open your eyes
i'll be honest now...can you handle that?
“Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me”
Psalm 42-7
broken bodies, not broken bodies, but bodies desiring radical change. the body knows, but the mind lies. she has dreads and rides a bike and eats pickled onions and tiny soft boiled eggs, from her chickens, and she lives her best life, in flow and color, and my pages illuminated how far I am. broken families, not broken families, but families desiring radical change. but we all must want it, not one of us. like, really want it. like, work to want it. i stay up late. he’s done it before, made wine from water, he’ll do it again. he told me he would. now i trust. right here. right in this mess. but anyway, what could possibly be radical in suburban north carolina where all homes share the same frame and all polluted yards push the bees away and the dead bird lies on the sidewalk. from what? they ask. open your eyes. souls tethered in hidden combat, distractions at every turn, even the sunsets, pain hurts and why shouldn’t it when there is such ease and $100 anthrolopologie divine blankets that one can’t deny. you’re not my brother. you’re not my mother. so i’ll reach out my arm and stay far. why not? we all are. post it note theology, post it note cbt, post it note journaling, post it note ideas. so many ideas. thoughts won’t record themselves and i have so much to say. i have so much to say. cemetery of unheard stories, she once found in words, and her body knows. so many stories, healing, heartache, revelation, and desolation, but not one has taken a breath on the white screen. damn the white screen. damn all screens. damn the lies behind the screens that seep in and poison us all. from what? they ask. open your eyes. tethered souls in combat, of course, it makes sense. but what makes more sense is that you breathe, you bleed, you see, you want to be free. me too, so why not together? why the push, mister. what’s better for you is better for me, too, ma’am. do the work or die. live comfortably or die trying to. or don’t. look up from the desert muted slot canyons to see that meandering snake’s gonna squeeze your ribs, squeeze your breath if you let it. why would you let it? but just know this, there were 18 birds on my merlin app this morning, of course, including the elusive red-winged blackbird. why can’t i ever see you, flashing by me again like that one time? but it all competes, the screen, the words, the fight for breath, and also the peace of it all. and it all comes down to safety. do i belong? am i enough? there’s a post it note for that, too. that’s when the bees return, and the bird on the sidewalk lives, and the words take flight, from what? they ask. open your eyes. i don’t mind sitting with myself. i actually like it. on the plane there was a patagonia sky and a rebel father standing in the exit row right in front of me amidst the lit up seatbelt sign, looking deeply into his daughters' eyes as he rocked her to safety. the tinge of sting and discomfort that precedes the tears (did you know there is a name for that? globus sensation) felt strong and i welcomed them, along with the emotion of leaving my girl, again. i held you like that. yes, there’s a story. yes, there is glory, yes, it is hard, yes, the work never ends, yes the stories are stuffed and puffed under my soft mama belly with the permanent reminder that life once attached to me is now walking out in the world and it’s not all ok like i used to tell them it would be. times three, and my pants keep getting larger to fit the implications of all of that. attachment is the buzz word but the body buzzes and i don’t want it anymore. the buzz. my best life, to the full. beauty. heartache. all of it. i want so much. i’ll be honest, now. what i want. can you handle that? but, still there is coffee and i walk past spittle bugs and put on a hot pink bra and the messy apron and make art. here, i know the body knows. the rest, well, it’s a work in progress. i stay up late. i wake early. i pray. i walk. i cry. i make. i breathe. i get squeezed. i stomp my foot. i touch the feathery ornamental plantings in the overly groomed neighborhood entrances. i pick up the fragile speckled egg shell found on the sharp grass blades. i mourn. i laugh. i throw the ball. i rub the coconut oil into my skin. slower than i used to. i hope. i never stop hoping. the body knows, but the mind lies. from what? they ask. open your eyes, child, and see how you are loved.
And, speaking of attachment, the book in the photo that my hubby is reading is ‘The Emmanuel Promise: Discovering the Security of a Life Held by God’ by Summer Joy Gross It’s a great read for those of us on similar healing journeys (I happen to think we all would benefit from this “work”). I was reading Karrie Garcia’s ‘Free and Fully Alive: Reclaiming the Story of Who You Were Created To Be’. I read Summer’s book when it first came out and now am finding myself in the place of STORY-tending. Works in progress, all of us. Praise God. xo
I absolutely love this. I’m making you Port Laureate of LMS or at least of my life. This has some beautiful phrases.