Train Hopping

I figured it out. I have been scratching my head trying to figure out how to describe the feeling I have right now, because it is the first time I have felt this way in this way. I think I may have felt this way many times before, but not been in touch enough with my feelings to know that I had them. And to be quite honest, I think I preferred not knowing the feelings to knowing them and feeling them so much. I have not train hopped--my friends have--but I haven't. But I have read Dharma Bums a hundred times, so I think I know what it must be like to train hop. I feel like I switched trains in an invigorating in motion leap. I feel like I headed a new direction, towards a different destiny. And now I feel like I jumped off the train at full-speed and hit the ground hard. I am bruised, disoriented, scared and lost. And I also feel like I keep trying to jump back on the first train and as I leap, I keep losing my grip and falling under the tracks. And I feel like I like being under the tracks better than riding on either train for now. And somehow I know I will probably end up walking, the long way, and maybe never reaching any destination. In grad school, Mary Hawkesworth talked about Heigel's interpretation of Geist--the notion that spirit moves you forward to your next evolution through a sense of dissatisfaction with your present context. She explained that is why we had applied to grad school--something told us to "be more." I feel that now. I just am afraid of what I will, or maybe more so, what I won't become.

Comforter

The truth is that I dig moments like this. Laying down under a comforter, in the middle of the bed, typing away. I like the silence and the solitude. It is cold but not too terribly so. Today, we ran in the Harrison Classic. Canyon slept in the Chariot and River cramped, but it was nostalgic and season orienting and so on. Tomorrow I will take the day off, but am not sure what to do with it. I know I need the break so that will be good. I can become so easy to please when I just lower my threshold to the place where any sense of affection matters. Too much looking for being seen.Sometimes, even if I feel sad, when I look in the mirror and see myself, I am grateful I am here. It is enough to look into my own eyes and be seen.

Walls Will Fall

Its like reaching forward into endlessness. Before there were walls around me. I could feel their materiality when I reached my finger tips forward. Walls, stabilizing me as I move and don't move, orient my practice for all they block the light and weaken my inner-strength by the excess of their own. Their is a moment of disequillibrium, as I stand here unsurrounded. I am crying inside, "give them back, for the wind blows too hard and too cold. It chills me. And I am scared." Dreams are like holes that you can crawl into, deep in the dark taking a ladder down, grasping to the handholds as you descend. For all I would like to, I cannot seem to find the hole right now, for all I would like to play there, I am kept hear by a merciless panic, tempered only by the remembrance of my own ability to inhale and exhale. Sometimes I laugh at it all. Really, This life is just one and there are others and perhaps next lifetime I will ... And then that too seems absurd--to project dissatisfaction into an unknown abstractness of another chance. For what? Not losing the reins of a family put together of young love,entwining passion, solace, healing and pain. No, that is too specific, the loss is more general than that. I suppose I will rebuild these walls, of a new material and different architecture only essential in the coldest of winds.

Shoot, swoosh, ahhhhhhh....

"Got to face the day, no matter the consequence" Days like today are ones I should hide in long-hand, deep inside a spiral notebook. But that is sitting next to the bed with the sleeping child and so here I am. It all started with a trip to the dump. I mean, it all started the night before when I found myself overwrought and sleepless. I did sleep for a bit of hard pressed rest and when I woke I drove across town, desperately searching for... but I had to come home, my sleeplesseness could not disrupt theirs. What I found was that pile of things to delay or discard. I piled them high into the van and also rolled out the old mattress--the one I slept on and then River and now it is wet and soggy in the van. I cleared out a lot of the driveway. I moved the trash cans, organized the wood, put other things into the garage. Suddenly. I looked up, and there was the hoop. The basketball hoop I think I had not played on before, or if I had it was right when we moved in. I grab the old, flat ball and shoot, miss, shoot, miss, shoot, miss, aim, shoot, swoosh. Ahhhh.... Then, a trip to the dump. Way out there, up, up, up, I didn't realize this was the dump--another thing I had not done, usually sending the gendered prescription of dump goer in my mind. I liked the dump. Quickly all things to discard are empty and I placed them and pulled them myself. The drive is clear the stuff is here. I return home, but not before stopping to buy three sizes of basketballs. Home, I rip into the package and pull out the adult size ball. Shoot, miss, shoot, miss, dribble-dribble shoot, miss. Stop, dribble, aim, shoot, swoosh. Ahhhhhhhh..... The walk is invigorating, I hit the hills unexpectedly, breathing, pushing up, and above. I love this little spot with rosehips, willow, pine, yarrow, sunflower. I love these plants. Lightning begins to crack. I keep thinking I want to go home and shoot baskets. I let myself run, which I haven't done for a while. It feels good. and now I am almost home. To the ball shoot, miss, shoot, swoosh, dribble-dribble, shoot, miss, dribble right-left-right-left, shoot, swoosh.Ahhhhhhhhhh....