Burdens and Games

Friends are everything. why? need I say? 

I love the term "wing-man" or "wing-woman". As if we ourselves are only one half of what it takes to fly. A second, third, fourth wing is vital. Take offs are tricky.

One can never have too many friends; too many wings. Freedom is freedom. A wing for a wing leaves the whole world soaring. Yet, at this point I have a select few that provide just enough wing span to outstretch. Depth is important too when considering people to be your wings. It's nice to feel someone substantial there balancing you when you throw yourself against the wind. 

I suppose that friends are my life line. Is it this way for everyone? I am an only child. I feel bottled up at times, a captive of my own mind. Without friends I am swimming in shallow waters consumed with my own trajectories. It's possible to drown in the shallows. Best to bring a friend and venture to the deep end. Sharing risks is fun. Not many of us enjoy risking things alone without someone around to hear about it.

I was a serious child growing up. I used to pretend like I was an adult woman. I wore my mother's heals. I wrote out checks. Payed my bills. Drove to work in a lavender plastic car. I made a family. I was busy. 

I had no time for games in my games. There were things to do and places to be. It was just me most of the time, too. No one to depend on. No one to bounce off of. Some stuffed hushpuppies and bears played my wing-men. A doll, my husband. Friends were around when my mother arranged play-dates. Mostly I had to keep things to myself if I was going to be taken seriously. It wasn't easy to share pretend responsibilities. Those had to be my burden. 

I am a serious adult. I am 26. The game of life is real now. I have less responsibilities than I did as a child. I don't have a family or a husband. However, life keeps me busy and my little burdens keep me guessing. I guess about my future. I make estimations, really. They're open ended. Like, when will I succeed? Will I have a family of my own? When will I have a substantial amount of money? How do I become my greatest self? It's easy to get too serious about my life. I long for the pretend checkbook I made out of newspaper and scotch tape. Or all the funny money I stuffed in my purses and forgot all about. Instead I've settled down. I write real bills with my real Wells Fargo's checkbook. My mother's heals are my own. I am not pretending anymore. The jig is up. 

I saw two of my closest friends today, and I was reminded of the extraordinary goodness that comes from sharing in burdens and in games. Laughter swells our conversations, which seem never ending. A tri-pod, the three of us belong together. Warm chinese soup, hot and sour. Rain pelting from the sky outside. The tri-pod wearing bulky sweaters talking about lovers and discoveries. I feel like time never passed since we left off. We're right back at it. The game is happiness. A sensation like, "i'm not in this alone" sets in. We're relieved at times during our visit that the others have felt the same before. My friends are animated. I am comfortable. I am myself. Stuffed hushpuppies once sat as witnesses on my bedspread while I tagged them into my games. Now silenced witnesses are fast replaced by friends making statements, making noise, challenging my perfect world. Suddenly I am in awe. I always told myself I would learn to let people in. I'll keep telling myself until I get it. I realize the necessity of contact. Why lovers love. Why friends friend. Why teachers teach. Why life gets living. Maybe we're not meant to go at it alone. 

One of my friends had her wallet stolen and her car broken into. The other of my friends had no cash on hand. I treated food, gas, and transportation for all of us. Burdens come down sometimes totally unwarranted. As my life propels me into the new year, I am met with numerous burdens I warranted. I am prepared to work harder and work smarter in 2015. I am preparing to manage my money better. I began working with a new company. Dark circles sometimes appear under my eyes unannounced. I could be burning the candle at both ends. I could shut out my friends during this time of great triumph. I could take a stab at life alone. Let her wallet go missing and keep my funny money tucked away in my purse. Let his bus go by without giving him fare. Feed myself and be fat. Choose the silence of a hushpuppy witness over the noise and the new burdens. Except that's not real. I am not pretending anymore. The jig is up. 

There is something unspoken written somewhere about love. It says that love is simple rather than complex. It says that nothing in life matters more than friendship. It says the reason I've worked so hard is to provide for others, in the games I play and in the burdens I face. It says, i'm not in this alone. It defies selfish patterns for which I often fall pray. It asks the tough questions. It makes noise. It's not perfect. It means, friends are everything. 

            

      

   

Girl Made of Wood

The girl made of wood didn't come here on foot;

suddenly there she was on the beach, sitting on the cobbles,

her head covered with old sea flowers,

her expression the sadness of roots.

There she stayed, watching over our open lives.

the morning and being and going and coming, over the earth,

as the day faded its gradual petals. She watched

over us without seeing us, the girl made of wood:

crowned by ancient waves, she looked out

through her shipwrecked eyes.

She knew we live in a distant net

of time and water and waves and noise and rain

without knowing if we exist, or if we are her dream.

This is the story of the girl made of wood.

- Pablo Neruda, Mascaron de Proa (Figurehead of a Ship) 

model, Maeve O'Sullivan - Photography by, Kaley Isabella - Painting by, Paul Scofield  

 A sacrifice was made; women in the long line of fire. Women have stood out; given arms they did not fashion, to defend themselves against languages they were never meant to speak. Men stood with fire; in reverence, in opposition, in lust. In actuality, women stand alone; framed by their own unspoken irrefutable justice: Her sustained myth.

Myth exists in sustained time carried forward through multiple dimensions. Myth touches all who cross it, and the wisdoms translate speakable and unspeakable, tangible and intangible patterns. Myths are not human but told by human. Myths like ocean currents; impossible to trace an origin impossible to contain. I am certain myths are pillars, which stand to hold us up in awe of what is possible.

Joseph Campbell once said, "Myths are clues to the spiritual potentialities of the human life".

Let's bring our attention to spirit, as we navigate our quests and frame our legacies.

Self portrait; New York City, NY -  2014

Why?

Fortunate for us, we find myths in real time. I have often entertained the idea that the diseases humans "battle" are myths in real time, or the 'clues to spiritual potentialities'. The humans I know who "battle" diseases are heros among us, and not all of them are battling all the time.  

My grandmother's has Alzheimer's disease.  Her disease has caused her to loose her short term memory and some of her long term memories. However, she knows me, giving me a great deal of warmth and affection when we are together, yet she doesn't know my name, my work, or how I came to be in her life. She is in, as my father calls it, an eternal present moment. Her face has changed. She is child like. She adores her dolls and stuffed bears. She doesn't resist reality or fight with anyone. She seems to glide through her days in momentary aliveness. On Friday she asked me for my name. I met my grandmother for the first time on Friday, and watch her politely greet the young lady i've been busy becoming. She is the only person I know who is deeply optimistic and curious, learning everything for the first time at 86 years old. 

My grandmother; a girl made of wood. 

Figurehead of a ship: 

...she looked out

through her shipwrecked eyes.

without knowing if we exist, 

or if we are her dream...

I watched the documentary Maidentrip about a fourteen year old girl who sails the world for two years in attempt to set the record as the youngest person to sail around the world alone. There was a point when hours turned into days, days into months, and months into timelessness surrounded by ocean. Without land it's clear that time or reality has no end and no beginning. How is it that dream and reality are so interchangeable? What does disease teach us about the capacity for humans to transcend the physical and meet with reality through another channel? What does it mean to be a living myth? To stand independent of reality as a pillar of potential...

 everything.

Folding

folding unto races. 

I cannot whisper now

breathless stampede  

I am under water

peripheral gates at any angle 

set sail to billowed sheets

folding unto races

five brothers pull the seal 

loaded deception 
folding brothers unto brothers

above soot taps black umbrella faces

below steal cut oats cut bellies for the needy

plunging swollen hunger games  

another typhoon is set to hit the Philippines.

no one runs

the island is praying; people surf the faith  

Tending

Tending. 

Basil flowers in December despite winter’s glacial swell.

A testimonial she audaciously tills.

Seasons rearrange themselves

one man turns left into a thicket, while the other men cross at the road.

one woman reads Camus on a bus after sundown. Her hair is sweaty; eyes heavy. 

one child cries; the courtyard cries. No one is there to hear. They’ve all gone to work.

I am the only witness; and I am invisible.

Full moon and I am upside-down. 

I lit a candle I will only see; still men peer in through holes in the walls.

I can feel their forever justice.

A thousand sorries spoken by mouths of plump lipped angels; their heads slung like rubber bands.

To devils in disguise who douse themselves in bourbon and light matches to the sky.

Fire once. Fire twice. Fire your mouths off at once! 

Talking once. Talking twice. A silent lullaby of lies. 

Sitting in gardens of Juniper and sage wet by years of rain. 

I wonder where the man once went walking into the thicket there

I wonder if he even wept for the children and the bread

missing out on tea. missing out on justice. 

He left it all to Juniper, and years wet by rain.  

Tending.

Cactus flowers in July unfurling hot tin heat. 

A testimonial she audaciously tills.

I am the only witness; and I am invisible.