It’s like feeling a flood of desire, sudden, without the usual bristling or wincing. The sky is the new blue gazing out of a baby’s face, not yet fully formed, inevitable. Everything – that burst of breeze, this unfurling leaf – feels just out of place enough so it feels like I have landed in an alien world. The grasses with their tiny white flowers. The insistent wind. The expectant, sweet air. The mothering of it all, the singing.
We sit in the warm grass and fall back, arms outstretched, letting the earth inhabit our bodies, hair tangled in the green grass, hours-old bugs flying inches from our noses.
And the sun. The Sun. Nobody is abandoned. We are swaddled in the sun. We are newborns. We are suppliants to the sun. We are on our death beds, smiling.
Category: Nature
these are all stories
These are all stories we tell ourselves. All of it. The heartbreak. The childhood. The identities. The things we’re good at, the things we lose, the places we find joy, all of it. All stories. Every last drop is a story we tell ourselves.
Except the body. The body speaks only in memory. In song. Except the body, which cannot lie. There are no tales to weave here. Only an unraveling of what is already whole and perfect and older than we can imagine. These are all stories we tell ourselves, except the body.
suddenly, there was light
It was as if the ceiling cracked suddenly, and the light danced all around us, defying all fear or obligation.
this is how it’s supposed to be
this is how it’s supposed to be.
life is not meant to be easy
it is not meant to have obvious meaning
or to satisfy some colossal curiosity.
Life was never meant to be simple.
Nature isn’t simple.
Humans aren’t simple.
we are here
we exist
even that statement contains
infinite complexity
ordered chaos
disappointments.
this is how it’s supposed to be.
why would anyone get married, part II
Okay, I’m back to continue yesterday’s post. How did I get from wondering why anyone would get married to actually proposing?
I started to realize something. Something that I didn’t really want to admit before. A healthy romantic partnership is many things. It is a daily practice of love. It is a logistical synthesizing of two lives. It is a romantic escape from the realities of the world. It is a business decision. It is a deep respect for another human. It is a trust exercise. It is an intentional path towards vulnerability. It is a promise. It is the dear knowledge that you can rely on someone else. It is lighthearted play. It is a lofty ideal, and it is an earthly adventure.
I started to realize that the meatiness and magnitude of the partnership I was in could no longer be encapsulated by the words “boyfriend,” “girlfriend,” or even “partner.” Our relationship was spilling over of the sides of those words. It demanded more symbolism, more richness, more ritual, to carry the weight of what we were dealing with.
I use the word “weight” here carefully – I do not mean it to describe a heavy burden that I have to carry. Conversely, I’m trying to get at the vibrancy of life that is here in this relationship. The breadth of it. The way it inspires me to be more myself than I’ve ever been.
I never thought I would want more ritual or structure when it came to love. I thought love was this wild force, uninhibited by things like rules, routines, and agreements. It’s strange – the word “marriage” has come to sound completely different to me. It used to sound like white dresses, stuffy ceremonies, stunted growth, and disappointment. Now, it sounds like music, learning, colors, natural evolution, and vitality.
Have I changed? Has my definition of marriage changed? Has my definition of love changed? Has my relationship changed? All of these things are probably true.
Later, I’ll write about all of my anxieties leading up to this, and how it was very difficult to separate those fears from my intuition and Higher Self (some might call this God, some might call this a Higher Power, some might call this the Universe). Whatever you call her, she was there guiding me, and all I needed to do was listen.
why would anyone get married, part I
This is a question I have asked myself many times over the past few years. It truly befuddled me. Why would anyone involve the government in a relationship they were already having, in order to continue to be in the relationship? What was the end goal there? Plus, don’t most marriages end in divorce? Why would you want to be so optimistic?
I already moved in with my partner, bought a house with him, adopted two cats, and shared a bank account. What could we possibly want with a couple of rings and a signed contract? We were already living the life we both wanted. Sometimes, I would be in the midst of falling asleep, curled around my partner, and mumble to him in a sleepy voice, “why would anyone get married?” And he would respond, equally sleepy, “I have no idea. It makes no sense.”
Somehow all that logical kerfuffle culminated in me getting down on one knee and proposing to my partner a month ago. He accepted. I now have a 14K yellow-gold ring on my finger that we ordered from a Chinese jeweler on Etsy, we made the obligatory engagement announcement post on social media, and I am officially engaged to be married.
Why?
I’m really tired tonight, my computer is about to die, and I really really really really don’t want to get up off the couch to retrieve the charger, so I will have to leave you on this wildly unsatisfying (and honestly, not very suspenseful) cliff-hanger for now. To be continued. Good night.
when will we just be?
Will we ever stop trying to improve, and just let ourselves be?
nothing is ours at all
there’s something in the way we
catch at words,
gently tucking them away
into the softest parts of ourselves.
it’s not The Truth
(that so quickly dissolves into
chaos, obeying entropy
over our ornery need for absolutes)
it’s not Comfort
(a myth that seems to
float
always just
out of reach)
it’s more the clinging, quiet
moment in which each of us discovers
how small we are
or, rather, it’s the thousands
of tiny, breathing moments in which
we remember, all of a sudden,
for a fleeting inhalation,
that nothing is ours at all
or, rather, the visceral
stirrings that belong only to us.
we have taken in more than we can bear.
we have held floods.
we have failed to protect ourselves.
we have asked for too much.
this is not a salve, but rather
a snag in the balance,
when the world can’t help
but stop and listen.
No, this is how it is
This is how it is: the morning hour, when, alone, I walk barefoot to the bathroom to face myself again. This is how it is: slipping into the small, eastern room to let the oblivious sun envelop me before it fades.
This is how it is: the heavy head tilting towards the kitchen steam, battling shame.
This is how it is: war, when surrender would make for better company.
This is how it is: the hour when, precious and alone, I am not Woman, or Worker, or Teacher, or Separate.
This is how it is: the hour, when, seemingly alone, all I expect of myself is everything.
This is how it is: an intentional prolonging, stretching the illusion of solitude.
No, this is how it is.
i am not special
i am not special
i race to nowhere
i am not special
i hang sunset flowers to dry
in the west-facing window
i am not special
i eat discount applesauce from the plastic bottle
i am not special
i am always looking for reasons to want
Siena Rose 