Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Feel, again

I feel them. Those little creepers of sunshine piercing through Wednesday. They still exist. Ladybugs marching, small centipede feet. It’s on my throat and in my stomach. It’s the back of my head. These are hands out the window, feet in the water touches. There is no winter, only the prospect of spring. Bare shoulders and toes and warm rain cannot be so far away.

I feel them more and more, especially when I sleep, sound but in fits, lips parted, across the length of the bed. My blanket is chronically askew, backwards and jumbled. I create the folds in swift movements imperceptible to me, by no true fault of my own. Now no one’s here to tell me it’s wrong and it’s bad and it needs to be smoothed. Throat tight, eyes shut, feet to the wind…I’ve done it all but no more, not today.

No one can tell me that it’s impossible, that I’m impossible. I’m all I’ve got, so it doesn’t suit my soul to hate myself. To disbelieve my hopes and dreams is just that. I want to nap at one in the afternoon twice a week. I want strong coffee with milk at three in the morning, on a park bench, with or without someone else. I want the only lying to be on grass, I want to use my dog as a footrest when he’s sleeping and him to use my arm as a pillow when I am. I want to build a fort, I want to touch linen on my cheek, I want an outdoor shower, a homemade aquarium for sea snails, green apples in a bowl, wooden furniture. I want a well-tended garden that someone else weeds, to walk on weathered stones, to inhale lavender, to shut off my cell phone. I want the ribbon to hold fast in my hair and flowers in my fists before glass jars. I want to be good to the world. I want the world to be good to me.

Everything is within reach. Naysayers keep on; the gleam of the brass ring doesn’t fade. True, my eyes were on the floor for a while. I was averted all the way. Never again will I doubt myself knowingly and willingly. There is no one to fight for me; there is no one to fight with me but me.

Negativity breeds and then it’s screaming in your living room. It swells in your ears; you’re bad, you’re not worth it, you never were. You’ll never be good enough.

But who wasn’t good enough? You or that voice? The one that purported to know you and then cut you down. That bad man on your shoulder. The weight on your chest in the morning. The sleep in your eyes at all hours.

And you may ask yourself who will fight for you, with you, but you?

I feel the newness of liking again, the weightlessness of it all. Things are not as important as they seem, and then they are so much more than we could ever realize. Life in moments, in consciousness, in being kind and knowing when to contribute and when to fall away without hate in your heart.

Breathing deep is beautiful, the crushing burden of pain is bliss when it stops. It’s calm and flows, fingertip to fingertip. I spread my hands out to the city and let it radiate out. I give it to anyone who will have it in return. I give it to you but not to your little voice and not to mine. They don’t get to rule us anymore.

In return, they’ll let us stop spinning as long as we want, they smile back as they shrink, they’ll let us twist the blanket and they won’t say a thing...

8 comments:

megabrooke said...

I really liked this. I'm only beginning to catch up on some of your posts.
I took a seminar called "change your inner talk, change your world," and some of this reminded me of that. the toxic voices that rule us all too often.

J Isaacs said...

K, this is a beautiful post. I'd lost the habit of your blog but this one reminds me why it is worth reading. You collage words so nicely, somehow inspiring all the five senses to go off like bells at once. You could polish this one and send it to a mag.

Isn't it beautiful when guilt and responsibility fall away and it's possible to feel? I think sometimes the best of us comes out when that happens, counter-intuitively.

Buffy said...

I struggle with guilt daily.

This was a good reminder of why I shouldn't...

Anonymous said...

Will you marry me?

God, I wish I knew you.

Anonymous said...

Brookem, I liked how you used the word "toxic". A new friend of mine uses it often and I've enthusiastically adopted it. I think that being negative is easy and cowardly. It's being positive that's hard. Thus, I try not to surround myself with negative energy. I don't need it, as current events provide me with a more than hearty supply.

Unknown said...

Thank you for this post. It made me think about where I am and write my own post. Life feels too fast and complex to capture it in words. You, however, have a gift for finding the perfect way to capture a particular moment of life.

Frannie Farmer said...

K .. such clarity. How can you manage that during school, work, holidays and life?
Good stuff girl.
Merry Christmas Friend.
Frannie

Anonymous said...

I'm like, in love with you.