breath / shadows / unmasking / running

    Sun glinting on my shoulders, thin veil of cloud reaches down to poke at my undergrowth. Stained glass of the sky reaches the black and white marble of the pavement, backdrop for my sweat. 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.....

renderings /

I’ve been here

all the while,

cried your tears

laughed your smiles,

my nakedness unguarded

dropped to the sidewalk,

like nickels and dimes

sneakers / seductive / sensual

 Suspenseful interlude of silence, my features delicate against the mist of rain, as each drop sketches across my cheek. The rain, an integral part of this morning, pelting force knocking my breath back down. The force on my flesh, exasperatingly sensual, as my flesh hums beneath its touch. Puddles beneath my feet, left with the afflicted vapor streams from my mouth. My breasts as sea sponges soak up the overhanging humidity, filtered down through the overlapping of trees, green cypress coats of color penetrate directly through me, above me, all around me. Colluding in a seductive sway with the trees, rising and falling with the breeze on my cheeks, adrenaline feeding in a frenzy throughout my flesh. My body submissive...

Myself, in awe... resurrected!

memories / black and blue

Pushed to a wall, pinned down, unable to restrain.
A mysterious bird will fly.
Dancing on the intersection of arrogance and wisdom.
Strong, both in will and body.
Bringing to the surface,
the potency of memory....
Inked on a page,
you will always be,
the black and the blue of me........................................................................a magnifying glass memory

sweat / hypnotic/ sneakers / running

  Hypnotic sight of the ground disappearing beneath my feet, as the hurried sensation of the world’s humming enters the chamber of my heart. Hugging the air just a bit pretentiously as my flesh is conscripted into the flimsiest notion of a steamy shower, in romanticized illusion of my sweat. Lips dry, stubbornly passive in response to the outpouring of my pores in the humid spring air spilling out in waves down my cheek. Tendril of my own scent catches me off guard.  A hint of taunting from the trees motivates my sneakers in the moment, leaving a shadow of leaf tattoos imprinted on my flesh. A drip nestles in the gully between my breasts, as the sheer glistening of sweat takes refuge.

editing / emotions / life wounds

Dear Younger Version of Me,
I forgive you. Darn-it, sometimes I really wish you hadn't started me on certain paths that I am still trying to rid myself of. I realize now that you did that because of ____________and____________ and though that was really f***** up, I have compassion for you now. I do not see you as broken or wrong, just human. I love your humanity, I cherish your imperfections, and I want to accept you fully, so that I can feel like a whole person, rather than this self with a shadow I'm trying to shake. Currently, I am a little afraid of you. I've worked hard not to let the choices you made back then dictate the rest of my life.


I guess there comes a point in our lives when we realize that everything we own, every emotion we hold close, tells our story. There maybe sometimes comes yet another moment when we can’t look at all of our stuff (emotions included) without feeling all of our yesterdays puddle and threaten... to flood if we dare look down. For me, I have tried not to look down the best that I can, but my eyes seem to still sneak peeks downward at times.
I’m packing up my emotions again, putting them into the box I bought to store them in, in the back of my closet, and I’m struggling with all of them. I’ve too many emotions held onto, for way too long, and too big a tale to tell and some very sad chapters that I don’t want to remember, and yet, can't seem to  forget.  Which emotions do we hold on to, and which ones just dig deeper into our wounds?
 ........ a trail of footprints behind me........

euphoria / flesh /medicinal cleansing / sneakers

Sweat , a sort of medicinal cleansing, a red antiseptic poured over wounds. The morning light is shady. Humidity and desire an inside -  out tangle on my flesh. I swallow dry, as my pores drip. I know to keep moving, if I stop, I'll wake from all this euphoria. The drone of air dissolves in the gentle splashing of water that cascades down my flesh. My sophisticated drip by drip irrigation system efficiently delivering water to all of my roots, as the leftover spills from my pores. My feet meander the path, as sullen dark clouds burst into sun formation off in the distance.

What the F*** is this blog about ? ( well,let me tell you)

just because, it looks so delicate and pretty!

Yes, this is another one of those blogs that chronicles a life, apparently, "my life" as a women, as a married women whom was living within a marriage of twenty - five years, riddled (yes, I finally let the cat out of the proverbial bag) with domestic violence "issues", to living on my own, to feeling sorry for this man (mostly pity, and the fact that he was / is my children's father), to feeling even more sorry for me, to getting divorced (finally),

 to healing (I think that on most days anyway), to meeting someone new, to trusting someone new (enough to marry him June 2013), to dealing with the issues of combined families (on both sides our children are all grown, but,you would not think so, with some of their petty behavior towards us), to being madly in - love (finally), to tears, to meltdowns, to smiles,

 to my bad days, to my good days, my daily running, my eternal yoga practice, my sad description of what was my childhood, my insane dysfunctional bloodline family, and how none of us really like each other enough to be involved in each other's lives (I blame my parents equally for that one), to how I hate the snow, the cold, and the winter,

 to how I love the sunshine and warmth of summer, to fears, to offsets, to an accident that knocked the bee - jee - bees out of me for a good three years a few years back (still feeling the audacity of that one), to life's everyday blunders and bullshit, to hot marital sex (oh yes, do not seem so shocked, if you are truly paired and trusting with each other, the intimacy can be amazing), to finally finding my many new beginnings.......

YUP, this is a blog about ALL OF THAT......turns out, life can really FUCK with you, and not many of us survive.......the F - BOMB is so very out of character for me, but, sometimes, there is just no other way of getting the message across! (the F - BOMB , so deliberate and pronounced)

upper lip / strength / sneakers / running

My ex - husband is far worse for my health than high fructose corn syrup could ever be. I concluded this, this past Sunday while at Columbia University attending my daughter's (the same daughter that is also his daughter) graduation from her Master's Program. The words "ARROGANT ASSHOLE" do not even give him justice, sweat beading on my forehead and upper lip as I peered the grumbling in his eyes, and the Marlboro haze filtering from his mouth. When we look back over our lives, and OUR past mistakes, hard to believe that we all were once so stupid and naive as to expect (and further insist) that life would be kind to us.

There is not a moment in time that I question why I left this man, or that if I had to do it all over again, I would leave him sooner and with a quickened stride, not a meandering lacking confidence stride, saying I'm sorry I really tried all the way out the door.........some how weeping, expecting some different ending version of the fairy tale. No, it sucked, and it sucked big-time...there is just no getting around the muckiness of the situation.

There is just no nice way, or good housekeeping version, to state it otherwise. Meeting up at events and dealing with your nasty ex - husband, who has a chip the size of Mount Everest still on his shoulder, is, well, not very pleasant a way to spend a Sunday afternoon...and this is why I have run countless miles this past week, running away from the place he crushes inside of me, every time he is close enough...Feeling the mud on my shin, letting it imprint on my flesh, warm and demanding as its murkiness fills my senses. Stone lined garden spaces gracing the space between my hipbones, as the tiniest veil of vines drips down my leg. Sweat draping from my brow, precipitous drop of despair, feeling the strain in the deepest of places...

portrait / clutter

Sadness is one of, if not the most, authentic of human emotions, from it artists create works of beauty, in poetry, in song, in dance, in writing. Sadness can be seen so clearly in one’s eyes. Sadness is the strum of a chord of music for most artists. It propels the emotion we create from. It may very well be, that the unearthing of it from between my bed sheets is why I am able to authenticate it as well as I do.  I often thought before I began my blog what it would look like. Turns out, now that I am way past the beginning of it, it has shaped up to be a menagerie of sorts, poetry, idle chatter, short stories, sadness, hunger, tragedy, loss, love, sensuality and seduction. It has become the portrait of who I am. 

It is all the lives of me rolled into one. Wondering if I would have ever have gotten this far in the writing if it had not been for the invention of the internet. It allowed me to dribble out words of emotion, from the claustrophobic environment I had stored them all in, to free up space, for, well, you guessed it, more words.

My city day yesterday was comprised of Union Square. It was the unearthing of apathy, cutting across all lines of economics. It wore itself in dread locks, cigarettes, torn clothing, dirty feet, oversized army green backpacks, and wasting of lives. This apathy made me think about how different we all look at life. Some of us look at it; take it on, with courage, and others with indifference, apathy. Apathy looked hot and grimy yesterday in Union Square.

                       Turns out, apathy, has quite a bite to it!
 Different violins we all strum...as life is like looking through a prism, and the varied angles of color are different through each of our set of eyes.

morning dew / roses / sneakers / spine

Clustering diamonds of breath precede me. Thanking my feet for the miles they have tread, and the profusion of sweat now frozen in time. Closing eyes to see, sun on my back, as legs draw closer to conclusion, clearing cobwebs along my path. Spine surging forth from the anchor of my legs, pulling so far back into my body that I do not know who I am, my breath, the thread now weaving through my mind and soul.

just because, I favor morning dew and roses!

How perfect is the dew of morning? Each time the petals of the rose move; I am tempted to retreat, peeling back the tangerine skin of all of me. Taking deep breaths, allowing my lungs to expand, my body performing action merely by thought, feeling the fabrication of an earthquake, expecting the ground soon to open up, in a moment of silence. A dance purrs through me, as I hold out my hand in a burning crush, blindfolded by my own fear. Some force today, is more than mildly pressing down on me, testing my strength, as I push back in yoga retreat. 

words

We give our children everything, including the power to break our hearts....and then they do....

No words today beyond that!

laces / sneakers / obsession

In a language I did not yet know how to speak,

                                     In bitter frost,

 Until my tears ached from my pores,

                    Until the ocean refused to stop kissing the shoreline,

 In wisdom of silence,

                    And loudness of concrete,

 In passion on the verge of an obsession,

                         In thinking out, then placing down,

 Every thought before my temple of self, 

                        My jigsaw puzzle pieces of my life,

 I stood and watched,

                       As your hand waved goodbye.

 As the innocence turned to tragedy,

                       And the drama of the production became unpredictable,

 As I lent you my soft corners,

                       And you sharpened them to hardened edges,

I kept seeing,

                       Your hand wave goodbye

I kept lacing up my sneakers,

Believing the miles would foregive the pain of you

Holding on to solitude in blissful surrender

With eyes unfiltered, how could you ever expect me to just forget?

The teeth of your words chewed through my ribcage, the trembling trench of my hands, as I, once again, laced up my sneakers, in order to forget....adrenaline coursing through my veins, always my drug of choice, to mitigate the memories, and the pain.......

lace / lingerie / roses

I have felt a hand at my face,

pressed my skin into the pressure of a tender touch.

Fallen heart first for kindness and the lack of.

Given my all to nothing...........

Lace across my skin,

smitten by the texture and femininity of lingerie, 

the scent of roses................................

breath / sneakers / intoxication

Breath unzips from the center of my chest, as the pulsating of my heart presses outward from my innermost flesh. Sacrificing thought to adrenaline rushed stupor, as the intoxication of the drug seeps further into my sneakers. Shadow covers day, as high clouds foretell of punishing rain. My arms and shoulders shake with a shudder, a moment of construction as muscles tighten and spread throughout my body, unmasking of self throughout, 

mile after mile..

summer / seasalt / air

Winter never has been my season of color; it has always been my reason to cover, my season of waiting, for.

Spring has always been, my season of hope, my season of entry, back in.

Summer has always been my rhythm and reason, my season of budding, my growing...

Waves appearing out of nowhere suddenly licking at me in startling embrace, stripping daringly; flinging myself into the sea. Breathing in worshipful gulps of sea air as salt spray caresses the pinks of my cheeks. Like the tide, I surrender again and again, as my writing sets me alive on the shores of distant places. One day in Paris, next in Rome, next standing curbside in New York City, and finally, today, on the outlay of a beach watching a horseshoe crab battle amongst the seaweed. Awaiting the heat of, yet, another summer.

     When I have finally succumb to parts of my life once shrouded in taboo, I become imposingly bare in being able to change everything in my present, as truth stares back hard in the coarseness of sea salt touching my delicate face, the heat of summer sun washing over me.

Memories come tumbling in, and that is when, I remember, how and why I am here. Summer, will always be, for me, my reason of reckoning...my roses in bloom !

bones / torment / moments

Somewhere in some unsuspecting crevice of my bones the torment of the night does still matter, the defining moment when morning awaits, and once again, I learn how to breathe. A brief flow of sound from which releases an occasional drop of sweat. Forever hitched to an elsewhere, another time and place, each glide of my sneaker goes on forever, as flesh opens upon the dawn. Branches in angriest of twisted torment encroach my path. No reason to stay, no reason to go further, flesh feeling so unfettered, flirting recklessly as sneakers glide and dance along the sheen of the pavement. Feeling the top ridge of humid air grab hold of the inside of my exposed thigh, the oil from my skin running like an ocean of light down my leg, and there it remains... Another five miles, notched into my waistband.......

sunset / riverfront / Hudson River

hanging on wet breath, still holding my future in my back pocket. I am finding the air has a predictable chaos to it today, as spring has finally sprung, and both bare legs and warmth of the sun now await me... how very tintalizing is the episode of life this Monday morning, as I look back in rear view vision at the sunset over the Hudson River of last evening. 
The perfected riverfront in Cold Spring Ny.....peaceful, solemn, serene....

A Woman’s Reprieve

I often write of experiences in both fiction and non - fiction, describing the icy landscape and then the thawing of a human -  being over time. Of one's abandonment, frozen enough that one has had to stand alone, next to the stove to thaw before undressing, falling into frigid waters, almost freezing to death. Writing so close to the bone, I am almost skinless as the keyboard clicks away at rapid speed............Happy Mother's Day !

sounds / wings / faintness

Lushness of early morning silence echoes from each rose petal.  Succulent beads of dew hang suspended above each thorn. The scent of heat so thick it latches onto my breath, as my sneakers peer out from the black frame of pavement.  Heat, as an antique paisley shawl, wrapped within me so tight, it cuts off my breath. I slide my sneakers along the pavement, and speak in whispers to the birds, as they drink on the nectar of honeybees ....taking a larger breath, falling one step backward into the camouflage of the foliage........

untamed / dirty water

*Have you ever waited by the side of the road for cars to drive by and splash dirty gutter water on you like a tidal wave?  dirty water soaked into your shoes, your toes, cold, wet, spasms untamed, the earth pressed up against your heels...have you ever?

When I don't know what to say, I say nothing,

close my eyelids with my fingerttips.

My throat, stifled with nameless emotion.

It was dark, it was sunrise, you were my fairytale

Here I now stand, living in the everything after......

run / seclusion / serenity

What was once bold is now subtle, what was energetic now calm, seemingly completely new, pushed in different directions, amid muted shades of pewter, silver and gray, sky is transformed, exotic thoughts strewn upon a gray linen wall. Breathing in capsules of borrowed time, my weathered silhouette graced by my  loosely allusive sneakers. My legs contract, bringing my body to a standing. Feeling the steady caffeine - driven thump of my heart. 

Sometimes wanting to do everything. Run beyond every hill. Investigate every bend in the road. Other times, simply wanting to slow down, relax, allowing the sun to pamper my spirit. Enjoying the massage of sun beams on my shoulders. From the inside of my reflection pool, to the edge of the world, I unwind in naked seclusion.....thus, I run!

unspoken truths

Warning, this is a heavy post. There are some deep and personal things I have been sorting out lately and I feel that my best writing comes when I share the hardest and scariest things. In an effort to challenge myself as a writer, I almost always share the inside, the raw, and the tumultuous emotions I have been wading through. On the bright side of this, a light at the end of a weighty post...is that maybe you will celebrate with me in having admitted and dealt with some things (of your own) that I've long been confused and afraid of.

I have always been a little nervous that I wasn't a good enough mother. I wanted so desperately to be more than what my parents had been. Fact. I knew I was doing my best, but I felt like it was never going to be close to what my children felt they needed and deserved. I frequently worried about this on a daily basis, and, still do at times. I would try to remind myself that it's all about love and that I have overflowing for my children, but still this fear didn't ease, or ever go far away enough from my core.

With much trepidation I have been wondering and recounting many things in my past and realize the conditioning and message I have had in my life about that I chose to believe. Somewhere along the line I believed a lie, I accepted the lie that I was not "good enough". From that point on even when people weren't saying that, I perceived that. I know it happened long, long ago, and some people may read this and be offended, however I am placing no blame.
(or, maybe I am, just a little) Life happens and people make mistakes, it's all about how we recover from those.

I didn't recover for a long time; in fact I went through very painful phases where I allowed that fear to literally run my life. For a short period of time I almost stopped breathing entirely, One day I noticed that even my eyes seemed lifeless and that is when I sought help. From there the fear took over other areas of my life. My whole marriage was spent trying to be the wife I was "supposed" to be, to a husband who was going to show aggression and violence in his words and his physical to me anyway, no matter how I tried. He never liked himself very much, and, apparently, I was going to simply be collateral damage amongst it all. I never felt good enough. I think now, love me anyway, or don't. All the things I tried to change for others only made me hollow and loath the uncomfortable of myself even more. That is where life began to blur  buckle and sway to the left, and needed much clarity.

Somewhere inside I found that I was stronger than I had known, that I knew things about myself that I had pushed down, and that being honest and real is the only way to live free and at peace. Lies I had believed gripped my life and held me back from truly loving everything, because all my time was spent worrying. Being the one to stand alone to do what I know I must do is part of why I am here and why I am okay to be an individual. On the path of conforming to everyone else's ideas of who I should be, I was headed in a very scary direction.

 Grow your own way with grace and strength. Our childhood is never far behind us, no matter how much we try to hide from it.

ardent hope

lifting my chin amd reminding myself, that hurts come and go.......and so......I run

an ache in my heart at times.....and so....I run

life’s moody adventure....and so....I run

I almost died, and I still remember it....and so....I run

I believe in the flow of  positive energy....and so....I run

should have/ would have/ could have

   Eyes downcast in subtle gentle movement, theatrically paused, pondering, tottering on my high heels, leafless trees give way to feng shui surroundings. The churning of the train fills my ears with loudest roar. Stepping from the platform, crossing through the doors, a poignant silence which seems to last forever. A woman starring out the window, in a far away dismal look, then the gushing of her streams of tears. I cannot make the words, so I offer her a tissue to wipe the darkened rings of mascara dripping down her cheek, in a need to abolish them to the nearest graveyard. The doors once again open, commuters in eager rush to get on with their day, their work, and their ornate lives.

     I think about the woman later on in my day, the mournful face of her tears, I should have asked her, was it death, or a love affair now over? I should have asked her, should have comforted her, and should have offered her something for her fragility, her tiredness, and her pain. Should have told her, that this too shall pass. The salt of her tears rest in the unhurried questions that still linger through my thoughts.

naked/ nude

Against all good and reasonable judgment, life happens, to all of us.
It is what it is folks....and writing is just that, a portrayal of all you know and all you see, then navigating that dark area in - between to unearth a deeper sense of clarity of it all.

Naked is to be oneself, nude is to be seen by others. Naked is always the self - portrait!...it is not you whom is crazy and tilted, but in fact, it is the rest of the world. 

life / purpose

 I pulled from the colors, the aged smell of the frames, the ripped corners of worn photographs. I smelled the paper, the processed ink of digital photos. My arms weren't long enough to reach beyond the concrete wall, the one that held my blindness, choked me every time I attempted to stand up on my own.

     The flight of how I went from there to here still baffles me, strips me of my breath, as I admit how close I was to....giving up.

What one can decipher from the nude canvas of my face, is beauty, sudden sadness, gratitude, pain, forbearance, solitude, destiny, awkwardness, calm, panic, love, loss, strength, weakness, emptiness, fulfillment, passion, empathy, discernment. What one can see are the aches of life worn on my sleeve, as my fingers run themselves along the rim of my coffee cup, thoughts glowing through the early darkness of dawn, poignant, sharp, and repetitive. 

Turning the page, getting on with life, as my words pull together in paragraphs, strength narrates the darkest corners making them less intrusive, less harsh. Softness of sun now breaking through on my doorstep..

Never, ever, give up. Life has purpose, go out and find it!

sneakers / face / photograph

She woke early, creeping down the stairs, out the door, lost as to where she was. Surrendering herself completely to the arms of the rain. Feeling the soft sensation of each drop enveloping each separate individual thought. Following the murmur of each voice, each step, following the scent of lavender out to the garden.

Something in the Garden of Eden that drew her out, drew her further in, as if the garden could read her despair, read the grief within her, reading every word of life on the delicate form of her cheek. The ignorance of the truth became her face, the face of a photograph frozen in time, the solemnity of something stained in her eyes.

The last trace of a broken being, a shy smile, the impossible direction of a world pressing in, rested on the bare iron bench of her escape. Wanting to lie down, fall asleep, if only for a short while.

But her sneakers kept her going..

As I catch myself falling, without dwelling, I reinvent myself. Shelf that other person, spiritually connect under the shower after a long hard run as the warmth of the water runs across my body. No longer feeling the need to save everything from washing down the drain......mesmerized, on long dirt roads, and blackened pavement.