Really, thank you for coming here.  And going there, if you so chose.  That you care enough to come back is…well, everything to me. 

Bookmark the new site!

http://lifeacoustic.squarespace.com 

Take care everyone.

Part of me is ready to open back up again.  I shut down my very public blog more than six months ago and haven’t ever regretted doing so.  But I still read many of my favorite blogs – those whose writing and photographs have inspiried me in so many ways.  By closing comments and being totally anonomyous, I have removed myself in sense from the community.   It was necessary at the time but I think now I’m ready to come back.  Maybe not completely, maybe not as <my first name> <my last name> with every detail of my damn life spread for anyone who has access to a Google search engine.  But maybe with a pseudonym.

I’ve decided to title this new venture Life Acoustic – as it will be both my words and photographs and essentially pieces of my life that I’d like to display more creatively. 

So, to those of you who still read (and I’m surprised there are still so many), thanks for sticking around.  Another chapter is just around the corner – stay tuned.

She is wading through a storm, right now and probably for a while and her methods of coping and general flailing about are so intense, so hard to understand.  I know for a fact that she has gone through certain trials in life that have left her needing to fill the void, yell a little louder and try to play catch up to ensure she is always enough.  Her choices would never be my own.  We are, in so many ways, so very different.

There is something there, though, that I can’t explain or make sense of and I don’t know how to defend it.  I am certain there is good in her, and I am certain of how strongly she feels about me.  I feel for her too though sometimes it is easily masked by confusion and resentment because our situation is far from ideal.

I want to shake her and tell her to realize who she hurts when she acts the way she does.  I also want to give her my shoulders and arms when she needs them because I can see it, behind her eyes.  Such sadness.  Such regret.  She is in very deep and she needs compassion, even if she has a hard time finding it in herself.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Despite it all, she is my up for anything girl.  She is someone who, if she can make it happen, will drop everything and jump on a plane, a train, a bus or in a car and head somewhere completely irrational.  Stay in Vegas a few extra days?  Why not?  Head into a city 2 hours away for a concert with literally an hour to get ready and go?  There is absolutely not a second thought.  Midnight on a Wednesday, she tells me to get on a train and meet her in NYC.  We are so, so different.  She jars everything in me that needs to know, plan and understand every step.  She has shown me how much fun it can be to not worry at all. 

We sit sideways, after a mix-up with the train schedule and having spent over an hour in a sushi bar eating spicy tuna roles and drinking vodka, facing each other in the train seat as I reveal more of my plans for the next six months.  She is so incredibly supportive, I am almost mad at myself for thinking it would be otherwise.   She tells me she wishes she could give me what I want but understands why she can’t.  Her voice breaks and she looks at the floor.  I am just going to miss you so very much. 

I could pretend I don’t feel the same for sanity’s sake.  It’s the opposite of the truth.

I write more (way more) than I post on here but its mostly for self-preservation.  When I do post, I know I take a risk with the few people who still know who I am and continue to read the insides of my head on this blog.  But I always feel better when the words are out of my head.  I suppose most times, it is a risk worth taking.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

June 2008
Love Like That Again

I remember what it was like.  How difficult it was to feel unwelcome in a place that I longed to be.  With a person who I wanted to build my life around and with – ignoring all logic and following my heart totally and completely.  I remember waking up on weekends to the warm sun streaming in though the blinds, hoping that it would be a good day.  Hoping I would feel comfortable and she would feel happy I was there and the strength of our love could overpower whatever shit we were wading through – if only for just a day.  And sometimes it would.  We’d curl up into each other and I’d bury myself in her neck and drown in how much I adored her.  When the dog’s whining and thumping turned into full-out crying, we’d throw on flip-flops and grab the leash and bound down the stairs, lab in tow, and greet the day.  We’d cross the street for coffee and bagels, sit and watch cartoons until noon with the balcony door slid open and the cat rolling around in the sun soaked carpet.  We’d lazily hang around – or we’d go out, shopping, or walking, or into the city for dinner or to meet friends.  We did what we wanted to – with each other, always.  In between these times, I waited on the storm, waiting for it to stop feeling like a problem and start feeling like a partnership again.  And it would, ultimately, like it always did.  We never stayed in the dark.  We also never stayed in the light.  And this was the great debate.  Was it supposed to be so hard?

I’m not sure how or why this encasement has surrounded my heart.  I don’t remember letting it happen, I don’t remember fighting it either.  I remember drowning in pain and the thought of a life completely thrown off track.  I remember thinking I had to let her go but that I had no idea how it was even possibe.  Somewhere, in between my life falling apart and my heart being shattered, I found anger.  And resentment.  And fear of feeling so vunerable and helpless and fucked up again.  I believe it was anger that helped me build these walls, to protect me while I rebuilt within.
 
It is not without price, however, that these walls were formed.  The walls blocked out emotions that I had previously accepted with open arms, always touting my ability to believe in love, no matter the cost.  These walls changed a part of myself, a part of my foundation – the core belief that love would fix anything had suddenly been shut out and a new, less irreverent face took its spot within my heart.  It told me that allowing anothers soul to flood every vessel of your own would lead to nothing but destruction, and loss.  Nothing good could come from such an openly emotional existence, it said.  You must shut down, you must stay guarded.  You must not be so quick to love, to believe in the truth and faith and light.  Caution is the only way to prevent this from happening again.  And like a worn-out soul, desperate to find a fix for this pain, I listened.
 
I have no doubt that these walls need to be taken down.  But I do still question my ability to love like this again.  I question how much I have given of myself to this woman – and how much she will take with her when she goes.  Does love regenerate?  Does it grow more limbs it its place, allowing you once again give it away?  Or is it finite in its resources – does it get worn down with every bump, every fall, every broken piece of us that we lose when we lose someone else?  Can we run out?  I thought that my walls were there to protect me from losing my reserves.  There must be something left, I thought, and I must protect it.  I have to be able to love again, in some capacity.  And if not, what then?  What would even be the point of going further if all was lost? 
 
How do I convince myself to love like that again?

+++++++++++++++++++++++

I finally found a moment to break the news, or some of the news, as she sipped her wine and pondered ordering dessert.  It flooded out of me, I felt my ears get hot as I tried to explain – it’s not you, it’s not this place, it’s me, it’s what’s inside of me.  It’s what I have to do.  Where, she asked.  Everywhere, somewhere I’m not sure of yet, I responded.  And then, quieter….not here. 

Her reaction is what shocked me most – calm, reassurance, support.  Choked back tears at the thought of my absence, which, in itself is always…filled with weight.   I think I’m always surprised at how strongly we can affect each other, effortless and irrevocable.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

What would you say to me
If you could talk to me
You could ask anything
I wouldn’t lie

I think there’s always a piece of me that will want it back.  I’m not sure for how long or how strong but I know it will be there.  It is very hard, almost take-your-breath away painful to have to hold back, wait in the wings, wondering what is being thought in the silence. 

You know, it might not be that bad – you were the best I’ve ever had

There is undeniable comfort in her voice, the thought of her eyes and her smile.  And yet, chaos and confusion and uncertainty swirl around that moment, those feelings.  I stand, not knowing if it is alone and I’m scared. 

If I hadn’t blown the whole thing years ago, I might not be alone

I think I just want that place back.  That corner of her heart she used to hold for me, the tone she reserved for my ears, the way in which she craved, cared.  I want to fall there again, I want to be welcome there.

I kick and punch the bag in an almost methodical fashion, focusing on my largest project of 2009: reprogramming.  It sounds too mechanical to have anything to do with my heart or my soul but that is truly all its about, changing the manner in which I think, breathe, act and live to be more in line, more in balance, more at peace with what is real and true. 

Step 1 of reprogramming involved shedding all fear of the unknown future and taking a leap towards a more passionate life. 

Step 2 involves dealing with the deep seeded resolve that I needed to act a certain way to be loved.   Hardly a quick step, or even an ending one, it came from a place that said - oh for gods sake.   Take shape woman.  Stand up.   Quit being the mallable object that bends to everyone else’s place.  My heart beats faster even considering what that means – how is it that feeling loved and secure can cloud your resolve to be truly happy?  It’s simply impossible to reconcile.

Step 3 is a combination of trashing all the negative pieces of my world that I allow to stay and encouraging the things that I know to be good to come in further and deeper.  Taking more pictures, watching less shit television, being less reactive, expecting love in the way that I love, acting less passive, reading more books, smiling more, crying less, worrying less about the amount that I do either.  It’s a laundry list step.  It will take forever.

I kick and punch to be stronger.  To build a stronger heart, stronger bones and muscles and sinew to keep my heart better protected, better in tact.  Strong enough to do it alone, wherever, however.  Strong enough to remember and strong enough to move past.

The first few days were tough.  She hissed a lot, from fear and once she got passed it, it would be nothing but purrs coming from deep within her belly.  She’d fall asleep on my legs as I laid on the couch and watched TV and not even flinch when I stroked her tiny nose.  I knew I was going to have to keep her, there was no way I could get around it.  I felt a pit in the bottom of my stomach.

It took me almost a week to figure out why I felt so strangely uncomfortable about my responsibility for this new life.   I had spent the week worrying.  Not about having the responsibility but about the consequence.  She was another new body to love.  She was another new body to lose. 

Getting a pet isn’t like meeting a new friend – friendship takes time to grow and blossom.  When you start to take care of another little life, you feel a bond, a caregiver’s love that takes over quickly.   There is no way to not open your heart for this life.  But the thing is, I’ve spent the past year and a half  feeling lives bleed from my heart, ripped from me.  The hole is still fresh, I can still feel the wind howl through it on a bad day. 

And she is another life.  Another life to lose, some day.  It sounds silly, truthfully.  But it is another space that will inevitably create another hole.  And I am terrified.

What do you want? A voice asked, the voice that pops up on occasion to ask the questions that I ignore.

There’s something about the prospect of starting over, of getting a second (third, twentieth…) chance not to do it again but to continue without the mocking of the past year pulling at your heels.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

I can’t seem to find a name for her.  I don’t that she is even a her, she could be a him, and then I could have to find a new name altogether.  Then there’s the whole notion of keeping her.  It seems easy, at first, taking on the responsibility of another life – she’s just a tiny little cat.   But she’s so tiny, skinny, young.  She needs me and she’s terrified of everything.

I took her downstairs, wrapped a blanket around myself and laid on the couch.  She purred and walked up my chest, to the crook of my shoulder and flopped her tiny body down.  I thought perhaps she was just getting comfortable but within a few moments she was fast asleep, twitching and dreaming pressed up against my collarbone.

How can you not instantly feel love?

++++++++++++++++++++++++

It’s subtle, this climbing out.  Being in the hole, even just a little ways down, can always be scary.  But this is the first, the very first time that I have ever looked myself square in the eye and acknowledged what was happening.  No denial, no bullshit.

My resolutions for this year aren’t absolute because they take shape as things change.  But every year, probably for the rest of my life, they will always come in some form of wishing for peace, calm, happiness and love, all encompassed in balance and health.

Despite the fact that it doesn’t take up space in my brain very often, I came across this poem that I could not help but think would be exactly what I would want my wedding vows to sound like.

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon…
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shriveled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the center of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

+++++++++++++++++++++

I’ve never read something that made me think so powerfully – yes, that is exactly what I want.