You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

There is no good.

And there is no bad.

There just is.

There is a season, though. The earth breathes, the birds migrate.

My roommate Jared and I went out to the Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge a couple of weeks back. We took a walk along the slough at lowish tide. Here at the bay, the tide also changes the landscape daily. So we get the seasons yearly and the tide recedes and advances twice daily. Nothing is ever the same. It doesn't stay stagnate, like the Houston skyline. There is an ebb and flow to life here where nature has not been so obliterated by commerce and man's dominion.

We saw lots of birds, mostly pipers, but no geese. It's not the time of year when they are here. They just stop here on their way somewhere else.

I'm not doing that. This is the end of the road for me. I have made my migration. This is the end of the line.

The path begins on another bay, another coast very different from this one, where my children live. I will feel that tug to return as long as they are there.

I started this journey, this leg of my life, four years ago. I started this blog on a yoga weekend that I had gifted myself as a respite after signing the divorce papers.

I wrote hard in this blog, while I tried to find my feet in the stream, gave in, and let the current take me.

I tried to catch the wind but kept my kite string tied down near the capitol of Texas, and then, last February, I untied the knot, waved goodbye to Jim and Val and began the journey here.

And still we ran all summer, back and forth across the continent, so much to do and learn that I haven't had the energy to unravel it all.

And now we are here, and I have been busy these past few weeks digging in and putting down roots. I don't want to get swept away again.

Today is the my niece's anniversary. She's been married to a really sweet man for 5 years now, and they have a beautiful little girl. Her wedding was held in her mother's prairie, behind her art studio outside of Houston and was presided over by the man you see with me and my sons in the picture above. He spoke of the importance of love and family and taking care of each other. I was so moved. It was what I had always wanted, what I thought I had, even though lately it was hard to believe that. He had worked so hard on his "sermon." It was beautiful, it was eloquent, and it was bullshit. See me smiling? I am the best actress on the planet. I had that smile planted on my face, but I was miserable. Two weeks later, on a Sunday night after I had gotten off work at the Writing Center, turned in my midterms for my second to the last semester of grad school, and had to be back at my job teaching HS English in the morning, he told me that he didn't love me and that he wanted me to leave our home.

Five years. Facebook showed me this pic this morning, and it got me thinking. That night, I thought my life was over. It was. The life you see depicted in the above picture, a life that was a facade with a narcissist pedophile who used me for my money and my procreative ability was gone. Poof.

I broke down 5 years ago. The cracks had been showing, but when it was all said and done, like a coyote in a trap, I would have bitten my own foot off to get out of there. In fact, I did. In order to seperate myself from him, a compulsive manipulator who sees his family as his possessions, I had to leave my sons. I told myself that they were almost grown, and that it would be ok, but I struggle to maintain a relationship with them. Both grown men now, they still live with him.

But as I looked for this picture, I saw all the pics taken since. 

In them I am dancing:

Laughing with friends:

And crazy in love:

Life is good. I have a wonderful life. These smiles are real.

Namaste'

Not Drowning

Those who will not slip beneath
the still surface on the well of grief

turning downward through its black water
to the place we cannot breathe

will never know the source from which we drink,
the secret water, cold and clear,
nor find in the darkness glimmering
the small round coins
thrown by those who wished for something else.

~David Whyte
The Well of Grief

I am in the black water now. I cannot find my way out, and I am not sure how I got here or why, but here I am again.

No one wants to be down here with me and I do not blame them.

Keith peers down at me not sure why I don't want to come up. I do. I just can't. He can't see me reaching for him. I want so desperately for him to reach down and pull me up, but I am afraid that I will pull him down, and I know that he cannot breathe underwater. I see him up there in the boat; he's paddled out for me but cannot break the water that covers me.

I want to breathe; I want to speak, but I know that if I open my mouththewaterwillrushinandfillallmycavitiesandiwilldrownonmyown

air.

melting, spreading...

filling in the spaces in my molecules until I cease to exist

if only

i could cease to exist

and hear I am 

torn between the place I am and the place i want to be

silenced

no where to
go
no where to
be
no one to
be with

i do not know where i am
i cannot take care of another thing
another person
there is no one to be

i hear life going on outside my window
see the sun
hear the birds

there is nothing
wrong
there is nothing
right
there is nothing
to do about it

i cannot control this
it takes over
i was fine yesterday
flying almost
what happened?

triggers
you don't have a choice
why didn't you do this
why can't you be normal
you are making it up
why the fuck would i make it up
explain yourself
there must be a reason for this strong of a reaction
what is wrong
and then i have to take care of someone else
when i cannot take care of myself
afraid that if i don't convince them that i am happy
they will punish me
i have to be nice
i have to be grateful
smile
give in
and then
when i don't
when i can't
im done

my skin itches all over
my heart beats itself
against the cage of my chest
trying to force its way out
to explode like an alien birth
the buzzing in my head like bees
swarming
covering my eyes
my ears
a vice around my neck
squeezing
i cannot breathe
cannot catch a breath
the screaming in my head is louder
than the buzzing of the bees
crawling in and out of my mouth and nose
choking back the words
i cannot explain
i cannot open my mouth
i have no mouth
no air

it will not always be this way
it will not be this way tomorrow
if i can make it to tomorrow
if i can make it through this feeling
and this one
and this
if i can bear the weight on my chest
maybe i can find the coins
if i even believe they exist