how to lay the mind to rest?

Another chilly night, and I feel restless, sleepless again: searching for an activity that satisfies my exhausted mind. Non-verbal ways to process (yet here I am, scribbling.)

Thia and I sat on the porch talking of how endlessly we return to this navigation of identities, the struggle of margins (blurry lines we barely fall across, and yet, are torn by still.) 

These words from the summer resound:

The coyote howls, mangy gray, on the horizon I sit and simmer, I simmer like steam leaving tea, simmer, like a low turned burner, like less heat rising, the emotions simmer, they do not cook up or boil, slowly they turn into something more steady, more concrete, steam leaves, exhaling, I breathe in the vision of a dawn I breathe in the vision of...

I feel the jagged edges of my soul, like these broken mountains. Befriended, I want to reach my hand out and press it into another's, amiably, comforted by the physicality.  To know how to feel my way into another's existence… in the cracks, to climb the crevice, pressing what can reach into a hole and pulling myself up, invitation, not invasion.

The wind is singing, slowly, a lullaby for waking, a lullaby for stirring, she calls forth from our hearts the tune of movement, the lust for touching (dancing) moving air around our forms, occupy this space, occupy this territory of myself so that others can move into it, the settlement of hospitality even while we emerge, this is the story, this is the tale she has to tell:   “I will be a human like a tree is a tree.”

another day.

(from woolgathering)

messy room, troubles sleeping, blank pages in my journal, heavy boots for one reason or another. 


tonight I made myself resurrect the stillness of desire, of the summer and sit, and sit, and sit... under a black sky, gleaming lights, backlit leaves.


doubts. wonders. 


so many things I silence inside myself.


// we'll find a cathedral so you can convince me I'm pretty //

Lipogram...

I am in an 80-works poetry class (which is inducing a feeling of sub-par-ness)... but, in response to Emily's glorious one, here is mine: (a poem without the letter e)

Upon Waking

    Luminous glow, pursuit of my soul

       Through nightly fancy and whimsical vagary,

      I follow your hand, a landmark to waking.

     Light strands amiably conducting in flourish

        Draw from my lips a salutatory murmur,

     an animal purring, lapping up morning.

    Dawn’s pallor lights crimson by

        sun’s arching digits, and yogic arms waving

     I cast from my body night’s rigor mortis. 

    Baptizing day’s hours with a nod to St. Francis,

      Crown to the floor, limbs pointing skyward,

     throw in a cobra, a locust, a willow.

  

      In this sanctuary of body and of spirit,

        I anoint God, as glory of ordinary.  

Day 7

The first strand reaches me like the thin tendrils of underwater plants entwining around your ankle as you swim, or the incessant beeping suddenly morphing from an element in your dream into the piercing alarm of reality. Internally Displaced People, sisters, brothers, listen gently, I have occupied the same fate. It tugs. The forgotten is always remembered right past convenience. Those movies you were going to drop off-- at the front door, that reluctant memory of a grocery item-- as you pull unto your street, the word you were searching for all day-- just as you drift to sleep. '


What is the strand this day? A feeling passing through you like a scent hanging low in the branches of the trees you stoop under, catches unto you. It isn't as clear as it was last fall, the hunger for possession, for resting, but it is still familiar. You've carried armfuls of shadows into daylight and cleansed them in the river of acknowledgment, you've "come to terms" with. But, count them again as they gather for darkness, there are always lingering ones.  This time though its faint. A certain distrust of the delicate peace settled inside you. Can it be trusted? Can you put weight on it? This feeling of tender happiness, of softly spoken home. 


You spoke for an hour of feeling a close to the time of drudging up those memories, you've milked them of their emotional worth, you've gleamed their lessons-- and now the present smiles, enticing you to finally rest and to awaken into this deep living. Stopping the planning - the incessant need for actions to fall upon utilitarian lines, for everything to be a mechanical answer. To realize the worth of breathing, of gazing at a sunset, or stopping to honestly listen to someone, however flawed our ability to do so remains.

Day 4 or 5 or something

"Maria, are you studying?"
"Yes... why?"
"Want to play wild-african-princess-study-break-dress-up with me?" 
"Whaa...hahahaha." 
"Go change! And put purple eyeliner on your face!"


And thus commenced the epic adventures of an already satisfying day. 

Day 2

Endless summer withers under the ripening school year. But, she goes proudly to her end, no shrinking back-- a morning run, walking to church- bright colored dresses like wildflowers punctuating the concrete cracks of warehouse lots and train tracks, barefoot and muddy-fingered planting broccoli, rock-jumping swimming holes- cool sinking through the layers of your skin into your chest with deep, refreshed breaths, and an a cappella concert- harmony twitching into your fingers and toes, up and down go your feet. Expresso in a new friends apartment, hearing new histories, the million arrivals that lead us to here. Dumpster diving- kitten giveaway and hiding from chinese takeout cars, find of the night: 14.99$ decorative skeleton, missing lower leg segment... cause of death: below the knee blow in a bar fight. name:  to be determined.


Last night, Thia, Rebekah, and I attended The Last 5 Years, which was beautifully performed but unsettling... a restatement of my most common fears, the kind that prompted this:


But you are everywhere, tripping over our dance,
intimately woven into the language
as a part of all our names
a weed entwined to a stalk
were we not our own?
Not -he  --man, --male.
what do we have that is our own?
you take our bodies.
you take our laughter.
we bear you in our bodies,
but you forget, forsake us still,
not content until your feet tread
the ridges of our backs,
crunch over the hills of our chest
what is ours?

Day 1

If today were scented it'd be dryer lint, black tea, freshly cut grass, and yeast. The move into the little brick house is magic, home for a year feels like a luxury. The weekend has been full of thrifting, baking bread, gardening,  and meeting neighbors.  Delightful neighbor/friends who, while lacking a rolling pin, have introduced us to the garden plot and given us fresh vegetables, milk, and eggs. My room is a converted porch with ten windows, sunlight-joy, strawberry-blond sun strands.


It's just such a hands-in-the-dirt-heart-in-the-sky way of being here. Maybe I'm country-souled after all. I feel whole.

This semester some of the things I want to be intentional about are remembering the sacred in my life... living simply, living spiritually, living presently. I really want to explore the depths of tradition and freedom, rhythms ... discover what it looks like for me to follow Jesus in sincerity to the revelation of God and who I am. Jesus is radical, and I want to embody that within myself... not even necessarily outwardly but "abiding in Christ"... I don't know- this is on my thoughts a lot and I am still trying to parse out what it means.