What is time?

Is it counting? Is it really a written tally of minutes and mornings? Or is it wider than linear?

Is it the number of glasses and flannel and denim you have worn? ...or the number of buttons, belts, and boots that have kept you warm? Perhaps it is as simple as the freckles splattered across your forehead and the number of brown and white hairs sewn through the skin of your chin. Your face, shaped by line and circle, perhaps it is my clock. Perhaps, you are my clock. And this strong body, the part of you I feel with my strong body, is proof of the tide, and of the earth's turning, and of time. 

Your body is different now. Those 18-year-old atoms are all long gone. At the moment, new molecules make and move you. I hope that as these strong bodies shed and bloom, the formless souls in and around them will continue to grow too. May we grow too like fog, like water in the wind. May we blow to the sea and sky and into every community we reside.  May we grow and grow just as we know the universe grows and grows. May we be universes! - side by side, blissfully, blessed, boundless, and beautiful. Your body is different now. And you too are different. However, since we met, there has always been this knowing, - this knowing that we would follow us. As we have followed us, we have fallen into a generous flow, a current so natural and gentle. Boulders, dams, and boats wouldn't (or perhaps couldn't) stop us. I was never meant to meet many lovers. This I have also always known. You are this life, and in this life, you are my clock. 

Between you and me, there is a wild and simple and intimate love. It is raw, honest, vulnerable, and quiet. This love has never been taken for granted ...like we sometimes take water from the tap for granted, or food from the grocery for granted, or the air we breathe for granted. This love has never been taken for granted. We are grateful. 

I am not consuming tall cups of coffee.

I am slow now, or rather, I am slower and slowing to the speed of myself.


Are you ok? I'm asked. You seem funny.

Yes. I'm ok.

I am like a pond at dawn, still and reflective, hoping that through presence, the world will open up to me. Mostly, I'm doing this out of curiosity. Who am I? I still don't know and I don't know that I'll ever know. But for now, I like seeing myself this way - raw and full of water.

I speak now when I want and I smile only when a moment moves my heart to move my mouth. Coffee once darted and danced through me. I would feel inspired and alert with a quick wit. And yet, occasionally, I would feel a bit like a bug stuck inside a lampshade - insistent and distracted, perhaps even confused. A strong delicious drug, it has the power to fill me with temporary hope... even the darkest days lighten with a drop of cream. But, I know now, I don't need every morning to feel fixable or flexible. Instead, I can just be in the day's passing seconds. Yes, I still sometimes resist unpleasant minutes. But overall, I'm wherever I am.

Eventually, I will speed up again, but for now, I am slow, or rather, slower and slowing to the speed of myself.

King

On this day of independence, I wish for our king an awakening.

I wish for clarity to seep into the oval throne room, and for love to crown him.

On this day of independence, I wish for our king an awakening, an abandoning of blustery darkness for bright brilliant light.

Guilt and Gratitude

I am a simple human hollowed by the sorrows of others. Yes. I live with the luxury of guilt. For I live in the luxury of fair middle-class American skin. I live with the luxury of trust in the police.  I live with the luxury of English as a first language. I live with the luxury of health insurance. I live with the luxury of independence.

Now at thirty-something, I settle into the gentle bliss of ordinariness.  Sometimes, the romantic in me wants to be wild, unfettered, and free. (For this is what society preaches to young middle-class American citizens on how to have happiness.) Yet here I am satisfied and energized by the complex and yet simple work of caregiving. Here I am, on July 1, grateful that I don't need to work every single day. For if I had to work every single day, I would not be good. Nor would I be healthy and happy. Here I am, on July 1, starting my summer vacation and living with the luxury of necessary rejuvenation. 
It turns out, guilt and gratitude are two sides of the same coin. And so here I am grateful. Grateful that I don't need to flee my home and country. Grateful that I don't need to drown in the sea simply for the hope of living.  Here I am grateful that I do not starve or freeze or sleep on any street. But in a bed, surrounded by painted walls and trees.

I am a simple human hollowed by the sorrows of others.

Yes. I live in luxury.

More and Less

                                      

While blackbirds bounce across the raw wool roof of earth, I sit inside a car. Watching through slanted glass, I wonder if there might (one day) be more bird than car.

Perhaps there already are more birds than cars.
I hope so.
But, is there more feather than metal?
Or more wing than gasoline?
What about more beak than brake?
And, are there more fish than human flesh?
More silence than city?
More wildflower than weapon?
More pine tree than pavement?
More orca whale than oil spill?
More rainforest than landfill?
More love than fear?
More give than take?
More hope than despair?

Inside this man-made car, I watch through slanted glass and wonder if there might one day be less for me and therefore more for me.

Here I am. Come find me.

I am the one wrapped in cotton bedding. The one praying, begging the mighty light to shine on me, and the pure summer rain to wash over me so that these tiny seeds inside of me may root, sprout, bud, and bloom.

Here I am. Come find me.

I am the one hoping for that spark. For that lark to start her singing on the eve of another morning. I am the one imploring for a strong heart, bones, teeth, eyes, ears, fingers, and toes. For a brain, a belly, and a nose. I am the one asking the universe to bless this body with the body of a second baby. To bless this soul with another soul.

I'm ready. Here I am. Come find me.

[And if it will not be, then it will not be, and I will not be angry.  Instead, I will accept that there is something else out there for me.]

Oh to be a bird

and swim upon the wind!