Hope You Find It

I told you I wanted more.
From childhood I have been a seeker.
We chase.
Pursue.
We run to the edge of reason and jump off.
You knew when you met me, my dirty feet gave me away.
I am a gypsy.
We run.
Disappear.
We pack everything and move.

I have taken me back.

There are no pieces that you may have.

Do not try to hold me back.

Perhaps dream of life beyond default.

Grace at last.....

Emotions

"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed"
        
          Ernest Hemingway


you then write hard and clear about what hurts, and from out of that, you then find what delights you.........and move on..

Life's about Changing

My thought of the day is that; life is about changing. The what, the when, the where, the who, even with all of my so-called ‘Zen,' I find my emotion wildly unsympathetic at times. Whether good change or bad change, I think leaning into the change is the tipping point, which rocks the boat over. 

I learned to swim ancient years ago, at times with the tide, more times than I care to admit, against the tide. I always swam though, and safely made it to the opposing shore of somewhere, someone, and something that I had been reaching for. So, today, my thought is on yet another swim, another tide, another change I have been reaching for. Days like this I want nothing more than to just be with the change. Is it ever okay to be in a countdown of your life? if so, then admit-tingly, I am already there. 

I am counting down such a vast bucket list of ideals, a repeat visitor to this bucket daily, ducking into quiet space, just to empty my bucket onto the floor, marbles of transition and change rolling in round circle dots of color across the wood floor. Some of life changes roll further along the floorboards than others do; perhaps, they are the ones that are just still a bit out of my reach. The closer marbles I grab and roll within my fingers, touching these closest life changes, make them ever more real to me, ever more solid, as I stand firm footed alongside each of them.

 A giant question mark as to who I now am, sits right at the tip of my nose. I’ll let you know when I have the answer, when I find the answer, as to who I now am, from what I once was.

Last weekend, I expected a definite answer from myself on just exactly who I now am, because I have been quite confused: I had given up so many things in life, to do what? Wrestle hopelessly with missed decisions, and a very failed convection of past history. The answer, as you might has guessed, has yet to arrive. I am hoping this weekend's end will find itself more advantageous in the release of the finding, and find me, in a better acceptance of it all.

This small blue bottle seems very appoint today, perhaps it is the sunlight, perhaps it is simply the blue that I cling to.... 

Open Air Market

My Saturday at the Open Air Market in NYC. The only negative was an abashedly rude male individual, smoking a cigarette and then blowing the smoke in the air around our faces. If his attitude had had a price tag on it, I am quite sure none of us would have been able to afford it.

a bit zingy for my pleasure

my choice of the day

another well thought purchase of mine

the pumpkin butter was a favorite

tastings were great at this stand, and the addend humor of the man who handed the fine samples to us, made the purchase all the more necessary then for us. The laughter definitely scored him points towards the final sale.

always looking at the feet
it is usually where all new beginnings make their start, placing one foot in front of the over...and GO !

Wordy Advice

If you ever find yourself narrating your life, you might consider writing, also if you make up stories about strangers in the car next to you in traffic, I suggest journaling or therapy (because we all need to vent our crazy and it's a best practice to do it artistically and with non-violence). 

I believe in love, I've seen it. It looks like two people grumbling around a house with a mischievous twinkle in their eye for one another. It looks like a smile when you walk in from a long day away. It looks like a wink across the table at a very bad joke. It looks like pictures displayed and stories told with the greatest pride for a lover. It looks like chocolate mint chip ice cream in the freezer. It smells like strawberry shortcake, and tastes like lushious whipped cream. 

Courage of Change

I have always nested myself between places, which is increasingly where I think I live. Between two different worlds of heartbreak and solitary immersion into the place that makes me come alive. There is a certain level of experience that comes with floating in this in - between place, and it comes, for me, with a dance of transition, reflection, and anticipation. There is exhilaration to living in the privileged overlap between the lives you imagined and the life you inhabit. And so, I think, what if enamored as you are with your current life, grateful as you are for it, you also harbor a parallel imagination of a different life? In that life, you wake up on a Greek Island. Your hair smells of salt, your eyes breathe the sea. Your days are sun and waves, white washed and bright. Your breaths are deeper, and seaweed tangles from your hair. What if, this different life wakes from imagination? How many of us would have the courage to grab hold of it?

Thursday Sneakers

The feelings and nuances so real, so tangible this morning. Life in full force, abundant with self knowledge. I revel in how fortunate I have been to wake up to sensation, to know what the texture of my own skin can excite within me, to find the drip of sweat splashing from my sneakers to my yoga mat, a reason to push forward, to look to the sky as I run and realize the earth holds me and propels me to move.

Moments in life where everything is alive and I am slow and conscious to see, taste, feel, breathe, smell, and completely fall intoxicated by the potion of pure experience. Smearing a soothing almond oil lotion across my cheeks, sunshine warming me and tinting my olive skin brown.......lip balm across my lips...a breeze....my skin, prickles with magic...my eyes sting from tears unshed and slumber not had...emotions and sweat, now blend as one inside the laces of my sneakers...

To My Dog

I miss you dearly Lexi . . . I still think about you every day. I hope you are running and playing on a beach up in heaven somewhere. One of these days, when I close my eyes for the last time . . . I really hope you come and tackle me with kisses. Call me crazy I don’t care. I thought about you the other day, while walking in the cold.

 Crumbled leaves rustled under my feet, and I thought about your snoot playfully tossing in the leaves, tugging the leash from my hand. You always loved the fallen leaves, and the winter snow, I always hated both (in case you never knew, I always stood in either, just a bit longer, just for you) you never said a word, but, really, we had the deepest of conversations, you and I. It has taken me a bit to even get to the place where I can write about this without completely losing it. But, finally I am almost there. It’s been a year already since you left us. You became a 'mamma's girl' very quickly. Just as quickly, I began making you home cooked food, that canned dog food chicken really never smelled very good to me, and you so loved London broil, anyway. Lying down, on the bed, in the sun, was probably your most favorite place in the world, until I would come home, and catch you. (You would still somewhere 'work' me back, to get that darn London broil by suppertime).

 You were spoiled all right, but you were one of the best relationships that I have ever experienced and if I could do it all over again, I would in a heartbeat. Just because, I miss you, and when you passed, you took a part of me with you. I hope they are serving you Filet Mignon up in heaven! You so deserve it!

I'll probably end up writing to you again (eventually), as the snowflakes of winter have passed, and I hold, still, blurry memories of your paw prints all over the front yard...you never did quite master the whole lying in the snow to make a 'snow angel' thing...but you always tried...and, now, as the warmth of, yet, another Spring since your passing is upon me, I grin at the thought of you stretched out on the patio, soaking up the rays, as you mastered the lazy hazy crazy days of summer so effortlessly.......you always put all of us to shame, you tamed life, rather than it ever taming you.....I learned my most valuable life lesson from you........"soak up the sun and just let things be"

My Worn Sneakers

In a brief moment my run crushes me, bringing me right to the edge of a cliff, not just any cliff, but my own cliff. My own right in the face moment, when the day is bleakest, grayest, when I am old and feeble, and the words " touch me" come loud out of the pre dawn silence. My own right in the center of the universe silence, where I stand, all alone, under a cold hard rain, wiping drops from my face, my hand wet, touching me in memory, not just any memory, but my own memory.

 My own shadows of past, my longing to be felt, seen, heard, on a snowy path, in the dark of night. Not just any night, but my own night. My own darkness of suffocation, of pillaging through the forest, my search for air to fill my lungs, not just any search, but my own search. My own soul emptying search, my own silence, my own shadow, my own darkness, my own memory, the unimaginable edge of a cliff, where I stand all alone in purest solitude. In a brief moment, the running opens every pore of my being, without anything, or anyone, surrounding me; I stand, on the edge of a cliff...

If you could see me at this moment. If you could hold me close. If moments of memory washed away the despair. If bloody hands were to stroke me. If I smiled past the wet of my eyelashes. If I drew clumsy, lost, hungry, but no longer afraid. If I forced myself up. Then set my chin down on your shoulder. Slipping out of my sneakers. The earth soft as clay. Myself, tattered and torn. Faint with thirst. Famished with hunger. Would you lie down with me next to the river? Uttering another life. Would you pull back, gaze up? Brushing the hair from my face.

Is it then, that you would think that you have become close enough, to really know the girl that tastes like salty sweat and wears worn sneakers?

Truths

Truth always has this little habit of whispering back to me from the grave I put it in. Truth is, of all the things I could have been, I am still unsure the one that I am destined for.

The poet, the painter, the sculptured, the philosopher, the lover, the crier, the wounded, the healer, the loner, the forgiver, the runner, the yogist, the singer, the dancer, the ranter, the optimistic, the pessimist, the holy veil and the undertaker, the thinker, the creator, the eccentric, writing allows me to be all these things without ever having to leave the comfort zone of my keyboard. 

Fiction becomes non - fiction, non - fiction becomes, well, my genre of real life, and poems become the underlayer of my platform , as I carve out my next life. Cats have nine lives, but I, I am very self assured that I have even more than that!

I could not have a more different view of life today,than the one I started with years ago. I never realized early on how much I stifled my own ambition, how much I had withdrawn from my own courage, until  I began to write. Emotional holes are hard to fill. A piece here, a thread there, every piece in my colorful collage is an ensemble of the

bigger story of my life.

Journaling ( out of Domestc Violence)

“I decided to start anew,

to strip away

what I had been taught”

        Georgia O’Keefe

Someone said to me today, that writing is a solitary assignment, as much as it is a solitary pleasure. Having thought about that all day, I have to now admit, yes, it is. The solitary part of it, is what leads to my thought, what lends to me my ear in hearing my own inner voice, what takes me to places I have never been, what gives me the hope of places I will one day travel, what gives me the confidence in having just enough edge to paint a picture using words, to describe the man sitting across from me on the train as I watch him breath. 

The solitary pleasure is what I find in the silence of morning, when the only sound is the tapping of my keyboard and the clanking of my coffee cup. It is the sterility of first thoughts that get put to paper, my pen, the pill I now take to make the world right. So yes, solitary is part of being a writer, or at least it is, for a writer like me. All the non-solitary time is where I find the seeds in life to plant, grow and write about. It is amazing how many seeds we each could find already stored up inside of each of us, thoughts just yearning to be written down in black ink.

I was sitting on a beach, when first struck by a flash of genius. Journal and pen in hand, scratching out raw pain, sadness, hope, joy, a plan, a path, an execution for that plan, guided by a seagull purging on lunch droppings, as he eyed me in puzzled stare. Legitimizing my hope that I might someday, actually, reach my destination, through the dark storm clouds which gathered like an angry mob, the clouds which reminded me of how long I had stayed in the weeds before being pelted by hail and delivered into a landscape that grew green and lush again, until it opened to a broad expanse of writing. 

     Writing is what happened when I was trying to escape from something else, taking me far away from any point in my life, transporting me into a farthest place than where I started. Every road that led me to detour, a dead end, and in my life, turns out, there where a lot of those roads, because they now compile a series of essays. As opposed to the writer who sits steeped in stare, lost without words, I have endless dialogue, the story, my story, hasn't always been an easy one, but it is my story, and it is what it is, so that others may learn from me.

All Roads Lead Somewhere

How does hell become so close to our bones, that heaven is not seen in our eyes? How do we move past what harms us, in order to hold the things we never want to forget? 

Sometimes the heart belongs in a body bag, and other times, I believe the sandbags are meant to save us.

 This morning I went for an early run, and I tasted the wind as it blew, I heard something in the silence, no longer scared by it, or in being alone with it, I held onto the stillness in me. The sculpture of me was always there, it was the chiseling away of the rock to get to the sculpture that took time to reveal it, as my life is now, a completed sentence. My sneakers have holes worn right through their mesh from my toes pushing uphill with much determination. I arced, I spun, I simmered in the breeze as it took hold of the silvery blonde in my hairline. 

I think the biggest decision of my life, was finally allowing me to be me. What an incredibly awesome idea that was of mine, which only took me half a lifetime to come up with. Wow, talk about a work in progress!

As all roads eventually lead to somewhere, I keep putting one foot of front of the other, very determined to finally arrive, at the place I was always meant to be. It has taken me an arduous amount of time to finally get all of this, but that is okay, the final arrival of me was worth the travel. 

It was the matter of terminating and relinquishing my "no" place for my "yes" place that has brought to me new life. The beauty of loosing, and then finding oneself, I think is what happens after you have traveled to the dark side of the moon

    

My Domestic Violence

The best thing about your home should be that the moment you walk through the door, your shoulders should drop and relax.  From your bed, you should see the sea, if not, then you should at least see sky, so moonlight can shine on your pillow, and the light of dawn can wake your sleeping eyes.

  Life, and your home, shouldn't smack you in the face, it should feel restrained, and it should just creep up on you. If it doesn't feel like that, then know something is horribly wrong, and waiting for it to feel horribly right again, may just be, the wasting of your ONLY one lifetime. 

There should never be devastation on a daily basis, as time goes on, your instinct should take over like some kind of sixth sense, never become too complacent. The upside of all of this is that it will make you think actively about whether you are actually living life, or simply existing as a means to your ending. 

As my own experiences grew I would pass through areas of great fecundity into a wasteland of rubble as barren as the surface of the moon. It took me awhile (actually, it took me years) to realize that these were the parts of my life that were shockingly empty and devoid of any real life. I find my vision now looking forward sullied by my own real knowledge of the emptiness that often lies beneath so many relationships, or marriages. I am soiled by the raw hard facts of how horribly a relationship can turn sour, and the pitfalls you fall prey to, just to continue staying within the guidelines of it, as if it is a pass or fail test, and you need to pass, even if it kills you.

In the deciding to speak out (on Domestic Violence), a voice has taken shape, my voice has taken shape. Writing was just one more thing I had always put aside, hung up on a shelf, stripped from myself, and, now, that has taken shape as well. As I will always be continuously emerging from the weeds, I shall never again hide under the cloak of denial, as the cloak I chose is what nearly suffocated me. 

The choice to finally breathe is what saved me.

Get out, because it never gets better, and, in fact, it almost always gets incredibly worse!

Definition of Hope

    From all the chaos I was reborn. 

When the blood of a woman's heart is something she no longer drowns herself in. When you realize every star in the galaxy is just for you. When you no longer wear self-doubt and loathing as your life vest. When life happens, life changes, and you become yourself. The bittersweet, the bitter blue, where narrative is gone and all the chaos you finally accept, and then, finally, break through. Well then, my friends, that is the definition of hope. The definition of hope becomes a powerful thing; when your heart beats so fast you just know you have to run after it. You just know finally, without any further hesitation, what you need to do. What you should have done, all along.

The heart was no place to leave the blades piercing my soul, slicing my flesh, as the resounding sound of madness echoed throughout my head. His footsteps hardened in the distance. His betrayal left and then carried away with the tide. I collected every sharp knife in the house, and threw each, individually, into the sea. One knife, one blade, one life, as seaweed attached itself to my lost hope, and the turning, of yet, another page. The salt from the ocean lay like bitter tonic on my tongue, as sea salt spray washed over my face in acknowledgment of all of my falling tears.

I run to taste my sweat, practice yoga to harness my breath, write so words stay still and silent, these are the benefits to being on the front lines of soul searching, as each pivotal point in my life finds its way to a tag line for a journal, an essay, a story.

Small steps have seemed to legitimize my journey, to my destination at whatever crossroads I now stand at. I have approached people I might never have approached before, some remain, and some I've since let go of. There is a sweet awkwardness to the moment you find a parachute for your feelings, and then you take the leap.

My next life, well, I am hoping it will be riddled with romance, conjecture, and a life fitting of a princess. I still want to believe in fairytales...

Adding Compost to Life

Sitting down in the chair beside my desk, taking a deep breath, staring at the dry teabags, wrapper remnants of 85% dark chocolate, last night's organic white wine dried in a stem glass, staring at a passion on the verge of obsession, yes, this is definitely the desk of a writer. All of my words in a collection, I am saving a place for the one that states how it all ends. As god was stunned at the blood covering his palms, so was I, and if I could stash away and rewrite my life story, I probably would, with the wisdom of silence and absolute of concrete, with the black and blue of where it hurts mosts.

 A large area of dry dusty earth is always felt beneath my feet, it is the place where wild flowers push up, filling in for me, the sometimes devoid of life.

My life, the one I keep adding compost to, watering feverishly, forcing out of the house into early morning air, where the world is still quiet, where I can feel the damp of dew on my legs, and hug the sun not yet warming my face, as I escape under a canopy of branches, yes, the sometimes devoid of, THAT LIFE!

I can tell you with absolute certainly that every day I wake up, I look for answers. It is only today that I have come to realize that the answer, the one I have been waiting for, isn't nearly as important as the question ever was.

Life is about starting over, one day at a time!

One emotion at a time!

One poetic profound verse at a time!

One dry eye at a time!

One singular wet tear at a time!

Life is just that, a layering of language! 

A shortened prayer!

An acknowledgment of all that is!

A finish of all that wasn’t!

Life is just that!

Dirt Roads & Sneakers

Craving morning sunlight, as I step out onto the dirt road, arcs of warm rays caress my skin, closing my eyes in absorption of them. The clattering of birds breaks the overcast of silence, as their controlled hymn echoes everywhere. My run is hard, deep, seductive, convicted, as the pounding of my sneakers pronounces the hardened dirt and blackened pavement. 

I clutch my gloves so tightly they push back leaving indented ridges on my fingers. The birds only a whisper now, so faint I no longer hear them. Opening my shoulders, lengthening my back, my heels seductively penetrate the line of ligament now running up my calf. Perpetually harmonious as I submerge into the warmth of the sun, the toxic infusion of sunshine moving over me, through me, around me, bringing me into a season where I improve, deepen my thought, reach into the bottomless chasm of reserve where my most private dialogue spews from.

 Slinking dangerously close to actually believing that spring might just be here to stay this time. Sweat drips ever so liberating down my back as I cross up over the hill...my sneakers, muddy, like softened pieces of pottery clay......

Hudson River View

 Thankfully, these views of the Hudson River Waterfront in Cold Spring NY are no more, as of yesterday. Spring thawing has finally reached us, and the river today is running free.... seems the Lords of Winter, have, at last, retreated! Guess it took a Leprechauns arrival, and I am eternally grateful with Irish Pride, for whatever it's worth....

Tangible Threads of Life

... The threads that hang from my scarves, the threads that I rip from the hem of my skirt, the thread that holds my fingers in place to type on my keyboard, the thread that runs the length of my body to my feet that holds my heart, the thread I need to yank on each time I need to pick my heart up off the ground again, yes, threads, my threads of life. The long thread that attaches me to someone else, somewhere else, some time and place I have yet to be. The threads that run through my soul, wrapping around my thin waist, tiding up the loose ends of things complicated. 

It is these threads I speak of as I grab for my journal book, letting my mind unravels a thousand thoughts. I think on paper, the place I sort out my life. The place I connect all those tiny prism dots, the place with many beginnings, and few endings, the place that often allows me not to speak in tongue at all. 

Wanting very much for the raindrops pelting the window to say something, speak to me in some brilliant philosophical language. Yates or Poe would have had the brilliance to shape the drops into poetic tongue, as I only have the brilliance to watch them drip, emotion by emotion, down my window pane, as I reach to feel the pure wetness of the individual tears.

give me music in places I no longer find air.

Teach me to breath !

Saturday Sneakers

 Feeling better, body is shaking off whatever held it to the tombs yesterday. (cups of lemon ginger tea me thinks helped to kick it out of me) 

Just back from my Saturday morning run, hanging on wet breath, still holding my future in my back pocket. I am finding air has a predictable chaos to it today, as the chill of winter has reclaimed itself. The man on the corner took notice, as I held my lips to the mouth of the river, and drank, nakedly tossing pennies into my wishing well. The pennies on the bottom from yesterday, well, they too, still shine. 

My suspicion is that the birds that flocked above me during my run were sent to pull me from myself, pull me from deep self - absorption. They grabbed hold of one of my threads in their beak and pulled me along, as they inched me toward complete stillness. 

Flu Holds Me Hostage

Sick in bed (comatose on the couch in my sunroom) with what is, I do believe a late flu bug attacking my body. I ache, I sputter, and I crash, every time I attempt to move myself. Chills have me with the house thermostat dial cracking at 76 degrees...I do not give one hoot what the oil bill will be for the duration of this bug, my teeth are chattering, my toes hurt, my back feels as though I just single handedly moved a baby grand piano up a flight of stairs. My eyes are swollen, nose running, chest heaving...suggestions on how to avoid my soon to be death?

Running in Rain

 A storm surges beneath my skin, as I imagine  crushed red pepper allowing its heat to inflate my flesh. Chilean red pierces my pores; beneath the stone slate of morning sky, my muscles twitch at the sound of my own pulse thundering in my ears. Honey amber recognition of sun, for today, is forgotten, as dank unused places escort my sneakers. 

The rain, acts as my cloak, coverage of my nakedness, winding its way around my body in lovers temperance. Silk white gowns from clouds drape down dressing me in conservatory. The music of my breath is the only rhythm that plays in the background, as sweat drips down in a romantic dance across my breastbone.

My demure, is hidden behind a heavy fortified gate, as my bareness needs no justification. Skin flawless, as each step of my sneaker brings me closer to life's rawness. My body submissive under a cold adhesive netting of sweat, as breasts and shoulders stand at attention.

Subdued....

Raindrops

The rain seems to be confronting me at all angles of my life today. The sound of the drops hitting the pitched roof of my loft writing space, dribbling down the skylight windows, the plunking of it now bouncing off and running into the gutters, pulling me back to an understanding, one that I have come to, and then let go off, so many times before on a day such as this. It is the understanding that I need to stop, abruptly, sharply, without rhythm or reason at times, to rethink challenges, position in life, and every other position in same way, shape, or form, that is all about me. Then I let it go, pull myself together, glue back my sidewalls, and push on.

After a while of typing away in fury on my keyboard, I tend to sit and listen to the sound of rain on these days. In mid summer I do the same whatever - wherever type of ritual, but it is not rain, it is the sun then that I allow to mesmerize me and privatize thoughts in summer's heat as it drains down my shoulders and back. I would sit in the sun, warmth on my shoulders, close my eyes, and recharge my batteries, so to speak.

The rain, today, like the sun, is both soothing and comforting, pushing me into a quiet repose, as the cars on the street can be heard splashing up water onto driveways.That is actually the only sound I hear, other than the heaviness of the rain, and the blowing of the wind on saturated tree branches. Once the rain ends, tomorrow's sun will gleefully approach, and I will l once again be left to begin again, the picking up of the pieces of my life.

The one foot in front of the other approach will creep it's way back in, and I will let it in, as I have done so many times before when life was completely disrupted, shattered, by unexpected turn of events and challenges. I will look to the right, look to the left, then charge off in some form of forward motion, using careful placement of my feet. Right here, right now, though, I will sit, close my eyes, and listen to the sound of the rain on my rooftop, and to the wind that blows through the crevice of my slighly jarred opened window, scattering the pile of paper at the end of my desk precariously all over the floor. I will pick up the pile, assemble the pages and begin again, from page one.

Heated Flesh

If nothing matters, why does everything seem to matter today? The birds, the trees, the way my sweat hangs in suspension on my arms? The clouds, the sun, the heat of my flesh? The empty darkness of the pavement, the spiral staircase leading to the sky? The pulse of my heart as it pounds through my chest? My sneakers, alone in the solitude of early morning darkness...... 

Monday Mindless Thoughts

I can feel the heat of the noonday sun on my bare arms. The sand against my thighs. Hear the cries of mutant birds off in the distance. What would someone find if they managed to circumvent my locked doors? What if I allowed someone to know me well enough to know exactly where I hide the key that opens my private doors? Not to the trivial or banal, but to the things that hold me together, rather than tearing me apart. 

 Something much more powerful than even sex, money, or even love. I bury myself under a waning moon, very few are ever handed the key to reach beneath my outer epidermis. I am no longer writing, the notebook and pen lie in my lap. Something touches my arm. I flinch and draw away, a neatly made man now stands beside me. I feel the vein of my neck begin to throb, as if I suddenly cannot get enough air to make capable breathing. I reach out my arm, and make contact with the gentleness of his chest. A satisfying familiar click sets in. I know what this is. I know who he is. I know what it does to me. 

My body begins to feel comfortable again, my breathing evens out. I continue pressing my hand to his chest, until, he leads me away, lying in the sand, my underwear blows away, and the water washes over both of us. Wrapping his arm around my shoulder, leaving it there as he guides me, my cheek half resting in his open kiss, a key dangles from my breast, he reaches for it..... my husband always knows how to gain access to my precipices.

Fragility

The odds of human fragility, is like perfume on my skin, as I eclipse down the street, loosing much thought to promises we keep, and then, to the ones which always seem to break us. The ones that always seem to matter the most to us, are the same promises that someone always seems to break to us. 

Broken promises matter, because one person in the equation cared enough to believe that a promise would be kept.........and then the trust was flushed right down the god damn almighty toilet bowl right along with the swirling toilet bowl water, AND THEN, it's a wrap! finito, done !!!!

Saturday Run

Soft spot between my hips and navel releases on each step. Deer look on in awkwardness at my forbidden. The river of my blood coarsely pumping through each minuscule vein, sneakers delivering that all-inclusive potion sending endorphins of self derived opiate to my brain. Sprinkles of my salt languish on my tongue, as I lick the dew from my shoulder blade. Muffled silence of the trees slides along the edge of my jaw, framed in beads of perspiration. Walls of my lungs bend outward to contain my breath, settling to a steady sway from a quiet breeze blowing against my upper lip. My sneakers skip a beat..my heart pumps in duration of my last and final mile, before I, and sneakers, come to rest in the silence with our secrets.

Overrated Bullshit & Lent

I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes I fail at this, but I always try, and I think, hmm. Maybe eight years ago my lawyer was having a rough day. Maybe he’s won awards since then, after ALMOST single handedly botching up my lawsuit, until a new set of legal eyes swooped in to clean up his mess that is. Everyone has an off day, right? You know what?

BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT IS OVERRATED.

At least also in terms of ever thinking your husband is going to overnight become a rational loving man, or stop hurling dishes across the room at you, or ever becoming calm enough to be trusted with a sharp object in his hand. No then you know what? Your best, and only, reaction is to run. Run far, run long, and, never, ever, look back thinking you are just being a coward, or terrible spouse, just RUN.

BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT IS OVERRATED...

When your over educated (the ivy league education you paid for by the way for them) daughter tells you her life is filled to the brim, and is currently concentrating on her making “new” her relationship with her father (the person you are divorced from for very astute obvious reasons, and the one whom never gave a shit before) is no longer needy for you, and also heavily concentrated on the future and not discussing the past (conveniently enough) once again, BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT IS OVERRATED BULLSHIT. 

When your son marries and forgets that you remarried and moved also, to the tune of him, or your new daughter – in-law not being able to call, email, text, OR visit you, yup, you got it, BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT IS OVERRATED BULLSHIT.

When your bank charges you a fee for uncollected funds on a fifteen dollar check you wrote against a check that was a half day away from clearing, BUT THEN, calls you with wishes to HELP you handle your money, after they clear it and they spot the very large deposit amount of that said check.........BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT IS OVERRATED.

My jugular vein has been stabbed, pocked, pricked and prodded by the constant cycle of sequence of me giving someone, somewhere, the mere benefit of the doubt, least of all, when they least deserve it.

Today begins the first Friday of Lent, got ashes on my forehead two days ago to prove it. I want to feel extremely forgiving, thus bestowing the benefit of the doubt to all whom approach me today, but, regardless of the ashes that now adorn me, not one living viable thing is getting the benefit of the doubt, today, tomorrow, or for a very ungracious amount of time to come. My jugular vein has bled dry by being a good sport. I am so overcooked on this issue it is no longer even funny!

So, as most individual will choose to give up for forty days and forty nights something they fully need, or fully like......I will be giving up the BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT, and call it a day.....thus destressing over people and concentrating more on myself during Lent, and really giving a sense of INTENT to my life, after all, nothing screams LENT more than that connation to me...

BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT is no longer going to be one of my many character flaws...as of today I have put it to a much needed rest in a box.....way on the upper shelf of my closet..

Indecision

My sneakers mirror the split of my own indecision, turn right, or sway left? Birds talk about me in the third person, as I confuse them as the resident bohemian/ intellectual today in the woods. My run becomes my illicit pleasure smuggled in under the opening of the sun. A late winter breeze arrives on my nose, setting a tear in motion at the corner of my eye. Underneath my running jacket an arc of crisp air fringes on the soldiers now piercing through my sports bra. My architectural columns today, one of total erection, as I stand parallel to the groping of the trees. Cold air on my flesh, hot sweat of my breath, both deliver a river of collision traveling down around my navel. I could run an extra mile this morning, or just run on, for forever.....both are debatable...

Death Certificate (of what once was)

I lie naked on my back, my thoughts perched on my stomach, curtains tied back, windows bare, as moonlight still streams in across the flesh of my abdomen, my pearls still loosely draped around my neck. The queen chair in the corner of my bedroom dressed in the scarf and skirt I had previously tossed there.

Later on this morning, when daylight breaks, I will make phone calls, write e-mails, make arrangements for the funeral, sign the death certificate, wipe the tears from beneath my black veil, and put my old life in the coffin just before they lower it into the ground, never wanting it to be rewarded with an eternal life. 

     In between mouthfuls of air, I’ll sip steaming hot French vanilla flavored coffee, and take note of the now unrecognizable mangled corpse of what once was. I will hear the bantering slightly irritated note in the bird's voice outside my window, as he watches yet another drama production of my life pass before him.

Against all good and reasonable judgment, life happens, to all of us. Then you act adult - like, grow up, and move on.........well, eventually you do, anyway. I just wish I had been in the bathroom when it came at me the first time around, toiled blood, sweat and tears, and here I am, ready for round two of whatever life has to offer up.

I hope it comes flavored in sea salt and chili dark chocolate this time around, and surrenders itself to me right at my doorstep. I also hope it brings with it, tulips and the fresh air smell of an early spring.