Becoming

Becoming (CAI2014)

While I prefer my states of perfection
I have not yet perfected staying there

Inevitably I will fall,
fail,
thrash,
flail
and when I do
when I do
when I do...

there are those who see through to me
with love and curiosity
their compassion clears my air
lets me find my way back here
to something that feels like peace, a clarity

and

others will see something else
that they recognize, or fear
their aversion and dispersion good reason
to drop me here
leave me alone, to find my shameful way home.

Different lessons, but hopefully
in the end
both make me stronger
make amends with what I am.

Balanced pattern

Night in the Balance (CAI)

What can I say when explanation sounds like excuse?
That I am imperfect?
You must already know
That I am sorry?
so what would that show? it doesn't matter.

The pattern plays out, we play our role
or each other's
the pattern doesn't care; its balance is inherent.
and our balance
doesn't even factor in.

Belonging, again

Wield (flipped and mirrored) (CAI)

Belonging. Again.

This is the one I resist the hardest, the one that my instincts reject. So it just takes longer. It's like my son, fighting with us for 3 hours in circles and wasting the very time he's trying to save.

There is a big part of me willing to choose acceptance over reaching. Accept that this is the best I could do, and sink into the rest of the time I'm here basking in the glow of the space I've created. Not take it on.

But that's an illusion. Reality requires constant upkeep, costs that can't be ignored. Paying for a life consumes a life, leaving only scraps for basking. The work is the life. The life is the work.

I am the mirror, the morph. It takes me on, activates my programming, the parts that are already there, amplified through feedback. The place in the system; it's not you so it's me. Could be him or her. Another moment and it will be. Today it's me. I get this part to play. I don't feel up to it.

I pull in on myself, a bud meeting frost when reaching for the sun.

Belonging is my last lesson. Maybe I'm stretching it out on purpose.

(Listen to Happy Rhodes say everything better than I could ever https://youtu.be/Dn3LOFVH4Ks)

The Sky is Not One Thing

Obscura (CAI)

The sky is not one thing.
We can't look at the blue sky and think, that is the sky, I know it.
We can't look at the grey sky and think, that is the sky, it will always be grey
We can't look at the night sky and think, that is the sky, it is simply black and shines with stars

What we see, of the sky, at any time, remains an illusion of the light
for in fact
there is no sky.

A quick and quiet conversation (#MaverickMissive)

Be Brave (CAI2019)

he doesn't have to tell me that the last and biggest test remains
but he tells me, anyway.

he says:

there's no point looking to the futures, they are shifting too fast to catch
there's no point clinging to the present, it's already changed beneath your feet
scrape the past from you, it clings on like a burr or a barnacle

and I laugh, and ask,
so when can I be?

he smiles sadly
10 seconds from now,  he says, it won't matter anymore.
be brave.

A private argument (#MaverickMissive)

When I complain how he abuses his privilege, he tells me we don't have time for my prevarication.

You delay the inevitable, he says, by playing nice.

and I realize, he's right. There's no time. There's no time.

But you have no right, I tell him, even if you're right, to break me down
and magnify my fear to force the issue

His not-amused amusement wins me over to his side.
What is a right? he winks, In light of Right?
I do what is required. You could be brave instead.

And again, I can't argue the point, though I want to
and again, he stands beside the point I'm making
the right to choose.

he says,
watch, watch the potentials dwindle every day,
waste them away while you wait to find out you're pursuing what you need
in the wrong direction.

You don't know that, I want to say, but I know
he knows more than me.

Anyway, in the end, I'm powerless against him.
But now I know what his promises are worth.

Clumsy balance

A Message about Balance (CAI)

Balance is a matter of shifting the weight from one side to the other.

When we do this smoothly, it feels like holding one space

When we do this clumsily, it feels like stumbling, careening;
crashing down heavily from one side to the other;

a pendulum smashing momentum through our souls in both directions.

Shallow soil

Shallow Soil (CAI)

invitation seen as demand
encouragement felt as pressure
help received as interference
love taken as expectation;
shallow soil offers no rooting
my willing heart retracts
compresses, pulls tightly in
not sure how to beat without offending
and starting not to care.

As Seen

Obscura (CAI2019)

No one sees me
but I can't complain
I set it up that way, every day, again

because if you see me
if you see what I am
it might demand that you be
what you are

and I have learned
I have learned
I will learn again: that's no way to make friends.

Still, and holding still
I can see you
what you're made of

your being is a call to action
just like mine
shining example reflecting itself
each self, as seen

Just Me

Nested Real (CAI2019)

An audience of one
is still billions
microbes and cells, celebrating union
oneness, selfness, as me
and what we see
oh, what we see
defies your narrow ideas of reality.

Shine

Blind Beacon (CAI)

Shine

No leader, she
never saying, Follow Me
Just being, right there,
where we can see;

she's an unwitting invitation
blind beacon slowly noticing
her shine

Pride

my own private rainbow (CAI219)

This being a "pride" weekend reminds me I'm bisexual. It's easy to forget, in this life I'm in. I had a "queer identity" once - I've embraced polyamory and open relationships, I've had sex with women and men and combinations thereof. I never considered myself "straight" until I entered a monogamous marriage with a man 15 years ago. It's interesting, how easy it is to just let everyone put your new identity in place - the middle-class, married lady. How easy it is to forget you ever occupied a marginal place, that your sexuality was part of your personhood and not just something that happened (however satisfyingly) twice a week. To not even notice how you take it for granted that you can just be loving together and everyone accepts it as normal.

Sexuality is not straight-forward (sic). What does it mean to be bisexual, or "demisexual" (as I learn there is a term that's a closer fit), when you're married in a hetero-normative way?

As one drunken acquaintance put it, what's the point of being "bisexual" and marrying a man? You might as well be hetero.

Others have told me I'm actually hetero but was experimenting, or that I'm actually gay and deluding myself. There have been many opinions.

So as I approach this "pride" weekend, I don't know where I fit. If I show up with my husband, do I turn into an ally instead of a community member? Do I still fit in not fitting, when all my outward appearances label me part of the norm?

Does it matter?

I guess it must, if I ask the question.  But should it? I don't know. I mean, where's my pride?