I live my life through the words I write
For most of my life
I have struggled
and do struggle
to see the forest
rather than the trees.
The split seconds
the brief and beautiful moments
where all I can see is the forest
the unified whole
seem so fleeting
when my gaze habitually resumes
onto individual trees
my heart shatters
at the let down
at the loss
at the implied regression.
Pause.
Breathe.
Zoom out.
See the forest
beyond
and within.
It’s always there.
Can you believe it?
Can you believe that here
is where we are now
compared to where we were
before,
back then?
My counselor,
her name is Marcela,
assigned homework for me
during my last therapy session.
She said I had to go out
buy a notebook of visual appeal
alongside a high-grade pen.
The idea was to stimulate my creativity
with a notebook I liked to look at
and a pen I liked to write with
to make the experience enjoyable and enticing
to draw me in
to create for the sake of creating
to help me re-connect with this part of me
that, at times, seems to be fading.
So
one day after work I went to the bookstore.
I looked for a journal to catch my eye.
Funny how, at the same time,
my mind automatically eliminated some
because they looked too expensive.
Or,
I would find one that looked pretty
but my mind would convince me it wasn’t right
because of the size
because of the binding
because of the line spacing
because of the ‘fanciness’
because of the price.
If any journal held these qualities too well,
I told myself,
I would feel inherent pressure
to create content of high esteem, high value,
worthy enough to live between its covers
thereby creating more pressure
and likely, shying away from
scribbling out thoughts
for the mere purpose of releasing them.
What should have been instinctual
and taken seconds
took me minutes and minutes
standing in front of the journals
wrestling with my mind.
At last, I landed on this one.
Different than any I’ve had before
a thought-provoking cover
and on sale.
I chose a package of pens
I knew I would like
even though I could clearly see
the dozens of unused, good-enough pens
waiting at home.
A new journal
a new pen
starting a new journey
while I was away from home
in the mountains
looking for a reset
seemed fitting.
Connecting the stars within me
into constellations
bringing me back to myself
one page at a time
ink and words flowing.
I like to believe
that I have come to embody the notion
of change being the only constant
we can depend upon in this world.
As much as I, at times, resist change,
I like to believe that I have come to appreciate,
and understand, and welcome it.
And yet,
it feels near impossible to accept
how life
can change in an instant –
not just in theory, but in reality.
A few days away
was all we had asked, and hoped, for –
to escape to a different landscape,
reconnect in a change of scenery
and regroup,
for what we envisioned lay ahead of us.
One phone call came,
the vibration of which we barely heard,
and everything changed.
I could count it in days – 2 –
or hours – 50 –
between hearing the news of,
‘something doesn’t seem right’,
to when we were at the veterinary clinic,
taking away his pain forever
and saying our final goodbye.
I never knew my body to be capable
of breaking, of shattering,
of collapsing in such intense grief and pain,
the way she did that day
and yet, remaining here, to carry on.
I cried until my body became dehydrated.
My body caved in on itself to protect the gaping holes
left behind.
I talked through my feelings,
reminisced on stories and photos,
and mourned the opportunities lost.
After a while,
I tried to carry on,
thinking of what he would want for me,
but change is the constant
and I’m brought back down to the couch,
to rest and recuperate and heal my run-down body
despite my best efforts to keep going.
Eventually,
what you are running from will catch up with you.
Life will force you to stop,
sniff the smells on stop signs and bushes,
tail wagging,
and remember how important it is
to savor each moment.
We will never have ‘enough’ time,
so we need to make the time count
while we have it.
Let us walk down the street
read the shop signs and peek in the windows
lean into our intuition
of where we can nourish our minds and bodies.
We don’t need to make a plan
ahead of time.
We can allow our bodies to connect to nature;
the changing directions of the wind,
the building heat from the sun’s rays
as she ascends high into the sky
beyond the mountain peaks,
the winding trails through trees, along streams,
connecting to wonder.
Let us step into ourselves, into the world,
and find out where we’re going
when we get there.
After all this time
you returned to my subconscious
drawing the curtains behind my closed eyes
to screen a movie
a movie of us
where we’re back there,
where we knew each other,
but also now, where we don’t.
How did you manage to combine
and intertwine them?
I could touch your skin
I could hear your voice.
You were there, with me,
real.
You were so real
that when the curtains spread
and my eyes opened
I looked around the room for you
hoping to find you
wanting what I realized was a dream
to be reality.
As hours pass today
the touch of your skin
the sound of your voice
and the energy between us
dissipates
until now
where I can hardly remember.
I cannot comprehend how or why
you came to me
but I thank you
and I hope to see you again soon.
Moments are fleeting.
In the blink of an eye, gone.
Savor their presence.
When I become stuck in comparison
between me and her
or me and them
or me and that
I remember this summer
when my uncle hugged me and whispered,
“thank you for being you”
and I remind myself
what a gift I am, just as I am,
and my neck becomes a little taller
my chest proud
and I say to myself,
“thank YOU for being YOU.”
Beauty all around.
Pause. Breathe. Relish the magic.
Life: our greatest gift.
Some stories I write
I write to release them from my mind
get them down on paper
so I can forget about them.
First drafts rarely become final drafts
without revisions.
Writing out the first draft
of painful, heavy stories
feels easy,
feels liberating.
Revisiting them
is triggering
is painful
but necessary
to produce a final draft.
Prepare.
Execute.
Soothe.
Dawning Words 