what is real (january 10)

this is the face of a woman who has been given permission to close the notebook that houses almost every feeding from her child's birth until this morning. (seven months of keeping data.)

as she heals and her body lives with all that is, i am pressing and sewing and taping and gluing hope and light and truth and letting go and love and forgiveness into all the cracks.

("what is real" is a series of photos i began taking in july of 2010. read a bit more about this series here. see more photos from this series over on flickr here.)

what i need

tonight, everyone is asleep. the house seems quiet but i can hear millie snoring, the ocean sound machine keeping the beana lulled into rest, joshua radin serenading me so i do not feel alone, my fingers move move moving to share these words, my body's rhythm through my breath inhale exhale repeat repeat.

there is so much i want to tell you. so many stories that have been shuffling about inside me, for months or is it years. stories that are stacking up and now have begun to spill over. i am feeling moved, perhaps pushed, to share them here...tonight, i begin with a moment from last week.

friday, i wrote these words in an email:
one foot in the dark.
one foot in the light.
trying to give myself permission to own what i already know...
now i try to navigate trusting it all.
(i think i need a boat.)

moments later, i sat in this same spot i sit now while the beana slept and said aloud: i need to make myself a boat.

and with that i found myself grabbing an old wool sweater, tying a shawl around me, sliding on handwarmers, and gathering all that i needed to set up the table on the back porch so i could paint a huge canvas that had been leaning against a wall in our family room for about four months.

i pasted vintage paper and a map and other things to that canvas, piled on layers of gel medium, and took a pencil and wrote a letter asking for what i needed in that moment.

please

trust

only love

resting inside

hope

resting inside
love 

these words aligned with many others. choose, let go, live... line after line. and then i painted over all of it with a color i mixed until i found seaglass. 

as i mixed that paint, i just kept talking to the universe. i give you this because i can no longer carry it. i choose hope. i choose rest for just this breath.

and then the boat i needed appeared. just a silly little boat with a simple passenger watching the world, navigating it with her wide open eyes, seeking, searching, hoping.

while my little one napped, i found my way to remembering what i know. i let go of the chatter that rolls around inside me to remember the joy waiting for me when i give myself what i most need. when i give myself the gift of seeing me.

i think i need a boat, i said.

yes.

yes.

yes.

and now, as joshua radin sings and the ocean rolls and my foot tap tap taps, in this moment, just before i stand up and dance inside this truth, i let go of holding it all, and i choose to trust for this breath, then the next, repeat repeat repeat.

in this moment {i am}

 

in this moment, i am

trying to find my way

handing over the fears to the candle burning on my altar

hoping you understand

wishing for a tiny shift

believing in the story that whispers inside me

letting go of your words

holding onto the sound of laughter

dusting off the truth

choosing faith

knowing some things might always have to just be what they are

standing tall in the light and the darkness

seeking the nurturing my heart needs

catching the stories that swirl in the air

building myself a boat to navigate all of it

the view from here

this girl, she...

this girl, she struggles with holding it all up. (most days, she feels invited to hold it (all of it) together.) she feels invited to hold it all together when most days she is just trying to hold onto the pieces of her heart. 

this girl, she tries to hold her heart together, but as she goes about all that she must do, she wonders. 

she wonders what it might be like to let go. she wonders what it might be like to let go and loosen the grip on what is supposed to be. to loosen her insistent hold on what was supposed to be. to let go of the holding it all (holding her heart) together.

today, this girl, she takes a breath and walks outside. she walks outside and holds her heart and seeks.

she turns her face toward the sun with her cracked open in pieces but holding on heart inside her, and she stands in the light.

she stands in her light, and she listens.

this girl, she stands in the quiet just long enough to hear her own truth whispering inside her.

the beana and the book.

last night, the beana and i took a trip to barnes and noble.

and the book, the book that i wrote, was on a shelf. in barnes and noble. (right there behind the book by emily martin. the black apple. wow!)

i held up inner excavation and explained how this book is about looking at where we have been, where we stand on our paths, and where we want our next steps to take us.

i explained that it is about healing and remembering our younger selves and joy.

i explained that it invites people to find the poet waiting inside them and to dance inside photographs and to get messy with paint and paper and colors.

i explained that some amazing women share themselves in this book.

i explained that mama wrote it.

and, she basically rolled her eyes.

it was awesome.

this girl, she...

this girl, she sees all the other girls with their knee-high boots worn with skirts and skinny jeans and their oh my goodness how they make autumn look sexy looks. this girl, she wants a piece of that. a tiny piece is all she thinks she needs. but this girl, she is curvy and living inside a body that once held another body with the long not at all straight scar to prove it, and this girl is not feeling anywhere near sexy. no. this girl is a girl with legs that hold up her curvy self (that hold up this world some days). so this girl has known that these legs, her legs, will not find their way inside a pair of making autumn look a bit sexy, knee-high boots.

this girl is (sometimes) sitting inside wishing instead of being.

not today.

today, this girl wears these boots. these knee-high worn with a twirly dress boots.

yes.

today, she dances in her curvy body and lets go of the need to hold it all up. she lets go of the need to wish for someone other than herself.

today, this girl twirls inside the truth of who she is becoming.

::home::

 

ellie plays at home. yes. home. 

due to ellie jane's amazing superpower of healing, we have been home for 24 hours.

just like that.

(we expected to be at the hospital for at least a week.) 

thank you for surrounding us with light, love, support, notes, and prayers. we are so very grateful. this experience has me believing that love always wins, no matter what happens. yes. yes. yes.

let the healing continue...