trading places

 

Maybe I needed the time to slowly heal and accept, and then I needed the time after that to celebrate and see the possibilities again. I needed mornings spent sipping coffee, and evenings spent writing thoughts on a page. Filling page after page with smudges and stained thought. Later, I wrote in my journal that I felt “removed, relaxed, a slight sick feeling in my stomach”. I did not cry, I noted proudly, until I was walking through the tunnel from the gate of my past life.

I stood mesmerized, holding the paper (divorce decree) in my hand tightly, the one that held the power to allow me to move on, to get over my delusions of   life. I didn’t know it at the time, but I found peace in that piece of paper, a sense of quiet inner security. Calmness I had never felt, or shared before, until now. There was peace in the ending. That night, I didn’t notice how quiet winter had been, until spring came along. 

These nights, I fall asleep to birds chirping, and this morning, I woke up to more of the same.

A funny sort of quiet has settled over my life. It is the quiet of two very happy people (my second marriage) smiling at each other over steaming cups of coffee. It is the quiet of a corner house at the end of a quiet street. It is the quiet of the chaos being over, and the quiet of peaceful happiness seeping in through floorboards.


It is the quiet of a few plants nearly dying every few weeks and then graciously coming back to life when I remember to water them. Much to my surprise, a certain hand-me-down orchid has been quietly sprouting tendrils right and left despite my careful neglect. It is the quiet of tiny red leaves beginning to open up on the stems of my roses, which will all burst into blossom to new roses in a few weeks.



**We heal at different points, we move on or stay for different reasons, and our needs are uniquely our own. We must own all of these realities and decide for ourselves what is best for each of us in the end.


Quietness is a beautiful thing!

a sneaker's confession

       My sneakers, unlike me, lack the audacity to mythologize their life. They are simply insipidly entranced, not nearly human enough to comprehend the passage of time, or fear, or the onslaught of the fragility of it all. They are leather and cloth, as each morning I choke hold them, in a tight embrace of the laces. Their life, held firmly in the perfused smell of a wretched sweat. I push them harder, then they need to be pushed, them, being compliant in the exertion.  Each one, one more step closer between heaven and hell, as mesh and sole reshape on each step of a stone.   


 The natural temperament of my sneakers today, a slow and steady pace. Just enough cool crisp air, as a deer studies the bone structure of my face. Terracing down towards the river, sun organically falling from the ceiling, I bath in the rays. Birds with elephant ears grab hold of my whispers, as chosen secrets spill in silent confession. The earth rolls over each sneaker, laces, left abandoned.....no way in, no way out......

rasberry green tea / serenity

 The warm weather of early spring must just be answer in itself for my getting up this morning. Pursing my lips on an ice-cold glass of raspberry green tea, scrubbing off my bull’s-eye, moving on with my life. I turn my face towards the sun, letting it spill back over me, harnessing the calm, serene, blissful even, sentiments of the morning. Not withstanding any reason to disengage from this enchantment any time soon. I chose to just languish in the beauty of the calmness.........


Typing away, with unsure fingers, I begin to understand. I thrive in the silence; my pen sweaty in my palm, as blood pulsates faster, recovering to my calm.

sunday morning

yup, that's all I have to offer up this Sunday morning.................

                                          Is there someone you want to pose this question to?

Run Baby Run/

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 knew the feel of my feet, the sweat of my sneaker, the purest unbridled essence of me?

Every voice I hear has it's own palette of color as I embrace life and resolution babbles from my soul. Running as if I am leaping for the moon, spring is theatrical as it throws back forty-degree temperatures in absence of yesterday's tease of summer. My teeth, a bit more clenched today, my fingers, a bit more drawn into the sleeves of my shirt, as warm blood surges through my body. The goose bumps on my legs enough of a sacrifice to the gods.

Self Portrait

to my daughter, who grew up....then grew away...

I have finally begun sitting at my desk, the location where my breakdowns usually begin, as I plunk down my letters and watch them appear across my computer screen. I am working on trying to see the glass as half full this morning. Maybe I will write about the common misconceptions that we as humans place on each other and ourselves. Ah shoot, I'm really just not that smart, it took me like 20 minutes this morning just to figure out how to work the Kreps coffeepot with the individual coffee pogs. I tend to like simple, basic, life is way too complicated already.

Favorite frivolous things:

Keeping my fingernails/ toenails polished.

Flip Flops & sexy heels

Sunbathing in extreme heat. I love to feel the sun on my skin.

M & M’s.  (Way too much)

EXPRESS jeans.

Victoria Secret’s   Luminous Cream on my bare legs

Reading books, all books.

Homespun  Rasberry - peach ice tea

Lastly, a good run, a drenching sweat.......then yoga

poetic / spiritual / boundaries

One of the most poetic, spiritual, and general positive threads of spring is working in my garden. Rebuilding of the old, planting of the new, moving rocks, sculptures, birdhouses, and redesigning all of the land that I claim as my own. The first picture of a first rose this year will be on this blog faster than the rose can prick and bleed.

 A moment of truth......I sound disjointed and hesitant to my own ears today, but I know you'll understand me just the same, a moment just between friends.
 Go out and find your friend, the one who totally, bashfully, understands, and nothing else ever needs to be said.........chasing pavements.......

Entrancement / Pulsate / Run

The earlier I begin the day, the quieter the sound. Reverberations of my own renderings, caught in the patter, as sneakers hit the pavement. Trees lie still, sky asleep, mornings dew resting on an eyelash. 

Pulsating of my heart, my only sound; liquid pours down my back in beads of isolated seclusion.....a river of puddles washes over my sneaker; as my own river of wetness, adds to the drowning. 

A fallen leaf floats away, on a single breath, columns of humidity trace the air. Outpouring from the Gods, tears from distant lost angels, now dampen my silhouette. Lost in the entrancement of it all......my shins feel the burn, as ligaments feel the fire

Artist / Prose / Writer

Computer is not man’s best friend, for today it was a royal pain in my ***. It coughed, it wheezed, it sputtered, it froze, and then it stopped. Hours later I conjured it enough, coaxed it enough, to have it come back from being a spoiled child, and cooperate with me. Whenever this devil grabs hold of the inners of my computer, I hand write, the old fashion way, manually putting thought to paper. Yes, then I have to transcribe it all to the computer in the end. So, yes, the computer does in fact, always win this battle of wits with me. It really is rather exhausting an effort.

An artist of prose, I create with words, isn't that what a writer is? Having an inordinate amount of time on his hands today, the woodpecker now leads two others in the pecking of my windowsill. "How’s the blog coming along? " they ask in unison, as they pause from the drilling of their exasperating beaks into the rot of my windowsill.  "Need to have 4 million followers at least, in order for it not to be a failure”, the boastful arrogant one bellows out from beneath his breathe. 

My blog is about my life, so is it possible that if your blog fails, then your life has failed? 

Peering into the abyss, welcoming its peer back at me. Still waiting on my answer.......

Muscles / Fatigue

Muscles tighten as tendons spring into action spreading a needed release just above my tailbone.


Finding my personal rhythm, not just the essence of my blood pumping to keep pace. A gushing between my hipbones, circular motion of heat driven down my torso, as I am drunk on my own nectar. Sneakers thump to the sound of the trickling as a deer invades my secret place. A blinding force spreads out like a kerosene - fed fire pooling in my cheeks continuing in a gully across my breasts.......in the heat of the moment my sneakers are on fire. Cool crisp morning air fans my flames. 

Rawness/Teardrop

Even in the murk of emotional scab pulling that I have been so entwined with recently, letting go of the past, well, it damn near hurts......like someone carving out a piece of my flesh........and there I then remain, open, and raw....without an audience or an ending, I write.....

A teardrop on the cork floor, I smeared it with my thumb........

Progression /Life

"The future holds a bright light as long as you accept that you can not change anything but your view."


 

add on

Space or isolation, why do we always hide?

Sneaker / Connection

Emphatic trees reach me in morning's theatrical greeting. My tongue licks the paint from the ribbon of blue sky, as the color coats my breath. The sun, a lemon meringue confection sitting high above my shoulders, adding to the heated spillage of my body's honey running down the careen of my navel.

 My resolve crumbles just long enough to doubt my own perception, as I run through a spider web dangling in suspension. My face en-clothed in a white spiral diamond of veil as my breath announces itself under the tangled web of my flesh. 

Cupping palm against cheek, just long enough to catch the rolling bead of sweat from a torrid ride on the wave of my breast. Moving in and out of life like a season, I find a cord of connection between the web and my sneaker.   

Wisdom of Love

Not to be mentioned last because of importance, because I believe it is super important...I believe in love. In many forms I believe that love is the thing we are all searching for in our lives. Some are searching for the love of a parent that they never felt, (me) some might be hoping to find romantic love, (me again) for others the journey may be toward giving the love they feel is being built up to pour out on a child, or children(plural).

 We all need to give love and receive love. It drives life whether we are aware of it or not.

 As cliche as this sounds, we first have to know love on our own. Some will say "love yourself" I personally believe loving myself means (buying those cute shoes for myself), seeing that I was created and placed here for  great reason. Things that used to make me feel weird or out of place now make me feel immensely blessed, and loving myself, is one of them. Until you love yourself, there is no loving of anyone else.

No one is responsible for your own happiness but you, we all need to wise up to that fact!!!!  

yogic/bendy

There aren't people who "can" yoga and people who "can't." Yoga just looks different on different bodies, but what is going on inside can be shared by all.
 
When I began my surgeries to repair my scalp (2005) 9 years ago, I woke up wrapped up like a mummy on a  hard and cold gurney, my body in more pain than I can think of words to describe.

In the dark unexplored places in my soul, mind, heart, blood, bones, muscle, and most importantly...breath....my yoga and running began again, I felt this inner call to a practice that I had known, and my life began to form again, from the inside to the out. Yoga had been my life before, and became my saving grace even more so afterwards. There are not people who "can" and people who "can't" in yoga, there are different poses and alignments that can accommodate us all.

Girlish & Giddy

"The greatest gift you can give your children is roots of responsibility, with wings of independence." - Denis Waitley

Nothing prepared me for what I would go through as an adult losing the love and comfort of close friends and family. Being the one to stand alone to do what I knew I had to do, is part of why I am here, and why I am okay. On the path of conforming to everyone else's ideas of who I should be, I was headed in a very scary direction, one that could have caused serious fatality to my soul. 

Now I am once again, girlish and giddy. When I get down and moody and pout, feeling sorry for myself, life comes around and gives me something to smile about and I forgive myself for my pity party, and I move on. Life is forward momentum, without ever looking back behind you......

  

Sneakers / Wet

Breath is held under a heavy rain, as I elaborately slice through air as if I were a cucumber. My sneakers defined by skin, bones and sweat. Colluding in a seductive sway with the trees, rising and falling with the cool air on my cheeks, adrenaline feeding in a frenzy throughout my flesh. My body submissive, stripped of any, and all, antiquated inhibitions.

 Coaxing forth a gush of flame my sneakers are digested into a converted curtain of morning fog. In a poised arch my shoulders offer an expression of contained endurance, as lace droplets cover my flesh in a honeycomb weave of perspiration.

Credence

It occurred to me today that I come to my blog and post to indulge in my thoughts and really let them run wild, thus, then expressing what swims around in my head. There is much more that I should come on here and share. But, is it scary to come read such idiopathic posts on some days? Often I feel guilty because my writing is such a release for me, and I wonder if it's a healthy habit or a sick cosseting of my mind.   

By a certain age, or by the culmination of many events in life, individually we ascertain trust levels about everyone we meet. For some of us, we trust easily and are quick to believe everything we are told. I tend to trust very, very, very, slowly. (and even slower then that) Others take much longer and require people to prove that they are trustworthy. For me I believe that people are good and bad, and do both good and bad things. My heart and soul open up and I find it confusing when I have been horribly wrong in judging someone's trust.

One would assume that with time I would change and start being more of a non - skeptic (I have been lied to so much it's almost comical). I try, but inside I still feel the letdown because even if I pretend to have a big wall, it's really paper thin and my hopes are up that I can believe everything I am told. I am totally let down when the trust fails (again). I know that I was meant to pour myself out without inhibition. One day that will be safe, one day, it will be.

Garden Escape

Nestling away from the writing today, taking in some much deserved sunshine on this gorgeous April Sunday, sipping homespun peach ginger iced tea. Yes, changing up my garden design a bit today. I was getting bored with last year's old scheme of things.

*****I do not know you from the wind, yet now I’m covered in your fallen crosses. Your nakedness left standing in my doorway, like an old exalted lover. Why must we always meet this way?

K.Quinn

Another Saturday Run

Small puddles of sweat spread out from each sneaker, as they hug themselves against the dark of the pavement. My flesh now naked, my soul utterly defenseless, in an almost skeptical sideways glance of pretentious thought, dripping wet, a river surrenders to the contours of my body.

 Nakedly bare, shedding skin by the roadside. Feeling the heat of my animal rise to the occasion, on a cusp of neatly chilled dawn air. How unfortunate for those of you still cursed under the slumber of night, as I slip out under the radar of dawn, alone, calm, and silent.  

Harboring in the shadows, gray hand of sky reaching, infusing a sense of grace as I witness the chilly unfolding of another Saturday dawn, as if it is something salaciously lewd I cling to. Inescapably theatrical, in precarious dance, sweat pulls my emotions into a melting on the ground. 

Magnetic force pulls me toward an embrace with the serenity of silent morning air. Another morning run well executed!

Life Revisions

 Up since 5'o'clock. Carving away the things in life that need to be revised. See, I know most of you simply clear out your closets, and while, yes, I do that too, and do that often, not often enough do I clear out my life. Today, I perform the task of clearing, mentally, of all the waste, which I have accumulated.

 This could very well be summed up by overrated melodrama, created by, you guessed it, other people intrusively stampeding my life with it, to ridiculous worries and obsolete mundane daily withering of things which have no place taking up space in my life, to the broken coffee cup on the kitchen counter I can't seem to throw away.

 Let the purging begin of obstacles, fears, friends / relationships gone sour, cracked coffee mug, furniture on Craig's list (so I can begin to downsize), clothes to goodwill, old makeup (need new anyway), piles of papers on my desk (not meant for any literary use), emptying my briefcase and purse (of stuff), clearing out my in - box, my out - box, my draft box, my word file (put it all on a flash drive), pictures, photographs, trumpets, foghorns, sirens, longings, needs, wants (kept all the good ones, not necessarily the practical good ones, however) piles of books on my desk, (they just get organized into a more attractive looking pile), love letters, hate mail, proposals ( business and otherwise), 

and, oh my gosh, I already feel so much lighter......still time for a blog, an ample walk, a shower, a manicure, a new spring dress (and yes, always buy the shoes too), and, finally, a dinner date with my husband at Hudson House (on the water) in Cold Spring, NY! 

Yippee, I have completed 2014 spring cleaning of MY LIFE..........

Running in Remorse

Taking deep breaths, allowing my lungs to expand, my body performing action merely by thought this morning, feeling the fabrication of an earthquake, expecting the ground soon to open up, in a moment of silence and swallow me whole. Some force today, is more than mildly pressing down on me, testing my strength, as I push back hard against it. 
The odds of human fragility, are felt 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. Smelling the fermentation of sweat on my own skin, running in a river of remorse, my own fertile tide.

**Find your own voice, and then use it, amid the harshness of absolute candor!

NYC Homeless

The homeless man arched in the doorway of the building, he bears the only witness to conversations in my mind. The heated smoke of the subway floats up through the street grates. Counting ever so softly his breath as it heaves in and out with my thoughts. On the threshold of barely caring, his pale fingers reach for the remnants of a cigarette lain in the street. 

He reaches for the taste of nicotine, noting every detail of his urine soaked trousers, his mind destroying all he had committed to life’s memory. Discarding the useless ashes of the cigarette, the ache of his life, dyeing down, in the blink of his eye a thousand stories are being told, choking back on his own sobs, that no one else ever seems to take notice of. The selling of his soul, tortured death of his dreams, the downtown dive he use to frequent.

 What is left now is the decay of a life, a condom in his pocket, tossed cigarettes, and a stick of mint gum he uses as a toothbrush. The urine is the river of pain he will eventually die in..... no one seems to see or care, even take notice. Tracing the echo that I heard, to the silencing of his heart. When asked who kills him, the answer is, we all do. 

I mark my calendar by the closing of his eyes, the seeping of his body fluids leaving stains on the fabric of my face. I knew of a man, though he was not my friend, whom perished in a life of will, recoiled in the disgust of mankind, until his body wrapped so tight became breathless, in a river of his own urine. Weaved within the fabric of NYC, a city where language is never spoken and hypocrisy breeds within, where a thousand pieces of life fall from the sky, his corpse left wide open, to walk all over him, and then, we do.

Markings

Ink on a page,
written word or sketched artwork I pour myself out on blank canvas.
My wounds heal as my creativity thrives.
Lost in the repose of running and yoga,
Life begins to simplify........
I loose the feel of the magnet pulling me inward and down....

Paradox of Running

The world, in cinematic play thinks it knows me. Noting the answer to my riddles will never be made so obvious, as I float in hypnotic state, pulse capturing me, forcing breath to dangle on the edge, sky almost transparent, as my body moves seamlessly into it’s own country. Sweat staining my sleeve with very private thought in an underestimated sort of comfort, a very silent posture of repose.

Steadying myself, deeply breathing, knowing all too well, the deer thinks he knows me, yet knows nothing of the nudity of my thought. Shrouded in seaweed and lace, I hide my denouement. A Splattering of cold is chilling my flesh in a hedonistic affair down to my bones, liberated from the cold, drunk on adrenaline......sneakers now covered, in paradox and dirt!

Happiness

Words begin to dance, boneless, like a piece of string, melting my own bones as I feel an ancestral need to watch the sunrise beyond the house, as night tips to dawn.


I had a plan for life, and even a backup plan, but never did I have a backup plan for the back up plan......I think THAT there, was my biggest mistake. 

Always have plenty of backup plans, plan A, plan B, plan C, plan D, E and F......and, actually, maybe a better idea is to just have a backup plan for every letter of the alphabet, just to be sure you have it all covered.....in life, you just never know....and happines really does matter......

the...Art of Caring

Feel like I should be playing a piano every time I begin to blog. Every word I speak opens my wingspan, hollows me, just a little more, so I can reset my life, scouring for answers in the rubble of my interior.

Observing the world today with a calibrated need of disinterest, wafting esoterically into someone else, some other time and place, joyfully fulfilling my romantic tragic role in my own screenplay. Consciously aware of my nakedness in the breeze, pausing at details in my shadow, reabsorbed by the notion of my own body, no one knows of the thought I am drinking from. Raucous and wild, breaking near pandemonium, recognizing a primacy to my own need, want and desire.

An alien in the fog ponders the wonders of life. Bartering with herself and god, turning tempest thought into justification. Wondering if sweat left on the pavement isn't just a bit of bleed from old wounds, a sacrificial offering as legs lean forward against her own sea of ritual awakening. Convincing self of something so much more, as secrets hold tight within her lips.

Don’t we all just bleed a little from other people’s wounds? Is that not then, the art of human caring?

Running in Rain

Falling into the run, letting myself perilously wash away. Rain touches lightly at the back of my neck, chancing that it might find me aloft in a dream. Waiting until my breathing deepens, then grows quiet, tatting of my own flesh, a flavor of heightened anticipation. My thin substance weaves in and out beneath the trees. There is no one here to give me caution, my blood pulsating in ostentation.

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 grace the space between my hipbones, as the tiniest veil of morning dew drips down my leg. Sweat drapes from my brow, precipitous drops of despair, feeling the strain in the deepest of places this morning.

My feet are poetry on the ground, as the fragrance of the rain hangs at the tip of each nostril. Cliff hanging, tormented beads of sweat cling on the outset of every one of my pores. Hurdling over a puddle, as my breasts keep pace with every step of my footing. Feeling the roundness of the beads escaping down the curvature of my body, my sneakers take up the drowning. My breath's vapor intrudes on the shroud of fog........sneakers, once again, delivering that all-inclusive potion of serene tonic that I crave...................

Yoga is Life Changing

this bracelet...just because...it soothes me...

ginger, one of my greatest tonics for what ails me.....

Dancing on the intersection of arrogance and wisdom this morning.
So if you have ever considered practicing yoga, I am a yoga teacher and therefore biased, but still, I will tell you that it's a wonderful idea and you should give it a try. From my personal experience I can tell you that if you let the practice inside you, open areas where you may be afraid, yoga will change your life. Moving, away or closer to... just constant motion. It's helped me realize that sometimes I just want to be still, be very still and feel held....it is then, that I practice yoga. 

It hasn't come without tears and a bloody mess, admittedly. Now I am feeling the shedding of layers compiled of stories that I wrote inside myself and declarations that I made that were self destructive, all can be brought to light and I can place them back in my "life album" as experiences, part of this human life I am living. Maybe not gone, perhaps not even fully healed, but realized in the light as separate from I. 

 My past does have to create my future. How simple, but for me so profound. 

Consider the sweat that must pour out for weight loss, the photos burned for lovers to force memories to fade, friends left miles apart when jobs require moving, or watching a child fall over and over as they learn to walk without help, all of these are moments of release. Not even slightly surprising, I find most answers to current struggles, most moments of total release, on my yoga mat, or in the dampness of my early morning appointment with my running sneakers!

Never say "Can't"

If you said it, I didn't hear.
If I didn't hear, I'm sorry.
When you scared me, I found courage!

The air hits me like a memory flood this morning.  Warm and sultry on my skin, rich and earthy in my nose. Sneakers bee - bopping along the pavement, sweat liberally dripping on the black tar of the road.

*My scalp scar runs 14 inches in a rabbit ear shape around my head, remnants of repair of hundreds of stitches and two years of reconstructive surgeries. I have neuropathy forever. If you think you can't, open your mind to something that seems impossible...you never know where you can fly.

One Yoga Pose ( at a time)

Tiny splashes drop down.They may be tears at this point, but I tell myself they are sweat. An audible breath enters my lungs. I exhale with more sound, it is more than air that I let go. My life is bigger at this moment, than it was two seconds ago, a year unbelievable ago. How much this yoga practice has changed me, audaciously saved my life. I found my way, I stepped to the door, finally feeling secure enough to finally open it.

Chills prickle down my arms.
My throat becomes stifled with nameless emotion. My fears are far worse than reality. I'm not so far removed that I have forgotten, that I have lived in a scary place, one that I have now learned from. It's funny what stays with you and what resurfaces when you allow yourself to be lulled by the current of nostalgia and memory. 

Of course some of it is messed up and I have had to work through it to find my place of gratitude, as I inch my way there.....ever so slowly....one pose at a time....breathe....continue

 I share it, flaws, growth, triumph, work, pain, judgement, fear, abstracts, love, images of my grace! Space, or isolation, do I hide myself?

Aha Moments..

(Aha moments are often so much more difficult to see in the dark, one day I will finally get to that realization, maybe next time, way before the moments begin to haunt at me) Ran so fast this morning, like I was saving myself from a live grenade, running to the banks of the river, just to skip rocks across the water. When everyone thinks you are dead, is that when you start life all over again, is that when you begin to navigate the territory again between your heart and your head ? Do you need to own a pair of sneakers and lace up, just to get past all of it.........me thinks now, that you do!