Poem Thursday - Frost

Acquainted with the Night

by Robert Frost

I have been one acquainted with the night.

I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.

I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.

I have passed by the watchman on his beat

And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet

When far away an interrupted cry

Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;

And further still at an unearthly height,

O luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.

I have been one acquainted with the night.

Poem Thursday - Potter

Some day I'm going to find poetry some place other than The Writer's Almanac. But not today.

You and I

by Jonathon Potter

You are a warm front

that moved in from the north,

a blind spot bearing beautiful gifts,

a garden in the air, a golden filament

inscribed with the name of God's hunting dog,

a magic heirloom mistaken for a feather duster,

a fountain in a cow pasture, an anachronistic anagram

annoyed by annonymity, a dollar in the pocket

of a winter coat in summer.

And I am the discoverer of you.

ten word tuesday - essentials

yoga

meditation

poetry

books

friends

silence

sleep

time

space

words

A Very Late Thank You

Nine days ago Sophia gave me The Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award and I am now just thanking here.

Which was not all that sweet of me. Huge apologies and a bigger thank you to her for thinking of me. She mentioned to me on Twitter a few days ago that we have been blog friends for a long time and through a total of four blogs between the two of us. Love that girl and so thankful for the award!

The rules for the award are:

1. Thank and link back to the person who gave you this award.

2. Share four guilty pleasures that you have.

3. Pass the award on to six other blogs.

Four guilty pleasures:

1. Glee

2. Buying fabric (I have a problem)

3. Sookie Stackhouse books

4. Starbucks Chai Lattes

6 Irresistibly Sweet Bloggers:

1. A Road With A View

2. Jenn at Juggling Life

3. Motherscribe

4. Random Thoughts of a City Mouse

5. Unlikely Oilfield Wife

6. Sweet Tea and Sunshine

The Beach

I can't really complain about much today. It's spring. The kids get out of school at noon. D8 has a birthday party to go to right after school. J12 and I will come home and start packing for the beach. When J gets home from work we'll hit the road. I-16 all the way to Savannah, north on I-95 for 40 miles, then west on some two lane road whose name/number I can't remember, headed to Charleston. That's my favorite part of the trip. Driving through the swampy lowlands, although it will be dark by the time we get there.

We skirt around Charleston, and head towards Surfside Beach, SC, where my mother-in-law's condo is. At this point in the trip there are times when you can see the ocean on the right ride side of the GPS, we're that close to the beach. Just to our right. We've made the trip so many times we don't need the GPS but we like to watch it count down the miles and minutes. Through my MIL's generosity this has become our second home.

My children are happy there. So am I. We have our favorite places to go to. Our favorite putt-putts (we play every day). Our favorite pools. Restaurants. Of course the beach.

We take almost nothing but flip-flops, shorts, swim suits and sweatshirts. We eat pizza, play putt-putt, go to the bookstore, talk about the things we'll do next time (always the same things -- play real golf, take the helicopter ride, go to the state park, kayak, bring our bikes).

The kids take all this happiness and contentment for granted. I'm glad that they do. I'm glad they can.

I used to play this game when J12 was younger. I would compare his life with the way my life was at his age. I would think about traumas I had experienced and that he had not. I would steel myself for the time when really bad things would start happening to him.

Taking my kids to the beach. Seeing them safe and happy and not knowing hell yet. There's not much more I want to give them. I know there's tough stuff coming. None of us avoid it. For the next couple of days everything will seem suspended.

That's enough for now.

Can't Even Cry

I'm lost. I think I'm looking though. No I know I am. Something's going on. I want to cry. But I can't. I actually almost did a few minutes ago.

My alarm goes off at 5 every morning. I wake up at 4:45 a.m. My body, my mind, is telling me to get the hell out of bed. I've been fighting and fighting and fighting. I got pretty low but I think the changing that is happening in me is stronger then the resistance. Finally.

I want to cry. I want to write. I do. I've been reading some incredibly honest, put-it-out-all-out-there bloggers lately and I kind of make myself sick for just bullshitting and doing this half-ass.

A lot is happening.

Sometimes, most of the time, I worry to much about what you will say or think. Especially if I know you.

I miss people and I feel so stuck. This can't possibly be my life. I can't possibly live here. I had the conversation with my husband where we said the words to each other "do you want to be here?" "do you want to stay?" "do you want this to last?"

So I get up at 5:00 to do yoga and meditate. This morning I get to the mat and I feel lost. I know what to do but I don't know what to do. I spend most of my time in child's pose. I keep coming back to it. I want to cry but I can't. I saw some of my yoga friends Sunday night and I felt them slipping away. Maybe not slipping away. I felt the time that had passed between graduation and Sunday. The month that had passed, the places we had been without each other. The people we had seen, the things we had done. I don't know. Maybe that's just my usual shutting down, pulling away, giving up.

They are so far away -- 90 minutes. I am so here. With my job, my kids, my marriage, my house. I can't get to them. Every time I talk to them something comes up that reminds me where I am.

So I spend most of my time in child's pose. Finally, I start to cry. But just the beginning, no tears come. I start to let go. I'm holding on so tight to this stuff, whatever it is. But for just a second, just a moment, I start to let go.

Yesterday after meditation in the morning, I laid down, in a fetal position, and I felt a little safe and a little warm. And I guess that's the beginning. I guess that's what I'm coming to this mat for. To go deeper and deeper and deeper and pull all that shit out and look at it and let it go and move on. I don't know how and I know how. I'm lost and I'm found. I'm beautiful and about as fucking ugly as can be.  I'm a little bit dead and completely alive.

a flower

I'm kind of drowning. Not keeping up.

So this viola grew in the front steps again this year. Well, it's a different one then last year, but it's happened two years in a row. Makes me happy. Every time I come in the house it's there reminding me. If it can grow in an impossible place at an impossible time, maybe I can too.

Blog Much? Well, No, Not Lately I Don't

Oh good grief. No, I haven't been posting. I meant to. Really I did.

I've been busy. Yeah, haven't we all? I'm still in post-yoga-teacher-training sadness. Apparently it lasts awhile.

I'm scared. Yep. Try to be shocked. I think at the very core of me where they say all the goodness and happiness resides (I don't know who, somebody out there is saying it right now, trust me) there is really just a little lump of fear and sadness.

I've posted before (and I'm not looking it up, it's probably been deleted anyways) about how I didn't think people can change (specifically me). Well, yoga has pretty much shot that idea to hell.

I now believe in change. Cue the sunshine and dancing flowers.

I have changed, I am changing, I will continue to change.

Or I am just rediscovering my true self or whatever (yes, there are people out there, right now, also saying that).

Tomato, Tomahto I say.

Whatever it is it's sluggish and slow and hard and something feels like it's trying it's damnedest to pull me the hell backwards. It's making me tired.

It's weird. Because I feel happy. Good. Positive and then all of a sudden scared wanting to hide from everybody and run away. I'm so good at that -- running and hiding.

I really want to do that right now.

I'm not. I'm staying. Trying to sit still. Shut up. Just be here. But I don't like it. Not at this moment. Not one little bit.