a little life story so far

                                                             Pisces me oh my
                                                   contrary fishies please don't cry
                                                   as you swim from earth to sky
                                                      wondering why oh why


     As i try to live in the grey in the middle of every fray, it's not easy because i so strongly see it
     clearly could be both ways. And i care a bit too much, and cannot not give a f$#! And i see
     that it is sad and happy and all or nothing but should flow lightly.

     And then I took this me, and went away across the sea, to this land called Japan
     and i suddenly could see through a whole other lens, and Canada made zero sense.
    So here I was, clearly not Japanese and yet no longer all I'd been raised to be.
    And the fish swam round again.
    As I learned the word for ten was Ju
    and i understood you

     Back in my homeland quiet as a mouse, seeing absolute certainty as undesirable
     compared to doubt. Seeing individualism as a strange un natural life and being happy
     being swallowed up in one world - with one voice.

     Here I stand now
     alone
     all the places where I've grown and the people I've vanished into
     all the dreams that have carried me away
     this ghost life is lifting

      and I know I am me, and it's easy to be, if you don't try at all, you are you
      whether you fly or fall.

       So simple. The fish aren't in competition, they are not ships in the night
       It is not black and white, but a trajectory
       both free are free to be and so they swim free
       up and down and all swirly
     

        And it's water
        and fish
        there is nothing a miss

        but love can come and sink a ship
        the fish are dizzy
        though they are strong, there is a whirlpool to which they
        are drawn and where does it go
        or is it eternal
        or do they let go and swim as one and follow on
        to a new circle

        there is always the push and pull
        one stays if one goes
        and the fish that disappears into unknown years
        where does she go

       
                                                      Pisces me oh my
                                          contrary fishies please don't cry
                                          as you swim from earth to sky
                                              wondering why oh why
   
           

not yet what i will be

I stand on the threshold again.

I am remarkably awake at 2:43 am.

Delivering all of my thousands of photos to the computer so that I can have the illusion of a blank slate. I say it is the last time, but I know that I will do it again.

I would like to live for a whole week without my camera. I would like to live a whole week with someone else deciding everything. I think so, maybe. 

Can lent be a quieting. A forty days to listen to God. Forty pictures - one each day, only one.

I want to know other people's stories, and know that I am one among many.

Which stories impact me and weave into my own.

Is it now the people here only, or is it still the sisterhood I have lost. Is it still them?

They stand SO powerful in my heart - so present. Those who are gone have a stronger presence within me somehow. It has always been so. 

I have often said - all of those I love are far away?

Once they were near - that is how I met them.. and whilst dreaming of a true love partner can no longer be - it is so very possible that a true love friend awaits me here or somewhere I will be after this.

I must hold onto hope.

When I lost Japan I thought I would never ever dream again.

And that was years before the world of Courtenay and Waldorf found me. Saved me. Guided me. Delighted me. Formed me. Fit me. Changed me and Let me be me.

So, this is me the night before we left Osaka.

The night before a whole entire life became a trip and a bunch of photos.

I don't think I have ever noticed the smell of yellow cedar before, and if I did I would not have known it's name.  I am eating delicious avocado sandwiches. I know that the earth is most important - my heart and the children that make it beat next so - and that then, somehow there is everything else. 

I know this.

I know that I want to become a young elder. That when I am faced with the wildness of youthful abandon or the silence of wisdom and the settling of my racing contradictions.. I am pulled most strongly to the first and desperately seek the second.

I am getting there.

I think, dear ones, that at the age of almost forty, I am ready to admit that i was a child until i was an old lady.. and that i missed being the seductress and i skipped adulthood.. but i'm okay with that.

The wonder of the child and the wonder of the elder are the same.

They know more than they realize and so many people miss it.

I am inbetween these shadows. In awe of those who have learned to live well and of those who are just beginning to learn of life. 

My infant smile and my elders wink embrace.

My giggling wondering ways and my knowing storyteller inside walk hand in hand, that is, when the storyteller can catch the child.. and yet, it is the storyteller who creates the world the child wants to run and play in.

I am everywhere in this story that is within me and yet completely untouched except in the rare moments when i remember that this is the only thing that feels like life apart from the hands in the earth - feet in the water - wind on my face - shout-out-loud AMAZING moments.

I want to live that fully always, but maybe i wouldn't recognize it if it was my every day life.

Like how tonight I am wide awake on the verge of excitement because I am going down island - because I am going through the streets and views I once inhabited. A part of me feels like i come back together when I am there. A part of me feels like a stranger now.

It is terrifying what I might feel and also necessary.

My sister had some very good words for me about it all.

"I don't know the answer for what's best :/  leaving it behind or trying to stay connected - I think it's something you have to figure out as you go" 

3:02 am.  I feel close to happy, close as in it eludes me but i sense it.

                Heart broken permanently. 

And flabergasted that a cute pair of baby onesies with alpaca and sheep on them can be the highlight of my day.

Yesterday it was the full Moon looking as you imagine it would.

And an unexpected (waited for forever for this kinda) hug

There's no accounting for what will make your heart soar. 

No accounting for when it will suddenly fall.

hugs y'all.

Awakening

I have been hurting
I have stopped writing

until the laughter of children is simply the laughter of children

    you have this amazing ability to see what matters
    if we talk for three - five - seven hours, there will be something that you speak to
    that is of all the things i have said the most real in my heart. the most pressing on my mind.
    the thing i was wanting to speak and have heard.

    last night, it was different, i just said the smallest thing, " and there is a daycare right next door.." and you stopped me - stopped everything and said that that would have been good to know in knowing what i was working through in regards to the school and the children. Every morning i have to start my day wrestling with all the emotions and feelings that it brings up.

    I had not realized. Somehow, i had not realized. That when i heard them laugh or saw them I could come inside, that I would often wait for them to be indoors before being in my own backyard. I physically hid from children. I thought it was because I would be different with the kids, because I didn't want the conflict of them having plastic toys and dance parties when i fully believe natural is best and gentle parenting is wise and listening to the children as emotional equals matters so much.
I thought it was that.

  I think now, that it's something else. It's being near children and not with them. It's having children so close that don't know me. It's having parents drop off and not have any idea that i am magic for their child. It is more children I cannot know. It is children that cannot be mine.

  And then, I wondered why it was good with Evan. Why I just fell in step with him so easily.
and you said - maybe because he is a child who won't be taken away from you. And I sobbed.
I'm sure you knew I was crying. It rang so true!! Maybe I left the school. Maybe there were other things going on. But the contract not being renewed, the passing on of my role in their lives to someone else. That took something from me, that took the journey from me. Someone else was raising them now, and I could love them with all of my heart but i wasn't with them, I wasn't hearing their voice or helping them when things got hard, I wasn't watching them learn and learning with them, and being shown the world from their lived lives. I wasn't there for hugs and smiles across the room, for laughter and for angry kicks at the floor.  I'm not seeing them bike away the wind in their hair. They are like the whole world up close. I would easily trade the ocean and the stars for them, for they are the ocean and the stars. and more.

   I think that i need to be with them or hearing them or sending them support.
I can't just pine away for them like a puddle of love and tears for when they do phone, when we do see each other, i won't have anything to impart - nothing to tell - no growth and i must stay strong for when they need my strength and i must keep being the person they knew, this happy vivacious enthusiastic curious person who tried. They saw me. They knew me. I saw them. I knew them. We got each other and we loved each other.

    I want them all in my arms, as baby birds to feed and shelter from the cold. I want to watch the tips of my wings turn to ice as they, warm beneath my feathers breath in and out in the deepest and safest of sleeps.

   It's nice to sit with this image. Just for a little while. Take comfort in what i would offer them.
Then to open my eyes, take in a few slow breaths and look up because they are flying all over the place and all i can do is hope that when i was building my part of their nest that they were watching and that someday when they see a twig in a certain shape in the early morning, that they might remember me and smile. For every twig i see is them, and so much they have touched has forever been changed.

    You got me to open this door a little once again. You helped me cry again. You helped me to see that I am positioned to face a child's life going on without me. That I am actively surrounded by what i am avoiding most.

    I have to say hello. I can't hold on too tightly. I have to let myself love even if there is space, even if there are many days i am missing. It has to be okay that they are with their families, skiing in the mountains and biking on the trails, waking up for Saturday pancakes and giving goodnight kisses.

And it has to be okay that when you are driving downtown at night, i am not beside you.