11262012

last night. i sat on the floor. my back straight against the wall. and i read virginia woolf and sipped warm tea with honey. what calm inside those moments! what life! what joy! minutes passed... and then hours... and soon, the hour was late, and the moon was blazing outside. but i? i was inside. inside a world that swallowed me whole. inside a world that started as someone else's, but continued as my own. the words walked through me, as though they were phantoms. they found a resting spot inside me... and became mine. 

Lazy and indifferent, shaking space easily from his wings, knowing his way, the heron passes over the church beneath the sky. White and distant, absorbed in itself, endlessly the sky covers and uncovers, moves and remains. A lake? Blot the shores of it out! A mountain? Oh, perfect–the sun gold on its slopes. Down that falls. Ferns then, or white feathers, for ever and ever–

now. it's monday morning. a new day. a new week. but i am in no rush. no stones hurled from the bank disturb this quiet pond's equilibrium. 

i am here. 

and i am breath. 

and i am life.

unconditionally.

11242012

for the love of memory
for the love of genius
for the love of queen





rest in peace, freddie
11241991

11192012

she said,

i am no longer afraid of anything.

i said,

but fear, my dear, is a necessity.

11142012

i came across this stunning photo of anaïs nin, last night. it took the wind out of my gut. maybe it’s her facial expression… so still… so serene… so self-assured. and yet, they called her a liar, a deceiver, a scheherazade, a witch, a seductress, a cheater, a shapeshifter, a histrionic. why? because she dared to create her own reality.

but, isn’t this what we all aspire to? to create for ourselves a reality that speaks to who we are… without mask… without veil? but the process is daunting. others enter the picture and inject their own fears and inhibitions… their own emotional turbulences… into our attempts at integration. and we allow them. but anaïs… she did not allow. she dared to write what others forbade themselves to think. she dared to do what others might have done… if only they could do so secretly. she dared to be criticized… tried… judged... sentenced. she dared… because to dare is to be free. she yearned to make her life her own, and she alchemized this yearning into reality. and, others? they hated her, not for who she was… but because she dared, and they did not.

sometimes, this is how it happens: we come across people we dislike… even hate… because we tell ourselves… convince ourselves… that we disapprove of what they do. most of the time, if we stop and give it a mindful thought, our feelings are not at all about disapproval. rather, our feelings are about admiration. they are about what we see… what we want, but can’t… or won’t… do what it takes to have. they are about those parts of ourselves that are imprisoned in the labyrinths of ambivalence… and trembling with resentment.

sometimes, we steal another’s truth because we tell ourselves we can’t construct our own.

sometimes, when we hate, we love.

11082012

she said,

last night i dreamed i bought a new house,

but when i went to unlock the door,

the key disappeared from my hand.

i said,

what was it like when
you looked at your hand

and realized the key was gone?

she said,

i felt so dejected. i really wanted

to be inside that house, my house.

so i looked through the peephole.

she paused.

do you know what you see when

you look through a peephole

in reverse? nothing. but this time,

i saw something. it was like looking

into a deep, dark hole. and at the end of

that hole was a broken window.

she laughed.

i said,

what’s funny?

she said,

you know what i wanted to do

with that broken window?

i wanted to fix it.

i said,

what about the key?

she said,

i was so distracted by

wanting to fix that broken window,

i never realized it was my key.