Grammy's birthday

We returned from 5 fun filled days with your cousins in New Jersey to celebrate Grammy's birthday.  I love to watch you with your cousins and see the bond that naturally exists between the six of you.  Andrew insisted that you do a "sleepover" in his room - he read you a story before bed and he slept in a sleeping bag on the floor next to you.   Charlotte and you played pretend for hours.  And you fit right in with Penny and Luke and whatever tricks they're up to.   You were such a good boy and so happy all weekend. 

Family dynamics are challenging but we make the most of the one we've been given.   Nobody, including me and you, are perfect but we are accept, honor our boundaries, embrace the craziness and move forward.  Life's too short for anything but love. 

From my desk

My picture from British Columbia sits on my desk.  I love it.  I hope I never forget how it felt to be on that trip - Peaceful. Aligned. Content. Free. Me.

The fresh air of the gigantic trees, the constant rushing sound of the river, relieved of meeting anyone's needs but my own. 

“Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.”  - Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Why I Write - Aug 4 2018

In 2011, I started this space.  My mind, for as long as I can remember, has been an overthinking machine.  Its fast association of facts and quick, sometimes accurate, sometimes not, conclusions can make me struggle.   I am driven toward improvement, slightly discontent with the status quo and willing to process emotional pain for the tradeoffs of momentary highs.  

Like my favorite author, Anthony Bourdain, has said - "Maybe that's enlightenment enough, to know that there is no final resting place of the mind, no moment of smug clarity, perhaps wisdom is realizing how small I am and unwise and how far I have yet to go."   So, here I am.  Going.  I say things with less certainty than I did when I was younger.  I actually just say less (on this blog).  This space has morphed into more of my own collection of other people's words.  I think that's because I haven't known what to say and have been worried about the permanence of my words on this page.  But I will try to flush it out a bit more here, recognizing that it will change, it is temporary but today it's all I've got.  And when I look back on reflections I wrote when I was married (happy reflections), I don't cringe even though I'm now divorced.  In fact, I'm glad they are there.  I was happy.  We were happy!  Until we weren't.  It wasn't untrue.  Nothing has been untrue, even if it changes.  

So, why do I write.  This blog has been a steady friend.  It's the only word that I can use to describe it.  It explains why my posting is sometimes erratic, like any friend, it has a time and a place.  Sometimes more, sometimes less.  But it has been here for me.  Receiving whatever it is that I've needed to give and sometimes, many times, offering me an answer.  I haven't overdone it.  I never wanted it to have an unauthentic tone.  Its my space with no deadline and no "point".   I don't edit it, I don't overthink anything.  It's a scratchpad, raw, here, ME in this medium. 

One day J will read it.  My hope is it helps him understand his mother.  Flawed but trying.  Always, always trying.  

I'm setting out on a new chapter.  One without someone who meant something to me but who's time and place has shifted out of sync with mine.  This is part of the journey of life.   The excitement, when we allow ourselves to see it that way, is the fresh page.   Everything changes you if you're willing to let it.  You take something.  You leave something behind.  You are never the same.  You are different.  You are better.  

When I was in British Columbia, I kept thinking of Mary Oliver's poem, Wild Geese.  It played in my mind like a prayer.  It was my teacher.  The summary of the lesson -- that I don't have to be anything but me.  Finding forgiveness for my mistakes, shortcomings, quirkiness.  Seeking strength to always strive to be better.... and learning to love myself in the same unconditional way that I manage to love others. 

Today it's Blackwater Woods that echos in my bones.  A new prayer: equally beautiful, equally critical.  These words will walk with me into the next dark room.  I go there full of faith and in anticipation of the magic it undoubtedly will offer.  

Look, the trees

are turning

their own bodies

into pillars

of light,

are giving off the rich

fragrance of cinnamon

and fulfillment,

the long tapers

of cattails

are bursting and floating away over

the blue shoulders

of the ponds,

and every pond,

no matter what its

name is, is

nameless now.

Every year

everything

I have ever learned

in my lifetime

leads back to this: the fires

and the black river of loss

whose other side

is salvation,

whose meaning

none of us will ever know.

To live in this world

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go.