that's mrs. mediocrity to you

remembering the history of love
is not the same as living it

so much of it is
setting seed
and letting go

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Or struggle vs. acceptance, and how to know which one to adopt.

These days I lean towards simple, where less always feels like more,
and grace, where struggle always dresses in silence.

And I’m not sure it’s wisdom.
I fought life so hard when I was young,
these days I prefer to acquiesce to the nature of opposites.

The good with the bad, the light with the dark,
the tears with the laughter.

It’s not giving up, it’s honing in.

It’s not compliance so much as forgiveness.

It’s arms wide open to whatever comes.

Life rains down upon us and washes us clean.
Again and again and again.

We live in the dust and we live in the dirty.

And then comes the downpour and we live some more.

Soaked and sodden, a bit downtrodden.

Bending in the wind that did not break us,
the breeze that dries our hair,

the sun that warms the shadows on our skin.

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and coming away with a handful of air.

Isn’t that they way of things, always? But we never let it stop us, and that is the magic, the miracle, of living.

To be human is to struggle, and it’s an ongoing battle, this existence, even when skies are blue. And that’s what keeps us going, that’s what makes us whole, the dark and the light, night and day, sun and moon, babe and crone.

It’s so easy to forget that we need all of it, the shade and the shadow, the hunger and the hurt, the fear and the frustration, all the parts we’d rather hide or ignore or bury, because nature, human or otherwise, will always strive for balance.

And we, as humans, would like to think ourselves out of the equation, we want to rise above, to banish the things that weigh us down, without accepting the fact that these are the very things that keep us grounded. Without them, we would simply float away.

The size and the beauty of the bloom are determined underground, in the darkness of the soil that anchors us.

Roots, air, water, light, earth, growth. It’s a package deal.

And just look how beautifully it’s wrapped.

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It’s the shadows that reveal the pattern: dark light white, dark light white. The days roll into a fog of sameness, and I am stuck, wallowing in boredom, or ennui, or something worse: a voice that whispers not good enough.

Habits form and are broken. Wounds heal and become scars. Time is relentless and finite and never sits still.

Chaos is the natural order of things. We fight it, stacking plates and sorting socks, pushing snow and building walls, but it’s always there, lurking around every corner.

I kind of like that.

Except when I don’t, but that’s the nature of life.

I think a lot lately of a book that changed my life once, a very long time ago. Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham. It’s essentially a book about giving up, accepting, trying less and being more. At least that’s what it was for me.

The joy of sinking into who you are rather than who you want to be.

Walking into the sea of self and washing yourself clean of life’s dust.

Standing naked in today’s mirror and not cringing at your own humanity. Not wishing to be something or someone or someplace other.

I cook dinner and wash the plates. Again and again and again. I tidy the room and sweep the floors and straighten the papers on my desk.

The chaos always returns.

We spend our lives fighting for order in a world that offers anarchy.

And that’s the lesson. That’s the pattern.

Just now, the plates are clean.

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an abundance of optimism
can’t ever be a bad thing

really

though sometimes the glare
can force you to turn
from those stricken
with the smile of this affliction

as you raise a filter
to the black hole sun
you grew up singing

singed by this little too much
and all that nothing
and color color everywhere

when some days you just want some

black and white

grey matters

taupe tenacity

anything to make you look away

because there is always dust in the corner

and hemingway said all you have to do
is write one true sentence

There is always dust in the corner.

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Some days I think it all comes down to self-preservation. The things we do to survive. Then I remember that it isn’t about anything at all, there are no answers, only questions. And survival is such a relative term these days. Read a book about the way life was lived 100 years ago, or 200, and survival becomes an entirely different word. By necessity, survival used to be a physical accomplishment. For so many of us these days, it’s a mental one.

I find this fascinating.

The internet was birthed to take up that slack, the distance between all my basic needs are met and now what do I do with all these thoughts? We share everything these days, and still, everyone seems to be looking for something. Already it’s changing the world.

I find this fascinating and frightening, all at once.

The other day I heard a story on the news about a program that’s being developed that will take all of a person’s social media input and, after they die, use it to create an artificial intelligence type of interaction, creating new output to mimic and offer new things that person might say. Using everything we have ever said on the internet to re-create our personality. It was presented as a way to cushion grief, so that people could still have a relationship with someone they have lost, at least virtually speaking.

I keep thinking about this, wondering if we would all like the artificial self that would be created by the things we type and offer up on all these venues. How true would it be to who we really are? Would it be a better version of us, or a worse one?

Again, fascinating. Again, frightening. Also: enchanting.

I sit and watch Mother Nature outside my window, here on my own tiny piece of earth, and then I watch the whole word inside this window, a computer screen that contains infinity. No wonder my brain hurts.

I drink my tea and watch the birds forage for their breakfast and think that I should walk outside and feed them.

And then I start thinking about survival all over again.

There is so much information. When what we really need is food.

At least that’s the way I think it goes.

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they say lightning never strikes the same place twice
but what if white light wakes you up every morning
and sometimes it thunders in the dead cave of winter

but the moon
rises up through the trees
even when frozen

and silt settles on everything
after a flood
concealing what lies
beneath a smooth surface

and magic makes no sense
but neither does reality

the miracle is that any tree survives

holding out bare branches
in forever expectation
of life going on

just the way it does

even uprooted

even split wide open

even silenced by
a lack

of wind

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Each flower defies the odds and pushes on.

We want to make the world our own, but there is no survival without constant adaptation. A rudimentary concept, yes, but we get all crafty about it, bury our heads in the sand, pretend we can send down roots and stay in one place forever. But the earth we stand on keeps revolving, and the sky we reach for is filled with light that is already older than we are, no matter how long we may live. Sunlight takes approximately eight minutes to reach the earth. The light from some of the stars we see is 400 hundred years old.

So if, for some reason, the sun ever goes out, we wouldn’t even know for eight whole minutes. A short grace period, yes, but I kind of like the magic in that.

Time may be full of tricks, but light remains steady.

Which makes it so much easier to stand alone in the dark, making wishes on stars that have already lived through more lifetimes than I can imagine. Silent witnesses to a multitude of births and deaths, joy and anguish, storm and smooth calm sea.

If you think that a flower is fragile, imagine what it takes to push up through dark soil more than 10 times your height, and reach for a sun that will always, just barely, outrun you.

Miracles and magic happen around us, all day, every day. No one ever said it would be easy. No on ever said we wouldn’t have to fight to stand in the light. No one ever said that anything lasts forever.

Each moment is precious.

And we forget that eighty thousand times a day.

So take one second and look at a flower. Or a baby just learning to walk. Or the old woman dragging her cart through the grocery store. Or even the young man, in such a hurry to get where he’s going, that forgets to hold the door for her.

I’m glad to find hope is so stubborn.

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first, you have to dance
arms flung wide
with hope’s last vestige of abandon

you have to care and not care
at the very same time
drop permission from your vocabulary
throat your laugh and hug the sky

your dress must be free and made of history
your face must be painted with your own experience
(hand-me-downs and borrowed wishes
will be confiscated)

you must wear a ring on every finger
one for each time you pretended to know
the answer to anything
and you must refuse to lick the plate
of shallow dictate

this isn’t about being naked
you can do that well enough on your own

this is about your true colors
the ones you wear when no one else is looking
because exhibitionism does not equal honesty
and besides

it’s your skeleton that always tell the truth
skimming shallow skin and baring marrow bone

but it’s your heart that hears the music
and your sleeve doesn’t have to be fancy
or short or even rolled up

if there’s lace, tear it off
drop the bangles
bare your wrist

and two-step the pattern of your flaws
across the floor we all stand on

close your eyes
listen

we’re all here

the beat cannot beat you
or make you special

we’re all here

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Joining in over at Dverse Poets Pub
for Open Link Night...join us!

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you climb to the top and you stand there
inhaling sunshine

the rains will come again and you will drink
not caring for the purity
of washed-out clouds

you will slip and you will fall
and neither one will destroy you

just as long as you keep laughing

it isn’t courage you need
so much as tenacity

lion-hearted is not the same as lion

fighting for survival is not the same
as unenlightened

holding jewels in your fingers
is not the same as sincerity

the seedhead is never as fragile
as bloom

there is no wisdom taller
than observation

and the view is ever changing

sun is the only constant
and even that is actually

star

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