here.<br />
Friday's here. <br />
<br />
This day, so familiar by now. Death in waiting, darkness as the days gone by. <br />
There have been smatterings of light here, and there; <br />
and now, on yet another Friday, we wait for something more. <br />
For true solace, fulfilled hope we've oft' been called to want before. <br />
Anticipation yanks us from our homes, draws our eyes upward, and out, <br />
to horizons <br />
along our spinning bit of earth, to sun-rises <br />
and sunsets <br />
and belief in the end of our Fridays.<br />
<br />
Can we dare to face this dying? What loss have we felt, what marring?<br />
Which ache leads us, holds us to the ground? This fear, which stands us up<br />
and sits us down, is merely<br />
Friday.<br />
<br />
Tombs do close on Friday;<br />
and blood drips upon the ground;<br />
and sweat, from holy and, alike, unholy brows,<br />
does salt our faces<br />
parch our mouths,<br />
and we, unquenchable, thirst.<br />
<br />
Because it is only Friday.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />afterthoughtcomposerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06813736275371156038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762857992485364487.post-11523097785386530132016-02-25T07:56:00.000-08:002016-02-25T08:18:27.149-08:00It doesn't matter if you're good<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://designspiration.net/image/1177458567666/">animus by rudruk</a></td></tr>
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<br />
I yelled at the sky this morning. Not out loud (only a little bid out loud), but internally. My heart rushed heavenward, and in a jittery, quaky voice it railed in anger. But
those gates are immune to my anger. By now it's not hard for me to
imagine a giant nose on heaven's door, and windowed eyes, forever
looking downward, in lofted glances, down that nose, to me.<br />
<br />
"I'm done." I said this morning. "My religion is dead." Life is a house of cards, and apparently, I firmly believe goodness is the glue that God uses to hold it all together; that if I'm good, it will mean something. I no longer believe this. Being good is nice, it is nice to be good, I would even say it is good to be good. But it doesn't mean anything. And there is no glue.<br />
<br />
I marvel at men like Job. Oh who are we kidding - who in our taught history has been pillarized like Job? Job, the man who lost everything all the time repeatedly and still said nothing disparaging. Didn't question, didn't let his heart rush heavenward in anger, didn't say "I'm done" and give up his religion. It's an impossible standard Job, and I simply can't live up to it. You are the golden older sibling and I am the muddy, ruddy fall-behind who trophies pain so I can pick it up and look at it later. That's fine. I'm sure you don't mind; I'm just making you look better.<br />
<br />
I heard once that if you're too dense to pick up the lesson the first time, God or the universe will teach you again, and again, and again, until you get it. I think I'm dense. Unless the lesson is: goodness, kindness, gentleness and justice mean nothing in this world's economy. I've picked that one up, by now. <br /><br />In all likelihood, the second part of the lesson is this: Be good, kind, just and gentle anyway. <br /><br />This is hard. I do not want to do this. I do not want to continue building to code if the bulldozers are still driving around with their eyes closed. By compulsion though, I still try. I still try even though I can see those wreckers trundling over mindlessly. I would like it to matter that I try.<br /><br /><br />
<br />afterthoughtcomposerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06813736275371156038noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762857992485364487.post-57986954678202050352016-02-14T11:33:00.000-08:002016-02-14T12:04:57.260-08:00I love you every dayI try to explain it, but it really doesn't work that well. How much I love you, that is. I feel like you'll never fully know. You frame my poems and you melt me with your buttery brown eyes and you say I won't know either, how much you love me. This is a good place to be, and I know this. But I still wish I could tell you.<br />
<br />
I love you every day. It breaks my heart to know I've been an idiot, and anxious, and scared, and in the greatest irony of my life time, have, by my own faulted hand, tainted the truth. Of how much I love you, that is. Of how good you are. How unequivocally good, and kind, and truthful, and patient, and undeserved.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7762857992485364487" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a>I can not get enough of you. Sometimes I think I'll burst open if I go there, to the depths where my love for you is rooted. But when I get down there I see it: I'm not myself anymore. I'm a new thing, wholly entwined, completely attached, totally one, one hundred percent yours. It scares me, in the way something wretched must shrink back at the sight of God. I know this love, I've seen it, in the northern lights, in sunrise, in newborn babes and forest fires. And now, even moreso, in my love for you. It's all consuming, it overtakes the heart, awakens my world.<br />
<br />
I love you, and those three words feel very little. <br />
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<br />afterthoughtcomposerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06813736275371156038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762857992485364487.post-47697844820379557012016-02-12T13:02:00.000-08:002016-02-12T13:02:31.955-08:00Mercy<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BBsrGPCyGcq/">from instagram</a></td></tr>
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<span class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption" data-gt="{"timeline_og_unit_click":"1","app_id":"124024574287414","action_type_id":"282366618453208","object_type":"instapp:photo","unit_id":"447280888645770","og_ref":"ogexp","is_intentional":"1"}"><br /><br />I
heard someone say this a couple of days ago: "I give mercy, not
justice, because it has been given to me." So often I am caught up in
trying to make sure things are right! or fair! and forget, entirely, to
be merciful. Yet I am often unfair, unjust, and wrong, and still demand
the good things come my way; I beg forgiveness when I will not give it; I
ask for grace and in turn, respond in gracele<span class="text_exposed_show">ss
wonder. Mercy, though. Mercy grounds. It is by Grace I have been saved,
and Mercy that I am not left to wander. It is Mercy which allows my
plank-filled eyes to see, sorrowed heart again to breathe, broken legs
to stand. Mercy has been given to me. I cannot explain it, could not
justify for you how or when it lands, will not be able to describe the
feeling of Mercy in my dying hands. So I will give it, and Mercy, doing
what Mercy does best, will go on from here. It will meet you. In dying
hours and feeble attempts, it will meet you. Accept grace, give mercy.
This is living.</span></span></span><span class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption" data-gt="{"timeline_og_unit_click":"1","app_id":"124024574287414","action_type_id":"282366618453208","object_type":"instapp:photo","unit_id":"447280888645770","og_ref":"ogexp","is_intentional":"1"}"><span class="text_exposed_show"></span></span></span>afterthoughtcomposerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06813736275371156038noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762857992485364487.post-86785357491616378352016-01-20T14:26:00.000-08:002016-01-20T17:52:56.220-08:00it was a baby to me<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I miscarried. <br />
<br />
God, it's hard to write that out. I've been avoiding that sentence since I first had to utter it, last summer. We had just told our families the week before and felt the joy of fulfilled anticipation and then I had my first ultrasound and then, and then, the ultrasound was empty. My blood counts started dropping, and within a week of that ultrasound I was in surgery, because even though there was no baby my body wouldn't let the pregnancy go.<br />
<br />
As it turns out, there was never any baby, not at any point. This is what they tell me. Like some excerpt from a terribly written science-fiction novel I learned that my body was pregnant, but it was pregnant with a nothing. Six weeks in the nothing stopped growing, but my body stayed pregnant. Seven weeks, eight weeks, nine weeks along. Only I wasn't along. <br />
<br />
One of Nature's crueler jokes, as it turns out, is something called a blighted ovum (or anembryonic pregnancy). Everything goes according to plan except that whole part of the process where a baby is made. Common, I've learned. Heartbreaking, too. I am not mourning the loss of a baby, but the loss of an idea. So I got the positive tests and the spiked blood counts and the growing uterus with stuff inside it and the weight-gain and the INSATIABLE HUNGER and the bigger clothes and the announcements and the planning and appointments and no baby. <br />
<br />
<br />
But nobody died.<br />
<br />
Nobody died. I pierced myself on this
double-edged sword for a long time, and I'm probably still on it. On the
one hand, that there was no loss of life is a blessing. It's a good
thing, isn't it? Nobody died. I can't imagine the pain of losing a child
at any stage past conception is survivable, and had somebody died, well,
that would have been much worse. My grief over the loss felt and feels
like cheating, because there was, not really, a loss.<br />
<br />
On the other hand, I lost something. As it was explained to me, the positive sign on that pregnancy test immediately changes the lens on your whole life. Now everywhere you look, you see life through the lens of having a child. When you miscarry, it's as if the lens is stolen away, and without warning or preparation, you just have to deal with the sudden change of vision. Every time you encounter a view you haven't yet looked at through this scope, you have to adjust yourself. It takes awhile. That while and that adjustment hurts.<br />
<br />
We are well into what would have been my third trimester. And I'm still sad. By instinct and without thinking I can tell you how far along I am, or would have been. Maybe not by week, because it would be too sad to count the weeks. But, generally. Generally, and also somehow quite acutely, I know. It's there like gravity, it never leaves. I wake up and fall asleep with the knowledge that I'm not adjusting my posture and I don't have any trouble standing up and I haven't had to pee in rather a normal amount of time. I'm back into my pre-no-baby jeans and I'm working myself up to run a 10k in the spring. And I wish I wasn't.<br />
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<br />afterthoughtcomposerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06813736275371156038noreply@blogger.com0