but here, have yourself one last rumi until the alakazaam.

THE GUEST HOUSE

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

(Rumi)

(Rumi)

An alligator lifts its head and swallows
the ocean, then the ocean
floor becomes
a desert covering
the alligator in
sand drifts.
Changes do
happen.  I do not know how,
or what remains of what
has disappeared
into the absolute.
I hear so many stories
and explanations, but I keep quiet,
because I don’t know anything,
and because something i swallowed
in the ocean
has made me completely content
with ignorance.

(Rumi)

if you haven’t yet entered the giveaway, DO!

along with the song notes of partridges,
and crows.  Sometimes organization
and computation become absurd.

(Rumi)

WALNUTS

Philosophers have said that we love music
because it resembles the sphere-sounds

of union. We’ve been part of a harmony
before, so these moments of treble and bass

keep our remembering fresh.

. . .

The waterhole is deep. A thirsty man climbs
a walnut tree growing next to the pool

and drops walnuts one by one into
the beautiful place. He listens carefully

to the sound as they hit and watches
the bubbles. A more rational man gives advice,

“You’ll regret doing this. You’re so far
from the water that by the time you get down

to gather walnuts, the water will have
carried them away.” He replies, “I’m not

here for walnuts, I want the music
they make when they hit.”

~

You that come to birth and bring the mysteries,
your voice-thunder makes us very happy.

Roar, lion of the heart,
and tear me open!

(Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks)

I’m burning a smudge stick and bringing bags to Goodwill.  Clearing, bag by bag, everything.  EVERYTHING!  This space is being cleared out, too.  Renewed.  So until it is, or at least until I can’t stand it anymore (no pictures?!), I’ll be posting a Rumi poem every day to fill the space of my own silence.

AAAaaaAaaand, I want to do some giveaways to celebrate the impending new-ness.  I totally bombed on my first and last “giveaway,” because I promised things to everyone (isn’t that a metaphor!).  But this one will have only one winner.  And after I have re-earned your giveaway trust, we’ll have a few more in the “new” space.

MUSIC! The PRIZE will be a CD OR two or three, a collection of all of the songs suggested in the comments (if the numbers get out of control, I’ll just pick my favorites of the bunch). HOW TO ENTER: Leave a favorite song in the comments (1 entry).  Include a link to the youtube or alternative way for us to hear it (1 additional entry).   Link to this post via twitter or facebook (1 additional entry).  Be sure to include your email when you comment so I can notify the winner, who I will chose via the handy-dandy Cute Kid Pulls Numbers Out Of Hat Method (on September 1st)!

Surrounding the man-made lake, mirroring the vibration, the leaves tremble in the wind, and the clouds above them, and the stars above them.  I notice the pockets of space between swimmers.  I listen for pockets of space between sounds.  I consider the imperceptible space between molecules.  I breathe and feel the same stillness within me, despite the warring emotions and thoughts, despite the trembling atoms and all the chaotic processes that keep me blinking.  I laugh when suddenly the loud speakers begin to play “The Space Between.”

I think of meditation, of stillness, of how it remains among the chaos and the noise, this pervasive stillness, this infinite silence.  And then I think of the following song, because of the lyrics: “we are all notes in this eternal song / god plays his flute, we all dance along,” and its overall reference to meditation.  The dance and the stillness, all superimposed, it makes me feel crazy (CRAZY!), in a good way.

(This also embarrasses me to think about because dammit, now every time I think of Trevor Hall, I will think of the concert on Friday night.  The crowd was awful and really small, the music was wonderful, but I was so moved beyond reason that I offered Trevor a dread bead as he passed me in the hall on his way out.  I mean, what?  Why is that OK?  From my nappy dread to yours?  Because I feel the words you sing, and we have matching hair?  This is when maybe the ego could have stepped in and helped me save face?  But no.  It did not.  And Trevor looked at me, raised a finger dismissively, and said “one second…” and then did not come back.  And so now I am going to stop talking about Trevor Hall, for goodness’ sake.  Right after this blog post.)

god, do i hope this is rock bottom.  have you noticed?  i mean, obviously.  i might as well admit it.  yeah.  i’m kind of going through a thing, worst ever.   and no, actually, i’m not ok.  not at all.  thanks for asking. 

i tend to get these “signs” of comfort or of direction when i am low or confused.  i get to a place (and it is predictable, but i always forget) where i am so lost and/or incapable of functioning that i reach out, beg really, for some sign that will tell me what to do.  these signs have been abundant, and mind-boggling, as they always are when i am in touch with my truth.  but where they have led me has pissed me off, in an ignorance is bliss (though bliss is definitely not the word.  more a flat affect stupor) sort of way.  so on a recent bike ride, i had a conversation with myself.  or, Myself, or whoever it is that gives me these signs.  i said something like so what’s that about then?  the fucking signs?  could you just stop with the fucking signs?  or could you just stop pretending that you’re seeing signs? (that’s another self-talk voice.  apparently there are many.)  ooh!  ooh!  i know!  i know!  i need a sign about signs!  a sign to tell me that i am actually seeing signs!  and that they matter!  and then i went crazy.  absolutely lost it.  i was angry at myself for being such an idiot, for having such outrageous self-talk discussions, for actually asking for such a thing.  a sign about SIGNS?!?!  my eyes were blurred with tears, so i had to steer my bike off of the road (and almost collided with a truck in the process).  i stopped at an abandoned house and threw my bike onto the overgrown grass and wildflowers.  i saw a shed, and thought it would be a lovely place to have a breakdown.

when i stood in front of the open shed, this is what i saw:

i’ll give you a sign about signs.  how about a fucking shed full.

and i cracked up.  out loud.  i mean, not that that is any less confusing.  but it does validate the whole . . . sign . . . thing.  i retrieved my bike, wanting to go home for my camera, and there was another very specific sign in front of my face.  but i won’t tell you about that one.  maybe eventually.

also, when i returned with my camera, i considered breaking into the house.  this was on the door, after all.  but i didn’t.  next time?

I’ve just rolled down the windows so I can turn off the ignition (and the air conditioning). The flag pole is clanging and dogs are barking and people stand on their front lawns and talk about the pointless things that interest them. Comma? I’m supposed to be writing. I want to be writing, this story that has come to me, this culmination of stories. I even have the title.  But this is what I’m writing instead. Just a big rambling whine. I don’t ever finish anything, anyway. It doesn’t matter whether I start a new story or not.

How do I get out of here? I have to get out of here. Not this parking lot, not this sadness, but this place. This place where sidewalks matter; this place where baby tree trunks, all uniformly planted, are protected by corrugated plastic tubes; this place where someone will cut all the queen anne’s lace down with a weed-wacker. This place where somebody actually named something “weed-wacker.” How the hell do I get out of here? Why can I not find the exit? There must be one. There’s got to be one.

I feel like the only one awake at a slumber party at 2:26 AM. I feel like the only one not possessed by zombies in a horror flick. I feel like the designated driver that’s just dropped her keys down the gutter. The buzz kill, the scapegoat, the bastard heir, the mad hatter, selectively unforgiven and unheard and misunderstood and lonely and insane but insisting that I’m NOT! to a sea of blank stares.

This would be a good thing, I think, if I could identify with a blaspheming Jesus, or a stuttering Moses, or some other legendary hero down on his luck before the grand triumphant finale, destined to make some grand contribution to the world. But shit. Though I have descended to the underworld, I’ve returned without a talisman. I’ve spun my cocoon, slept in it, but emerged prematurely, my wings yet unformed. I’ve gained insight, but I don’t know how to implement it here. I’ve touched enlightenment beside the river, but upon returning to the village, I’ve forgotten it all. Or, not necessarily forgotten, but what was once this roaring fire of intuition, seems only like a faint glimmer in the darkness of this nonsensical weed-wacking reality. When I open my mouth to share, I stand there drooling and mute in the spotlight. My hands begin to shake, and heavy tears threaten the back of my wide, crazed eyes.

It’s all gibberish, anyway, isn’t it? I know there is something, something in it all—it’s like when I dig in my disastrous purse for the keys I can hear jangling, I know they’re in there, I swear. . . . But I just can’t find them. Maybe it’s only lost change. Maybe it’s a figment of my imagination.

I want to quote the “wrong” Alice (I just watched the movie the other night, while the grown-ups played Trivial Pursuit) and say, “Lost my muchness, have I?” and then proceed to kill the dragon while a cheering everyone bears witness to said muchness. But, lost my muchness? I don’t know. Maybe I have.

I’ve written those (first) two words into a poem—abandoned and reworked and abandoned and rediscovered and (you get the idea)—since I was sixteen.  They have new meaning for me every time I write them. 

Tonight, my newly-formed guitar string finger calluses tap-tap-tapped on the keyboard, as I began to love on my little-novel-that-could again.  I wrote: Momentarily awakened in the moonless night . . .

And on cue, Shortcake woke up, calling to me from the bed.  “Mommy?”  I ran to her, snuggled up and kissed her cheek.  “Mommy’s here,” I whispered.  Sleepily, she put her arm on mine, and said, smiling, “Oh.  There y’are.” 

Then, Dimples woke up, febrile and coughing, with a sore ear.  After ibuprofen and forehead kisses, he smiled and said, “Mom?  My number one favorite thing is drawing.”

I wrote all of the above last night, and returned to Dimples’ side, eventually falling asleep with my ass on his floor and my head on his bed.  And so I don’t actually know where I was going with this train of thought.  Which reminds me.  This weekend, traveling home from a blissful day alone on a snowy beach, I got lost in the boonies of Wisconsin.  I ended up on a windy, hilly road in a thick forest, and completely lost my sense of direction.  It was perfect.  I was so far gone, and did not want to be found.  Except that I really had to pee.  Which reminds me.  I’ve got to tell you about our lost-backpacking-in-a-blizzard-spring-break-trip sometime.  Which reminds me.  Of this, which I’ve posted before, maybe last spring:

tri-x in holga, dusty neg scan, Mowgli