the story will save you

there are still people who believe that the marches are all and only about women...there are definitely people who believe the marches were about "trump haters"...so i know that there are people who still do not get what is actually happening to all of us.

one minute i'm hopeful that in speaking out, we may be heard...

the next minute i wonder if i have enough scotch to last the night...

then...somewhere in a quiet moment i'll remember this is nothing new throughout history...people speak and no one is listening. the people speaking are trying to include everyone but the people they're speaking for and to are not listening. couple thousand years ago there was this guy who didn't even have a residential address---all he did was walk from city to city and tell stories and talk to people and lead them to healing (the ones who would let him), who were listening. hey, it's like this people, you have the power to love each other and be there for one another no matter what. life is hard---help each other out. follow me... there is poverty and sickness and evil in the world but you have a better way...me...just be there, speak up, love each other. that's all he really said. and they crucified him.

i'm not saying any of us is the messiah or the sum of all who are speaking out are the messiah, i'm just saying a precedent was set long ago so that we can see that we're not the first to be mocked and misunderstood and marginalized. or worse.

just don't give up. one step at a time. be here. stand up. stand together. all of us now have a common threat, a common concern... keep telling the story...the story will save you. it will.

and here's the thing...they crucified him. but that is not the end of the story. there is life after death. there is. we are more than the suffering and affliction we endure. there is hope that following Life, there will be life...following Love there will be love... sometimes it's very hard to believe when you're suffering or losing or hated or misunderstood or bullied or abused or attacked or raped or ignored. believing is a better choice, though. choose life. choose love. the story will save you---this is not the end of the story.

i wish you had waited...

i just wish you would have waited.
i wish you had given someone the chance to tell you that you are awesome---JUST the way you are.
i wish you could have understood that to be different is simply to be unique and you are loved and celebrated for that very thing.
i wish you had known that being seventeen is horrifying and terrifying and it passes...you get through it...there's more....really...
i wish you could have believed how dearly you are loved...
i wish you could hear the truth that none of it matters in the end---the it that you were so afraid of or resisted or believed was reprehensible...
i wish you had known that everyone feels outside, different, not good enough...
i wish you had heard in your heart of hearts that it's okay to be different from what you believe everyone expects...
i wish you could have understood that it is so perfectly normal to want to put to death that which is tormenting you, all that seemed to be demanding of you what you could not give.
i wish you were still here to see that it will get better...that everyone wishes they were a little more like you---easy going, more apt to ENJOY the moment, less likely to compete...
i wish you would have waited...targeted what caused you pain...recognized that you are not the pain, you are not the disappointment, you are not the problem...
we need your sense of humor, antics, easy going, laid back, care free, pace of a different drummer....
i wish you had waited...i wish i had seen you or heard you or known what you were thinking...believing...choosing.

On wanting Trump to Fail...

"Why, as Americans, would we want our president to fail?" Been thinking a lot about that question which was commented on my post on facebook last night. I say all that follows without rage, hate or invective language. I am not loyal to a party, I simply fear for our future. But, yes, I would like to see him fail. First, I would like to see him fail to be inaugurated as president. But if he is, I would like to see him fail at:

* creating any more precedent for disregarding the rule of law
* kicking out foreigners
* robbing us further of our social security
*...and access to affordable public health
* normalizing brutality—beginning with speaking
* making it okay to make fun of people with disabilities
* objectifying women any further—in words, deeds (from groping to rape), diminishing their contributions to society in any way
* lowering the minimum wage
* denigrating war heroes and any other American who has taken a stand against injustice
* criminalizing LGBTQ community or denying their rights as equal human beings under the law
* vilifying anyone engaged in artistic or political expression
* normalizing racism
* denying anyone the right to speak freely especially in regard to philosophy, self-expression, speaking out against or holding accountable government officials
* destroying public education
* redefining or redirecting the moral compass
* lining his personal pockets with financial gain at our expense and his conflicts of interest
* getting away with lying about himself, his business practices, his taxes, his lucrative connections with foreign powers
* setting a precedence for bullying and intimidation as the way to get what you want
* increasing our financial burden with his unethical business practices
* demanding profit be the only determining factor in any decision (personal or corporate)
* further weakening trust in our government with nepotism
* denying the truth/facts in any form–personal or global
* breaking the law and getting away with it
* putting us further in harm’s way with a hair-trigger temper and irrational reactions
* legitimizing fabrication
* continuing to con people into believing his rudeness and irrationality are “telling it like it is”
* giving more of our power as a nation to Putin or any other foreign power
* instilling fear instead of hope
* perpetuating hate
* getting away with being sworn in to represent us, rule over us, project his image as ours and breaking our spirit

Tuesday's prayer (1221716)

122716

gratitude.  Yes.  Close my eyes and conjure.  Gratitude.  See the clearing beyond the row of palms along the freeway.  Yellows gold tans a drop of orange brown near white like corn husks and greens all shades... Gratitude.  Rain on the front windshield. Wipers suck.  Smear even in the hardest rain.  Doesn’t last long.  Windows back down.  Gratitude.

Be...
With...
Good good trip, all slights and almost misses notwithstanding
good
gratitude
almost right—close enough for Gratitude...
Now...then...Now...

Ambivalence.
Desire like craving.
Fear like deep sleep escape familiar stories comfort deadens desire.
Avoid it with certainty that nothing matters. Vanity...accusations of self pity.
Whatever.
Desire scares me.  Fear scares me. Deadening desire, escape, scares me.
Disappear into the characters I love with all my heart (and desire) ... scares me.
I live in the same decade of those who die young...just these last few weeks...
Bobby.  George Michaels.  Carrie Fisher.
If you’re gonna do it, do it now.  But it doesn’t matter. Nobody reads it.  Can’t finish it because nobody reads it.  So why is (she) afraid of it.  Nobody reads it.  Can’t sell hot chocolate to Eskimos.  Rather watch Bogey, Myrna Loy, Ray Burr, Barbie Hale, Bill Powell.... What difference does it make?

All I have are words.
Fear that I will spend my life into the words and it won’t matter.  The story won’t save me.  I will disappear.  Death comes ...

Too soon?  Too late?  Why am I caught in this quick sand of ... I’ve no word for it.

I’ve no word for it... it...  No word.

Reflection.
Recognition.
Resurrection?

Forgive me?
It’s not that I don’t believe...but that I fear.

Fear not...you say over and over and over.  How?

How do I fear not?
How do I do?
How do I believe it matters?
How do I move forward?

...I will lose again...

PROMISE ME
promise me...
Promise me you’ll come back.
Promise me all I have to do is look for you
promise me I’ll be there one day too
promise me
PROMISE ME
then keep your promise
keep your word
enable me to believe in the word again

I need the word.

It's really a lot of work having a poochieloochie...but then there are those moments when he's lying glued to the side of me on the sofa and then he puts his head on my knee. yeah...i know...it's endearing, isn't it? his 16th birthday is this weekend...as is my dad's birthday...bubbi was the love his life...

at 16 i wonder how much more the furry dude's got in him...one minute he has more energy than anyone i know or anything i've ever seen...then other times he looks at me with ancient, sad, cataract-covered eyes as if he's saying goodbye...

tonight was the first time...is the first time i found myself starting to say but couldn't say it aloud so i finished the sentence in my head...that even though he's a pain in the ass and a lot of work, when it's time for him (this is when my voice quit) to go Home to find Dad, i'll be okay (but i don't know that i believe that really)...

i miss Dad a lot.

080316 Awareness

This will come as a shock
so sit down.

You do not really matter
beyond the boundary of who you really are.

Not even the woman who gave birth to you
can love you
the way you need to be
consumed.

Consumed like a phoenix
to rise above the ashes of the futility
of everyone else’s dreams for you

and

where
where are you
clicking the heels that bring you
home
they’re your own
and those who love you
love you
but they cannot be the you
you need to be
to be better than
who you fear you are

this is not the time to be born
and not the time to be born again
when you feel
the need
to be in control of things you
can’t control

let go the fear

that’s all the control you really have

what you choose
to take hold of...
what you choose
to let go of...

palms up!
With gratitude
receive as gifts
all things that come
(even the scary, sticky, sad...)—
Only then will you recognize
what you need
who you are

He Watches Her Descend the Stairs

A look like
happily ever after
can intend but
go astray
when will the stars
chipped from the moon
sing the night back to me

no dawn breaks
the heart like
being the one who was awaited
and missed
missing

and what would it have hurt
for him to say
I am the luckiest man alive
to spend the evening with
the most beautiful woman in the world

but no
he only silently watches her descend the stairs
her tender heart expanding in his gaze
he lets her self-consciously bring up pedantic thoughts
that have no place in poetry
or beauty

(Not enough to live inside his eyes)

a tinder heart breaks into a million
fiery shining stars

“I see the moon
and the moon sees me
and the moon sees somebody that I can’t see
so God bless the moon
and God bless me
and God bless the somebody that I can’t see
If I get to heaven
before you do
I’ll make a hole and pull you through
and I’ll write your name
on every star
that way the world won’t seem so far.”*



* “I see the moon . . .” in part traditional, in part Sarah Kay