If we make it through this storm will our cheeks be rosy once more?

 

I have a counsellor - a lovely friend who said " we don't get to choose how we wake up" I am so very tired. But I cannot let myself return to sleep.. onwards.. with the caffein of hope.. a word i barely recognize. a word i cannot feel. But with the promise of a new day, i will breathe in, breathe out find my warrior pose and persevere 

Faith Hope and Love, but the most complicated mess of it all is  Love.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wand'ring bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me prov'd,

I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

- William Shakespear Sonnet 116

Although it is the blushing and butterflies that draws me 

into the bliss of forgetful presence and racing hearts

It is the tempest that I want 

the tears, the anger at the world, and all the hidden pieces that would

shatter someone else

This is what I long to know, and wish to have

His hand in mine and the sense that he will remain, but i think if i must choose 

giddiness and giggling, or the steady flash of fire in the eyes

though it may come as a surprise

and though i wonder if I lie

I am certain I would choose the tempest every time 

- Alison Hunting response to Sonnet 116

From death to life

 

There are not many places I inhabit all alone. This blog I am realizing, like much of my writing is a cozy place to curl up and feel the utter abandonment of everything that is not me. I cannot tell a lie here and i trust that what I write - when I write it is enough to capture some essence of my life. And for those I am brave enough to share it with, that it may speak to their lives and bring a little smile or tear of resonance. 

You. You are my transition. I could not imagine leaving this house with it's wood and it's crackling dancing flames. It's dark and wondrous night time and it's gentle gentle redwood tree. It's immensity and coziness.  And yet, I almost left the island. I did in my mind and imaginings. I was far from the ocean and far from this house. 

How can I say I belong in the silence of the tall cedar trees with my feet or entire body in the waves of the cold sea? How can I say that, and find home in a dark room with sythe pop music playing or on a drive downtown or on a city street. I didn't know where I was half the time, but I was as happy as if I was with the ocean and I was with you - at least your voice, your presence. 

So I know that some of me, the very real me, is in places quite far from here. But I needed you to speed things up a little, to change the soundtrack of my days and to remind me of my strength. Just in time, because everything is spinning and at least a little of that spin was fun. You have gone away I think, but you came at just the right time.

But following my heart and letting myself be that happy and that talkative again. Fully accepted, dare I say embraced. Also leaves me with an awakening that I cannot just pack away as I pack my things. I thought I would talk to you this week and say goodbye to those feelings and those conversations as I said goodbye to this home.  But who am I to decide how our story ends. It doesn't. I am in the world and so are you and for some reason we still glimmer in each others lives.  I would like to be the whole damn sunshine, but i will be content to be one star. One star in the sky above you. I'm sorry that I cannot slip into your life and be an almost step mom to a boy who just turned twelve. I wish I could follow the laughter and my own transformation. 

But this awakening is shaking up all the pieces of my life that had gathered dust, and I am looking in the mirror for once and seeing the wrinkles on my forhead and facing the fears that I have long burried. I am ready to listen to his side of the story and to hold some room for his pain. I have been lost in my own for a very very long time. I could not speak, I did not know what to say. 

And now I do, for now I know exactly what is missing. Because it's there with you, so I know what I need from him - from me. I hold him to a standard that I would never ask of you. It's time for me to let him have a voice too. 

But it hurts and I want to run and I cannot run to you. I wonder if you know that I need to stand on my own feet and feel the earth and sun and really live in my own body, find my own dream. I wonder if you are silent to be kind or because it's what you need.  Could it be because you don't want to say words that seem angry or say things that will be too real. 

I know I love you. I know I am married. I know that I want to fall in love with this life. I think that maybe I can, if I can find the courage not to run this time but to enter the dark aching cavern of my hurt and find him there because only we know this place, know it too well, but perhaps this time (dare I hope!) perhaps this time we will find a new way out - instead of entering in darkness and exiting in darkness - perhaps this time we will find the path of light that will truly lead us out. Hand in hand together.

The cavern collapsing as we fall apart in relief and never ending laughter!!!

 This is the Month of November, the month that I spend as much time as I can in my house as I say goodbye. Goodbye to a dream of a space that I never thought would happen, that I wasn't even asking for although it held all my wishes. 

A large window seat and a beautiful red woodstove with a pipe right to the ceiling. And spacious wooden floored rooms. A kitchen, all of wood, that I called my "tiny home" for stepping inside felt like stepping into a motorhome space somehow. It was all I wanted. 

And the yard, a miniature Filberg or comox valley - ferns all around and tall TALL Cedar trees that held the whole night sky just above. And a firepit and large space to lay down a blanket, on the slightly slopping hill.

Today, I got to talk to Sofie. It's her birthday! I got to tell her that the last time we talked she asked me if I named blades of grass!! - She said she didn't remember that. But she does name them. Such a sweet girl. 

I got to hear all about how she has been. I think I have missed a year or more of her life. I don't know. But we're going to have bubble tea when I move back there. I showed her my yard and she loved it and gasped at the mushroom - her favourite kind, not to eat of course!

When I first visited this yard, it was a mushroom that kind that made me feel that I was somewhere special and magical. I am just remembering that now.

Why would you sit in a cupboard when you could be at the beach?

Why would you be at the beach when you could sit in a cupboard?

We talked about how she could make her closet a library. She is interested in sketching and writing. She likes punctuation.She tries to write correctly when she is texting.

It is lovely - and more - to have things in common still.

I know I didn't sleep much last night, maybe got three hours! But I feel a little bit sad. I had been waiting and waiting to tell Sofie I was moving back, she was someone who I knew would balance the sadness of leaving this place. And yet, after talking to her, I'm just slowly walking through my house and loving it all the more. She could visit, if I stay. It really is a beautiful (gasp worthy) back yard.

Not to mention my dream of a kindergarten. Is that evaporating? 

I told her about being at a birth. I told her about when I said to the kids wouldn't it be neat if you could ride right into the ocean, as a whimsical thought, but they did it! I showed her Moon and she showed me Luna. We talked about her horse, Fiera retiring and how she will have a new pony to train.

I do love woodstoves, but I also love sunshine on a frosty day.

And she got to wear a pink tiera and have bubbles at each plate. Her dad is making curry and the most delicious cake. It looked like maybe angel food cake and it was round with a hole like a donut.

We talked about Hugs, and how strange it is not to give and receive them. 

Maybe it is just that I'm tired. Maybe I need to sleep and eat well. I am glad there is sunshine.

And reconnecting with her for just a moment, I find a little ribbon and feel that I am finding the earth a bit. It is not exhilarating like a slow turn into madness.. like a reckless abandon.. it is even twinged with tiredness and sadness, but it is good. Being on this earth is good. 

and still.. you are not replaced.