Semi-Daily Scribbles

Lock It When You Leave

A time out sounds like a grand luxury after knowing Zoë has been wandering the stillness without me. Why haven't I picked up the yoke so she could rest a while on this splintered trip? A slip of the tongue and I'm right back on that bottom rung. I've struggled to breathe in this thin atmosphere, tethered as I am to your sphere. Of Influence and Reticence. The two of us never stood a chance. Heaven's got to be easier to get into than this, but then it is the place that invented gates, isn't it? Don't say anything. Just tell me a story.

Let's Do This!

Restrictions are of our own design. Build a firm foundation. Everything else is faerie dust. Glimmer & Shimmer & Flicker & Flow. The only way to reach the clouds is to allow unhealthy structures to crumble. Victory is upheaval. Show me the prize hidden under the rubble. Patience & Prudence. What new projects need to be started? Aren't we all just a conglomeration of half-drawn, hastily sketched plans? Obstacles build muscles and nothing soothes a restless mess like redress. You do have the capacity to be innocent. Lifestyles are filled with half-truths and wiles. What has been lost is found when one calibrates her vibration. Where did curiosity go? Did you replace it with a need to know what cannot be shown? If that frequency doesn't make your heart beat, no amount of stimulation will revive what you've left for others to do. They will not make the same mistakes as you. No one learns if everyone wins. Gloating is lonesome work. I can offer understanding but I don't need to jump on the first carousel that comes 'round. I am always looking for something you don't see. It's up there. Do I need to point it out? Let's unpack the sentence: "Learning is unimportant." No one would say that in the world I live in. I have to allow others to proceed on their journey. I can simply tell myself: "That's not your path. That's not your story." No villains. No saints. Only people. I may joke that the perfect world would be populated by my clones, but what a dreadful bore that would be. Patience with myself and others is what's needed during these winter months. Confusion reigns supreme, and it will for a while. The ol' temper has not been tamped down. There has been one baby step taken. No one is ready to run. The team has been trimmed yet again. Our failure was the mismanagement of chaos. We allowed that vital energy to consume rather than nourish us. Make good on your word and the feeling of defeat will subside. And when my boss said "keep your phone on" as I finished my shift on Wednesday, I knew I would not be receiving his call on Thursday. Trying times indeed, and it's cold out. Patience is a life-long practice. When the storm is raging, some folks make for shore and others take their chances upon waves that shake the ocean floor. Just try to show me out the door and I'll put on a demonstration of the wind reducing this world to qubits. How can I help? Just focus on your goals. An answer given before the querent knew her hand was raised. Work those pedals faster, padre. This cycle's seen better days.

The Hidden Part

What is it you need to show to the world? What's the one thing you want me to know about you? How can you tell your story without it being a masterfully manipulated collection of photographs on Insty-Sham?

Here's what Phyllida wants us to know about her:

I am the Crone. I am your Forever Home. Come rest in my arms so evergreen. I am soon to be riding the #9 and so close to being whole. I feel young/old/accomplished/benighted ... happy to have sensations at all. I am grateful for my cave; my hideout from the world as I've undergone this painful transformation. I don't look any different. The wrapper is no worse for wear. But the little spark of wonder that has always caused me pain is now a rampaging flame of wisdom. Can't unknow what you know. Or, in other words, this light ain't goin' out any time soon, bebe ko.

The Tomb

You told me you live in your own world.

"Don't place too much trust in me."

You forgot what we talked about a month ago. Our conversation was important. It had to do with self-awareness and the color I'd recently painted the walls of my study.

"Forgetfulness means I never think of you when we're away from this place."

I knocked on your door and whispered goodbye. You looked up with tear-filled eyes; your left hand raised as a warning to not cross a line. I didn't bother to smile or hold your gaze or say another word. I turned around and headed down the hall. That was the longest walk to my car I ever had.

 

Underneath the Niceness

Time is fluid, and what I said yesterday is a betrayal sneaking up on you in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... The downfall has happened. It goes back to my desire for seeing you leave before the month is out. I have enough strength for the both of us, and therein lies our demise. I am "conscious" of my "knowing" you are lost without your lies. [Watch out when you run into writers. You'll be reading your story soon, and it's one you didn't write.] The Meaning of Life is just to show up. "Showing up is half the battle." People say that, don't they? You told me once, "I don't." You serve others only to short-change yourself. Don't be a martyr to a dream that never was. 15 years and One Hundred Ghosts incubated all your false hopes. Corruption of the body; fertilizer for the mind. [You once said to me: "Hope you get back on your feet." Hope you stay on yours.] Memories are missed opportunities waiting to happen. [The only long-term relationship we ever truly have is with ourselves.]

You name it, you claim it.

Work? YES!
Calling what you do A JOB?
Work on changing that concept into your CALLING.
Our journey begins with how we name a thing.

QUICK FIRE CHALLENGE ... THOUGHTS!

I like being the only misfit in the room. However, now that I've stumbled upon the "Lost Continent," I'm considered downright square and prime fogey material compared to the shades with whom I hang. I'm going to let you in on a secret: We play for a losing team. I want my World Champion ring, but I won't get it where I'm currently sitting. All of my teammates favor a schedule that has either petrified or liquified their formerly fiery desires (and those once girlish figures!) You can keep your 3's and 4's mateys. No one notices a spoiled code copier coiled in the dark. I bring my torch every time I enter the cave, but I've just discovered the batteries I need have been recalled.

... and for all of our striving, we'll still need to show that piece of paper we had a decade to make.

dinner

longing for the old country
where its inhabitants would eat your tender belly
and spit out what would be left of any backbone
you are neither just off the boat
nor are you 15 quid short of the price needed for membership
your contacts are clouded by a pretty shade of pussy willow
while you struggle to juggle disparate worlds in the search for the perfect
ISO

Mister Mythical

Yea, for the unreasonable season be upon us, and emotions are squishy and raw. Deal with the feels if you must. But for the sake of propriety (sobriety, piety) please don't go losing your everloving mind during this Neptunian grope fest.

Valium Times

People are here because they don't have to be here very often. But isn't showing up Step #1 in: How To Build An Effective Team? Why are you here? Is it because the two of us have very different ideas on how to define "Fun!?" Would we even know what to say to each other if we were to meet outside of these waterstained walls?

Those closest to your heart should possess a healthy dose of forgetfulness.

Can I Have Your Number?

A number on the bathroom scale does not determine health or warm fuzzy nudges of "I am the best lookin' bitch on the block!" Rather, how many times I can walk around the block before I get winded is my measurement of cardiovascular wellness. This bipedal mode of locomotion is also a super way to decipher what my back, knees and feet feel compelled to share at any given turn. HAPPY 2018! HAPPY I JUST CELEBRATED MY ___ BIRTHDAY! Again, numbers can be a confusing language when discussing health, and whatever the opposite is. But I will throw out a figure which will help in the writing of this here Love Letter to the Body: 22. There was a time, not so long ago, when I supported an extra 22 pounds on my 5-foot-nuthin' frame. Pleasingly Plump I may have been, but according to this I was overweight, and my numbers (damn pesky things!) sucked. Yeah, this was also a prolonged Blue Period, too. At a heavier weight, I was three pounds away from a number I knew was my Point of No Return. Once I hit that designation on the scale, it was only onwards and upwards for me. My health history and decades of family photos provided all the data I needed to choose a course of action.

Today I feel just right, someone in an official capacity thinks my numbers are acceptable, and I get asked at work what size pants I wear. Unless you plan to buy me a pair of jeans, I humbly submit: What the fuck? Ah, shaming. It does a body good (as in it doesn't really do anything to me, but the numbskull flapping her/his gums apparently gets a boner.)

For the remainder of my journey, I want health and well-being to take center stage, not a dress size or any kind of movement other than that of the bowel. Now to get my Hashtag Game on:

#FoodIsFuel
#HealthNotHate
#KnowYourFamilyHistory
#SayNoToTheShameGame