one year
since
you came up
behind me
in a random dark bar
and it’s been easy
(so easy)
and it’s been hard
(so hard)
and we’ve floated
and we’ve struggled
and we’ve laughed, and cried
and lived
and lived
and lived
a million years it seems
although
only one
has passed

but what is time,
really?
just a convenient
way to measure
the complex
activity of our
hearts
and if that is all
that matters
(and I believe
that this is
so)
then perhaps we
should expand
our discussion of
time to include
other measures
like the number of times
my hair has brushed
softly across
your face
or how often your teeth have
closed on my
skin
or the numerous tracks
my tears have left
on your shoulders
or maybe even
(if we blow our minds wide open)
how salty those tears
tasted when our
lips joined to
intercept their fall
(because who says time
must be discussed in terms
that can be counted, perhaps
time is just another sense
like touch
and smell
and the sound of your laughter)

we have encompassed
rush
and reality
and burden
and bliss
and fullness
and emptiness
and have been each
of these things
to one another
and everything to one
another
and sometimes
(in the darkest moments)
nothing to one
another
we have swung
from understanding
to questioning
to accepting
to rejecting
to knowing
but somehow
we have always
swung back
together

we know
with the certainty
of two who
understand that love
is not always
enough
(not nearly enough)
that we don’t get a
guarantee
and we push against
cynicism and yearn for
blind optimism
because we want
to believe
in the notion of forever
the way we did
before

but I think sometimes
our doubts are
our biggest gifts
because they keep us working
keep us from our blindness
keep us from expecting too
much
and accepting too
little
keep us seeking
and striving
and stretching
beyond the surface
and into the depths
of us.
and most of all
they keep us saying
yes
yes to the insanity
and yes to the chaos
and yes to uncertainty
and even yes to ugliness and heartache
and resentment and dismay
(because those emotions
must be honored too)
and then yes to
laughter
and family
and future
and home

yes
yes to time
(in all it’s
complex measures)
yes to future
and what it brings
yes to not knowing
to working
to bliss and floating and melting
yes to yelling and crying and pouting
yes to ecstasy and agony
and all the in crazy
mixed up in between
and certainly
yes to trying

Yes to one year
Yes to us.

there was this one night
just last week
when i saw these
at trader joes

b. thought they were
b-o-r-i-n-g
(being all one colour
and pink at that)
and so tried to
direct my attention
to some
brightly coloured
daisies

but these
for some reason
in their softness and
strength
captured my attention
and so I bought them for
her

(and to make b. happy
we got the
daisies
too)

and much to my surprise
when we got home
we found that sometimes
love and flowers go
hand and hand
and there was
another bouquet
waiting for
us
(because she
wanted to give flowers
to her girls).

isn’t it nice
when things just
come together
like that?

when she rested
her head
on my stomach
and looked up to say
“lay back,
tonight
i want to focus
on you”
her face was a poem

and that night
when i watched
as her eyes closed
and her neck
arched
and the ecstasy coursed…
well
the closing
and the arching
and the ecstasy
they were all poems too

yesterday
when my words
burned and she
snapped and
went outside to work off the fire and
i sat silently on
the edge of our bed,
her voice
and the sound of the door sliding closed
and my silence
were also poems

of course,
the first time I saw her in glasses
was definitely poetry
as was the hot chai
(with vanilla and soy)
in the earth-brown mug
she made me before work this morning

and don’t forget the patterns our feet make
when we dance in the
living room.
that poem is one
of my
favorites.

you wouldn’t necessarily
think it but
the fact that we both hang our bras
on the handle of the
closet door
and the fact that
her virgo-self constantly needs to reorganize
the tupperware
are just as poetic as
the way she likes to watch
me when i read
or the feeling of her arms
around mine three nights
ago when i had used up
every last ounce
of myself taking care
of others and just
needed so badly
to have someone
take care of
me

and because all
those moments are
poetry
it is understandable
that sometimes they
flow from our hearts
like ink on smooth
paper
and other times they come in
fits and starts
and with lots
and lots
of deleting and
that sometimes we choose
all the wrong words
(but don’t quite realize
until the poem is
completed what
was not quite
right about them)
or that sometimes we begin
what we think
could be a
great poem
but it fizzles out somewhere
and never really comes
together and we want to crumple up
the paper
and use it to play
basketball
in the garbage can.

but the
thing
about poetry
is that
there are no rules
or at least
that you get to make
your own
(like the way
i cut up my
sentences however
i want
and don’t use
capitalization
even when spellcheck
gets upset
with me)

and so our
poems
can be what we want
them to be
(or not be)
and nobody can tell us
how many verses
or where the climax should occur
or get angry because our sentences run on
or that we’re not doing things
in the correct order
or edit it to fit into
some predetermined
form

and so
we’re free to
keep right on
making poems
when we make love
and when we fight
and when we wash dishes
and watch movies
and clean toilets
and when we dive deep
and when we release
and when we live.

and so its
okay that
this poem didn’t really
get finished
because I’m running late
and have to pick up
my wee girlie
at school
because
i don’t think
that this kind of
poem
ever really
ends.

“And so this is Christmas
And what have we done
Another year over
And a new one just begun….”

When the unraveling begins, and the world is spinning so fast you can’t tell up from down or right from wrong, there’s just no way to predict where you’ll end up when the vortex finally ceases.

When you’re deep in it, it’s impossibly to see beyond the immediacy of the moment, there is nothing beyond NOW. You know, of course, that there will be collateral damage, but even the most somber imaginings don’t have the power to pull you from the necessity of just taking one more breath, one more step, of getting through just one more day.

Step on a butterfly and change the future. Of course. If even the smallest of actions can alter the course of a lifetime, what of those that fracture a family? And what if you are the one who faced the truth, spoke the words, made the choice?

What then?

And so this is Christmas. Today I will say goodbye to my girls and send them back to the house that never had a chance to become my home. When I kiss them goodbye I’ll know that I won’t be the one to help them put out cookies and milk for Santa. I won’t be there to remind them to include a carrot for the poor overworked reindeer. I won’t tuck them into bed, and kiss them on the nose and recite from memory the familiar words of ‘The Night Before Christmas’.

I wont be with them in the morning, awake far earlier than I deem acceptable because my excited children can’t bear to wait another minute. I won’t see them open the presents I bought to fill their stockings, or see their reactions when they tear into their gift from Santa. I won’t hear their squeals of excitement or witness that gleam of magic in their eyes.

This is my eighth Christmas as a mother, and it will be my first without my children by my side. A part of me cannot bear to imagine tonight and tomorrow morning, and another part of me cannot help but play it through my head over and over again.

Last night at midnight I found myself on the floor of my bedroom closet, door closed so that the sounds of my heartache would not be heard by anyone else in the small two-bedroom apartment we now call home. Hot tears slid down my cheeks and emotions shook my body, crying not just for tonight and tomorrow, but for all the countless moments of our lives that we will not be together. Crying for the reality that my girls will forever be moving between two places, instead of resting securely in one. Crying for him because of all that he has lost in the wake of my truth. Crying because the costs are so much higher than anyone could possibly have imagined. Self pity, grief, and endless, all-consuming guilt – it’s a vicious combination.

But all that has to be put aside right now, because right now they are with me – bubbling with anticipation, ready to bake holiday goodies, decorate the tree, wrap last minute gifts. In the dark of my closet in the middle of the night it was time to let my tears flow and succumb to the shadows, but now it is time to lift my head and open my eyes to countless blessings, to hold my girls close and to bring them as much joy and gratitude and peace as possible in the hours that they are here. To open my heart and knock down walls between love past, love present, and love future and to let all of those pieces mingle and flow.

And so this is Christmas….and it won’t ever be the same again. But within the changes, within the loss, within the grief – perhaps there is beauty to be found, gifts of a different kind, wholeness hiding amidst the broken pieces. All I can do is hope.

you see
it’s like this…

it’s like
some nameless, faceless doctor
sat me down
in a cold white room
surrounded by windows
and said

here’s the deal…
i can either cut off
your right leg,
or your left

you get to choose
but one of them has
got to go
now

because your two legs
,though both strong
and beautiful
and necessary,
can’t balance your life anymore

so tell me which
right now please
because people are waiting
on your decision
(don’t you feel them watching you
through all those windows?)
and your legs are
quite anxious
(understandable really)
to know which one
will be left
behind

but you must know this
and know in the deepest part
of yourself
he said,
(as he looked me in the eye
and in the heart)
that even though you have the
power
to make this choice
(and not everyone does – so
consider yourself lucky)
you are still going
to feel
for the rest of your life
like a part of you is missing.

…..

don’t you see?
it’s been a year now
more than that really
since this all began
and being with her
is like finding home
and our bodies fit
and our hearts fit
and i fit
and this is right
and i love her
and us
and this life

truly.

but i still miss him
ache for him
ache for us
ache for our children
for our life and the unmet potential
and that third child
(i always pictured another little girl)
we were pretty sure we would
one day have

and when I see an elderly couple
eating together at a
restaurant
or a young family
together doing family things
i feel something inside me
crumple
and hear this sound bubble up
from deep
inside of me
this keening, primal, animalistic sound
of mourning
of grief
of anger
for what can never be
because we won’t ever be
again

and i won’t know what his hand feels
like in mine
when we are both eighty years old
and how can that not feel like a tragedy?
and after breaking that promise
i don’t know if any other promise
can ever count
really, really count
again

because i made a choice
that wasn’t a choice at all

and i have to accept
in the deepest part of myself
that always knows the truth
that although i belong is this life
there is a huge part of me that will always belong
to that life
to him

and to be perfectly honest,
i don’t quite know what
to do about that.

it’s been
stealing over me
again
disconnect
not fitting
in my space in my
skin

like before
when it came and stayed
-for months and months
that time-

-i think in thoughts tinged
with numbness-
don’t want to go
down that
rabbit hole again

talk to me
-i tell
her
wanting to hear
words to help me
sleep-
tell me things

i don’t tell
her
that i want
to take her words
her voice her
spirit
and stuff it all
inside
to fill the emptiness

what does it mean
now?
-i wonder-
something swirling
in space
but not yet visible
to me?

***

She
whispers, pulling
me close
and i roll onto
her
wanting to absorb
everything
i can and
then
i sleep.

***

i wake to
silky blonde hair
little fists
rubbing sleepy eyes
‘mommy i’m hungry’
and rise
leaving her asleep
in our bed.

our bed.
in our home.
so many changes
for me
and mine

oatmeal
-with honey
of course-
in a pink plastic bowl
made quickly
paper grabbed
to scrawl out
words that needed
release

and with release
comes
-as it so often
does-
relief from
pressure to figure
to understand
to know

and all that is
left is to
just be
just me
just words
on torn paper
on a dark wood table
next to a pink plastic
bowl
filled with oatmeal.

***

she comes up
behind me
in the kitchen
and i turn
to bury
my face in her
shoulder
finding
everything
in her
arms

i feel you today
-i say-
i know
-she says-
that’s because
last night you called for
me in your sleep
and i came to
you
crawled inside,
filled you
up

ah,
-i say-
thats why i feel
so different
this morning.

thanks.

Prop 102 would amend the Arizona Constitution to say "only a union between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state". This issue is on the ballot for November 4th, even though Arizona residents voted on, and rejected, this issue just two short years ago.

This time around, the “Yes On 102” campaign has a huge budget to spread their message. Their billboards, signs, and radio/television ads are everywhere right now. It’s easy to let that make us feel invisible, marginalized, hopeless….but now, more than ever; we cannot afford to let that happen.

Consider this a call to action! We want to counter those images and messages of divisiveness, exclusion and prejudice with images of inclusion, equality and acceptance.

If you live in Arizona take a picture of you in front of your “No on 102’ lawn sign, print a sign for your car window and take a picture of that, or stand in front of one of the “Yes” signs holding your own handmade sign that shows your support of equality and your desire to defeat this proposition. Kiss, hug, hold hands, flash a big peace sign…whatever you’re inspired to do.*

If you live elsewhere in the country, but want to show your support, make a sign of your own celebrating acceptance, equality, love.  Involve your children, neighbors – heck, get your pets in the mix too - just make sure to write “No On 102” somewhere on the sign!

Margaret Mead said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

To that we add, never underestimate the power of a simple photograph. Our pictures, taken from the heart, often speak louder than our voices ever could. Collectively we believe these images will carry our message of equality forward and outward – spreading a wave of positive energy that will help us defeat this proposition once and for all.

*Just keep it legal folks – nothing obscene or vulgar, and definitely nothing against the law – no graffiti or defacement, keep it positive!

Please blog about us, link to us, send our information to your friends and family.  Consider making a sign or taking a pic and uploading it to our flickr group or email it to noon102@gmail.com.  Add us as your friend on Myspace (and make us your top friend until the election) or join our group on facebook. Check out our ‘Get Involved’ page for more ways to help, and make a donation to help us fight against this proposition.  Every little bit helps.

Our Blog

Our Myspace

Our Facebook

Our Flickr

I shared this video and the lyrics to this Missy Higgins song once before. Since the beginning of my awakenings this song has spoken directly to my experience on every possible level, and this new video makes my connection to the song even more poignant – especially considering my post from last night.

There’s an ache that never leaves me, the tears spill over now without warning. Driving down the freeway, lying between cool white sheets in bed at night, standing at the sink staring into space while scrubbing dried oatmeal off of abandoned breakfast dishes… the mindlessness of the activity allows the vortex of my memories to begin that perilous spin. I imagine that if tears could carve a path, there would be well worn furrows down my cheeks by now; rivers and streams and tributaries born of loss and regret. I cannot stop thinking of what was and what can never be again, not because I wish to go backwards, but because I must grieve for what had to be lost along the way.

In the past year I have begun the process of stepping fully into myself, of accepting who I am, of embracing myself and my truth. There was a tendency, in the beginning, to think that this negated all that came before. My recent journey has been all about understanding that my past – the woman that I was and the life that I led – was no less me. My life till that point was no less valid or authentic or right – it was just not the complete story. Who I am now does not eclipse who I used to be – this life no more legitimate than that one. The fact that this is so very right does not need to make all that came before wrong. I do not need to view my life with a harsh divide separating my before and my after. Indeed these are just different parts of the very same journey, MY journey.

It is clear to me that this part of my path is as much about looking back as it is about looking forward. I mourn deeply the loss of my past, my husband and best friend, my intact and happy family. I need to give myself permission to do this, and I need to learn to do it in a way that does not detract from moving forward into a future with my love, with our children, toward a level of independence and personal growth that has little to do with sexuality and everything to do with owning my experience and creating a fully authentic life.

Yes, I am sad right now. It is not a sadness that leads to the sort of dramatic breakdowns that have been all too frequent over the past year. It’s not about guilt or fear or denial or breathless sobbing and raging into the night. It is a quiet, deep, seemingly bottomless sadness. It is a sadness that lives in the memories of happier days, of the loss of the part of my heart that will always belong to him, of the disappearance of a planned future and a life mapped out together. It is realizing that the joy of beginning this life does not have the power to wipe out the grief of losing that life, and of knowing that there is nothing that can be done but let this sadness fall down on me, and cloak me in its shadows.

It is the sadness of acceptance, and I somehow think that it might be the hardest to bear.

What do you do with the pictures? What happens to eleven years of snapshots and cheesy portrait studio enlargements, wedding albums and vacation pictures? Horrid Walmart engagement photos that stand as a forever reminder of a very bad hair day, murky underwater snorkeling shots of unidentified fish in Hawaii, precious photos of the first moments of parenthood?

What do you do with the shriveled balloons he bought you on your first valentines day, the souvenirs from your trip to NYC in the spring of 1999, with the birthday cards filled with sappy handwritten notes? How do you split up a decades worth of personalized Christmas tree ornaments, carefully chosen during a holiday shopping trip each year - even the pets’ names carefully added in with permanent marker. Who gets the home videos - hours upon hours beginning with teary eyed ‘I do’s’ and extending through first breaths and birthday parties and wobbly steps and Christmas mornings?

Who keeps the locks of hair lovingly saved from the first hair cut? How can you divide the stick figure drawing of your family of four, proudly rendered at preschool in bright crayola marker? What about wedding rings engraved with words of forever and partially filled in baby books and anniversary gifts and ticket stubs and random shoeboxes full of 11 years worth of collected nostalgia?

When you are faced with separating two lives that have been wholly intertwined for so long you discover that you are surrounded by representations of that relationship, both concrete and symbolic. Your house is filled with a million symbols of the bonds, of the happy times when anything seemed possible, of the family you built and the history you shared and the plans you made.

When all is said and done, and it all comes down to the final weeks of living under the same roof, those mementos are all that remain of both dream and reality. Keepsakes of a life that no longer exists, they are both more priceless and more meaningless than you ever thought possible.

And the final question lingers…what on earth do you do with the memories?

Lets be real…I’ve got no business being in a relationship right now.

Not now, when I feel broken on so many levels, more fragile and uncertain than ever before. I am struggling to rebuild my life, to create myself anew in a world where nothing looks the same. As the debris of my former life settle around me I must salvage some sense of myself from the fragments that remain of what once was, working up the courage to lift my eyes from the wreckage and move forward into the unknown of what will be.

I’ve got numerous holes to patch – love, friendship, and pure kick-ass determination being the mortar and putty of choice. I’m trying to shore up the weak sections of my spirit and heart so they can hold up to the inevitable struggles yet to come. I’m even choosing to leave some of the holes and cracks as they are, because I have learned along the way that sometimes remaining exposed and vulnerable is the only way I will ever encounter the truest and strongest parts of myself, and the only way to be sure I recognize and accept the gifts the universe sends my way.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
~Leonard Cohen

But I’m not doing any of this alone. Of course there are the beautiful spirits who swim in and out of my life; acting as friend, life-jacket, spiritual guide, babysitter, cookie-baker, muse, lighthouse, therapist and butt-kicking drill sergent as they are needed and as they are able. Without them, I don’t know where I’d be. But for the past five months there has also one constant presence in my days, in my thoughts, and deep in my heart. There is her.

The last time I built a love relationship I was 21, a young, optimistic and incredibly naive young woman just out of college. It was hard enough then; it always a challenge to connect yourself to another, to negotiate the complexities of together-life you hope to create. But eleven years ago I knew just a small part of myself and understood even less. Hindsight allows me to see that joining yourself to another is infinitely easier when you have barely begun to plumb the depths of the woman you will one day become.

There has been more than a decade of love and loss, of growth and change since S. decided to build a life together, and one year since we began the process of untangling and dismantling that life. I have faced myself, acknowledged my deepest needs and done my share of shadow-dwelling. And now I am building a new relationship, all this behind me, and so much yet to come. I have spent a year wading through the muck and mire of gain and loss and exhilaration and heartache, facing daily the impact of what I have done, living with the relentless onslaught of my guilt, his anger, their confusion, trying to not just survive but to ultimately thrive on this journey into fully formed woman…this all makes for an entirely different level of challenge.

Building a relationship in this space, where nothing is certain, where everything - the life I left behind and the life I am trying hard to envision and manifest – is raw and vulnerable and so damn shaky, when I struggle to maintain my faith in even the smallest things…it sometimes feels impossibly difficult. Back then I held, as so many of us do in the beginnings, a beautifully naive view of promises and commitment and forever. I had a simple, unwavering faith that love would always be enough. There was no way to predict that things would change to the extent no amount of love could have ever been sufficient.

Now I struggle to reach inside and find enough trust to carry me through the moment and into the future. I have to continually remind myself to release my worries and fears, to be true to myself and my needs, to honor my spirit and path and to do the same for her. I have to learn not just the beauty of compromise but also the necessity of not compromising my true self in the process, nor expecting that of her- so that we can create something real and lasting and true. I have to do all this when sometimes getting through the day without breaking down into tears and panic and gasping for breath while doubled over on the bathroom floor requires more strength than I can muster…hell yeah, it’s hard.

I know, with absolute conviction, that this whirlwind that has caught me and spun me into beautiful oblivion for the past five months has kept me from doing the vital self work that should have been my sole domain. This arching, spiraling, expansive force has distracted me from the focus that should have been placed on my children, from finding some sort of peaceful and respectful closure for my relationship with S., from doing the work, equally monotonous and terrifying to me, that is necessary to push forward. All these things would have, in so many ways, been easier, clearer, faster, smoother had she not entered my life.

But she came, and she’s here and there’s no way around that. She eased her way into my life, and my heart, so quickly that I know - on a level that transcends all logic - that we’ve known and loved one another before. It was immediate and unquestionable, so fast, so deep, so profound that from the first moment she touched me I was forever changed, and what you do with a love like that that but let it take you where it will?

Early on we both voiced nearly identical feelings that there was no choice, but instead a shared sense of a force beyond ourselves, of the inevitability of our togetherness, of an ability to feel one another regardless of time, space or distance. Our connection is soul-deep, infinite and fiercely real, I’d no more chance losing her than I would risk losing myself into half-existence again.

We are different, she and I, incredibly so. I wonder how we can make those differences mesh into the life we want to create together. And, with the cynicism of a girl who has watched her choices lead to the disintegration of a family, I wonder IF we can. I wonder why on earth she would want to stick with me right now, when I spend so much of the time an utter and complete emotional wreck*. I want to be independent and strong and accomplished for her, and right now I feel anything but. I question how to find necessary balance so that I can juggle all that needs to be juggled, without short-changing her and our future together.

But there are times when lose my grasp on the basic faith in what is and instead allow myself fall into the trap of doubt and worry about what might be. I forget to focus on that intangible and inexplicable connection that flows between us, and want to attach myself to some sort of non-existent guarantee. I give myself mental permission to sink into questioning and worrying and stressing about logistics and ‘what-if-might-not-how-can-i-possibly-trust-this? - pure crazy-making thoughts. I magnify our differences and distort them – fun house mirror style – until I create imaginary expanses between us. And then my self-protective mechanisms kick in (those developed over a lifetime of keeping myself safe by keeping others at a distance) and I begin to pull away, to shut her out. Self protective yes, but also self-defeating, because distance between us is the last thing I ever want.

Our love has been easy from the start, but our relationship has had challenges and roadblocks and stresses that ago far beyond what most people deal with in their first year as a couple. There have been fights, and tears, and hurt feelings, intense discussions into the wee hours of the morning as we attempt to navigate through this incredible complex situation. We have had to work, and work hard at times, to remain on solid ground, and it has required a level of commitment and faith that I don’t imagine normally exist at this phase of most relationships. In this way, our challenges also become our strength.

Yes, some things would have been easier had I not randomly connected with her that night back in February; if I had been sensible and stuck with my plan of staying away from relationships, if it has been possible to talk myself out of the feelings, deny the connection and kept myself separate from her. Yes indeed, some things would have been easier, but some things would have been infinitely harder and some of would have been damn near impossible.

Bottom line, we don’t get to choose when love finds us, our only responsibility to the universe is to open our hearts to receive it and to do our utmost to honor it for the gift that it is. Even when the timing is all off, even if the challenges of life would seem to suggest that the wisest choice would be to go it alone, even when the work of the relationship pulls focus from other things that need attention.

Without promises or guarantees or commitments, I know that what is between us is precious and needs to be nurtured and cherished and received with gratitude. Yes, from the outside it’s probably pretty clear that I don’t belong in a relationship, but from the inside it’s perfectly clear that, right now, in this moment, I do belong with her. I wouldn’t change a thing.

________________________________________________________

*(true story, dear readers, not a word of exaggeration, I’m a wee bit of a mess)