Saturday, March 29, 2014

indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

I'm writing a lot lately, except most of it's for me. Which is good but also strange. For the first time, I'm hesitant about sharing the letters and lines that make up the shape of my many, ordinary todays. It's not that they're all precious or beautiful, but they are all personal. Vulnerability is something I never eschew. I am a champion for honesty in everything. But sometimes life hits you hard. A car crash out of no here. A job loss. A heart change. Whatever it may be. And when you're left picking up the pieces, you need space to rearrange them just right. Which is difficult when you're putting them out there asking, is this right? Because that asking leaves little space to figure it out.

I'm tired of putting aside my wonderings instead of wandering through. I'll mess up, but you can stumble into your sweet spot through the struggle. They say you never forget to ride a bike and I believe that's true. However, there's a disconnect between your body and your head. The knowledge, the knowing, is in your bones, but you have to remember where it left you. Maybe that's a little like where I'm walking. Deep down, I'm steady, but this searching is on shifting sand and the light is just beginning to rise. The sun is opening and it's finding me picking up pieces that are a little bit bruised.

I don't know what I want. I don't know if I'm slow and steady or a hurricane. A poem or a song. There's a difference and sometimes I feel like I land in the middle. I call myself an oxymoron. I'm analytical and artistic to my bones, I love the solidity of what we know and the wonder of what could be. I cried in an exhibit at the art museum today and didn't realize it until I couldn't swallow.

There's this piece of art by Matisse that's just a few lines. It's called Nu assis, vu de dos, which translated is just Seated Nude, Seen from the Behind. It's simple and clean. Like you could take a pencil, pull the lead down a page, and you'd have the same piece. I'm finally past believing the appearance of grace is an honest representation of ease. Ballet's roots are snug in my life to this day, and one of the seeds that's grown is an understanding of the process. To make simple the complex, honest the confusing, beautiful the questions -- that is where good art lies.

The drawing was in a exhibition called, Women as Muse in the age of Matisse, and it was fascinating seeing the ways different artists interpreted women as a subject. Something I loved in the end of the description was an assertion that the views of the various painters were only opinions of those men. I wish I had written the description down, but the general gist was that the images were just that, images. Despite the artists best attempts at deciphering women as a muse, the end products were only ideals, depictions of differing thought processes, explanations, and even questions. I think that's beautiful. Some art tries to label reality as black and white, but our realities are best seen through collection of ideas, questions, not facts. Art unifies and connects when it's borne out of, this is what I see, tell me what you see too.

The piece by Matisse made me pause and stare. There's a loneliness in the image, a solitude that's matched the rhythm of my days. I wondered about the sitter. Was she lonely or did Matisse only give her that appearance? What did he see? What did he leave out? Matisse once said to his students, "One must always search for the desire of the line, where it wishes to enter or where to die away." and I've been thinking about it all day. In art and writing and life. I'm searching for the interesections and trying to find solid ground for that line to lay. Meanwhile, I'm meandering and mulling, I'm wondering and wandering. I'm trying to figure out the shape of this life I'm living. Where it's leading and what path it may take. This I can say, "The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance." That's a promise I believe no matter what waits up ahead.

Thursday, March 13, 2014

evening light wanes.

Chloe, in her natural habitat. 6:37.











Monday, March 10, 2014

thin places.


"The universe moves you, and if you move with it, beautiful things will happen." - Amber Dúron

Flow. I'm walking in flux. I'm falling into place with serendipity, stepping into promise and it's black mud and deep earth. This spring is a prayer we're stepping barefoot into, asking please. The earth is thawing. Today I watched the snow collapse into itself with tired exhales, the soft peaks dimpling into slush into water, running running running down the drains in the street where the children race bottle caps in the summer, and into the belly of the city with the twisting black pipes and the cold gray stones, and through the tubes narrow and upwards, and into the green light lakes and rivers we slip into during the summer to soothe our freckled skin, and into the air the water rises again and it's rain.

Flow. To let go. I repeat these words until they run through my fingers. We sat in a warm car under a sudden blackness and the radio was on, we sang until our voices were hoarse and we retreated into the warm cocoon of home to scoop honey sticky on our fingers into cups of tea too hot to hold. This is one of those moments, I think. I listen to the songs we howled last week and am brought back to those moments scraping around trees and pulling our souls clean from our chests. She talked about waiting on God, and I'm sitting and wrestling and working through this place like a snarl of roots, untangling. I want to know, I whisper. I want to understand, I weep. This is my own symphony, and the crescendo doesn't sit well. I'm rearranging. I'm asking, please show up in this place.

Flow. An entire flight and I wrote fourteen pages, three of them about the sky. What we love surfaces. What we seek finds us. Knock, and the door will be opened. "There is no other stream," said the lion. All I know is, I saw the sun set sitting above the earth and I wept. I watched the towns retreat like miniatures, little toy homes, saw entire cities stretch into pinpricks like a child's game, and watched the world round like a ripe orange in my hands, summer. I wept.

If these are the days that must happen to you, then let them come. Let them come and shape this little heart and shake these hands and let them lead to something honest, something sacred. Let this story matter, let mine be true, I fold these words into prayers.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

When we meet.

I don’t mind anymore that I don’t know you yet. I don’t mind that you’re a stranger. I have a lifetime to spend discovering the different ways your name tastes on my tongue. I have years and years to dip my toes into the waters of you, the you-ness of your eyes, your laugh, how your hands fold and clasp. I’ve had it all wrong, searching for a reservoir when you are the sea. Honey, I’m wading into my knees, I’m diving deep, I’m underwater with this mystery that is a question of who are you? Just as important, who will you become? Followed by, who will we be? I’m sixteen feet under and still swimming and someday, there will be you. You exhale air to my taut lungs. I let it go. If there are years that ask questions, these are scattered with inquisitions like, are you a tomato from the vine person and do you have callouses on your fingers from strumming a guitar? Small things. Make up a life things. I want to collect the answers like a gift. I don’t mind that I don’t know you yet anymore. My hands hold my hopes. I’ve stopped scattering seeds, I am waiting for good earth, mossy and smelling green. I don’t mind you don’t know my name yet. I have a lifetime to listen to mine fall from your tongue in every color.