Category: experiences

I have cancer. Assistance needed, and love gratefully accepted.

It’s really hit me:

I HAVE CANCER.

I woke to a dream that my cancer had spread to all parts of my body, and the doctors were conversing about what to do – meanwhile, I had been given, somehow, responsibility for tending to Amanda Palmer’s chest of pre-marriage items and I didn’t know what to do about them, either.

I interpret it all as:

I have cancer and I’m scared AF and I have so many important, artistic things to do –

And I have CANCER.

Yes, it’s thyroid cancer –

But, in case you haven’t done the research (and why would anyone unless you or someone you loved had it?), DOCTORS call it “the good cancer” because it’s easy for them to cut a bunch of things out and give you a radioactive (YES, like NUCLEAR!!) iodine that kills all of the thyroid cells and then they give more medicines…

But what about those of us (and there seem to be LOTS) who are super-sensitive to chemicals or who just don’t respond as they want us to respond to their inadequate, relatively-new thyroid replacement medications?

My life will be stolen from me, killed by medications.

I’m looking for an alternative. I need help – be it money for alternatives or information or money so I can look for information and alternatives.

In case you didn’t get it: I have cancer. And i have cancer after having been abused by my husband and my my son for twenty years.

I thought I was free – and instead, I have cancer.

I want to write books and help people with nonprofits. I want to love and travel and sail and share beautiful things with everyone —

But, instead?

I have cancer.

I’ll be 46 two days before Halloween 2020

And I have cancer.

If you can spare anything, please, please, please help. Share, like, share again, please.

Thank you for sharing this, liking it, for reaching out and loving me.

Thank you for your little donations or your big ones.

Thank you for your information

And thank you for reading.

I love you, truly – because most of what I am is love.

Please make donations to:

www.facebook.com/100001483248089/posts/3500259856700088/

Unsplintered

Eventually, you’ll know that I wrote this for you – though I’m publishing it because I’m not the only one in the world who needs, who deserves, who craves to be inspired by, reminded of, enlightened by an example such as you.

I just asked you the hardest questions ever about our budding relationship. I stated the hardest truths – unique to us, but not unique; and they may very well be the hardest truths we ever face.

It’s the second time today we’ve struggled through strong, heavy, deep emotions. Trudging through tidal waves in old rivers that promise to pull us under if we lose hold of each other, if we fail to keep aware, I led us this morning and again this evening.

It would be easier, of course, to slip into something comfortable and let the tide carry us away, swept on the surface of our emotions without ever diving beneath the rippling waves.

I’m not like that, though.

I don’t trust the way others live their romances, ignoring life and living, believing only what’s above the surface, pretending nothing exists beneath; then lying about where they’ve been when they delve into depths with other friends or lovers – or by themselves.

I’ve tried to lead men in this way before.

Countless times (very literally), I’ve been accused harshly for speaking the truth. Countless times, I’ve been hammered down for fearing, for feeling, for expressing my anxieties, my heartfelt wishes, my anguish-strained memories.

I was alone when you found me, this time, for a reason:

It never worked, before. I’ve countlessly been abandoned. I’ve endlessly been blamed, misunderstood, rejected.

It’s a lot, I know. Where once I was silent, afraid to speak a word about the rippling of my heart, reigned in the tidal waves of fears and tears and love and dreams because I was used to being beaten, I speak it all, given liberty to do so. I ask, still, rather than presuming. It speaks highly of… everything.

Not that any of that matters, now.

What matters is that you looked at your life, at our love, at the difficulties that lay ahead of us and, rather than hiding anymore, rather than accepting what is untenable, rather than asking that I accept something equally or more untenable, you took the lead.

You don’t know how proud I am of you for this, for what you did for me. For us. For you.

And you let me give this to you.

This, also, speaks highly of everything.

I know it’s not easy to face your truths. I know it’s not easy to change one’s life, to walk out into the unknown.

But you did it. You took that first step.

I’m so proud of you. As hard as it is, as deep as this hurts, I’m so proud of you for accepting responsibility for your life. For not evading anymore. For accepting yourself.

You’re not splintered anymore.

Splintered by Aisha Badru

They never taught us how to love
So we use our pain
To comfort us
And we never practice what we preach
Instead, we find
Someone else to teach

We try not to see with our eyes
We fill our plates
With dozens of lies
We try so hard to keep it in
We turn away
From what lies within

We are splintered
And we are rotten
Deep within the walls that we've forgotten
All the answers
To all our problems
Lie within the one who tries to dodge them

Ooooh, ooooh
Ooooh, ooooh

We're so afraid to be alone
So we hoard our pain
And call it home
They never taught us how to look inside
Only how to run and how to dry our eyes

We dig ourselves into a ditch
How many of us die
And pretend to live?
We stop the life from leakin' in
When we turn away
From what lies within

We are splintered
And we are rotten
Deep within the walls that we've forgotten
All the answers
To all our problems
Lie within the one who tries to dodge them

We are splintered
And we are rotten
Deep under the floorboards we've forgotten
But all the answers
To all our problems
Lie within the one who tries to dodge them

Ooooh, ooooh
Ooooh, ooooh

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Aisha Badru

Tumultuous Vibrance

Nothing grand was ever so achieved by waiting patiently, nor ever found its fulness in life completed alone.

Tumultuous vibrance is not the easiest way to live, but unruffled waters will never carry one to any destination.  This is what I’ve learned of sailing, of life, of love.

The flood of my emotions has caught up with me, bringing one upon another man to me: men I have loved before, for whom my heart will never cease to beat, of whom my memories never fade; and this, as yet another silent shism slices through me, brought again by my own actions, by the need to show in actions what lies silently beneath.

Because words can only reach so far, n’est pas?  Words sate only so much need.  And, in truth, the pursuit of happiness is a noble endeavor reachable only by daily effort, assessment and reassessment, by the integrity of words and deeds… not by waiting for something to someday slip upon your shores.

Nothing grand was ever achieved by waiting patiently, nor ever found its fulness in life completed alone.

An Open Letter to a Nigerian CatFisher

I’ve been thinking of you, this morning.

Since the day I found out you weren’t real, when I looked into the real doctor, I’ve been thinking of how to write to you – to the real you.

Underneath it all, there’s a real you. I’m sure I touched upon it – with my poetry, with my writing.

So, I’m writing to the real you, this time — although, truth be told, I was writing to the real you, all the time.

Though you weren’t you.

Except in your responses to me; in your responses to my poetry.

“Charmed by your writing,” you wrote to me. That, I believe.

So, here I am, writing to you — to the human in you.

I told you, that first day, that I was skeptical of you. My senses were accurate; you were deceiving me. I don’t know why.

I’m told, and there are ways to learn, to surmise what your purpose was. I’m just a humble writer; just a humble poetess. I’ve not money to give you; only time. Only my time, and my writing.

So, I’m writing to you — for myself, this time.

Let me be open with you, for I am open (and that, incidentally, is why you’ve not hurt me):

I love what is real… and it was the real in you that kept me intrigued, that suspended my time with you, that suspended my disbelief.

It will never make sense to me that people deceive — whatever the reason, be it for money, for love, for attention. I am too real, too honest, too guileless to want in my life anything but what is real…

Even if a sweet romance with some intriguing man is beautiful to me.

For better or for worse, reality is what draws me; and honesty is what gives me strength. For better or for worse, truth, not lies, captivate my mind; beg me to enter any relationship, for any reason, and hold me, bind me to anything.

Birdsong; wafting breezes; thundering planes roaring through the sky. Chills from cool mornings and the heat of the sun in warm afternoons beckon me to stay, to indulge, to brave all else that may call to me. Truthful conversations, real reactions: these things draw me from whatever else I may feel — and not because I wish for something to happen, but because something is happening. Something real is happening.

And I am not afraid of shifts in weather, of shifts in personality; but only, ever, does deceit eat away at such things, for deception is the death of anything.

So, I ask you this: Why deceive? Why continue a deceit, a ruse when it was clear that you had nothing to take from me, when I could give you nothing more than time, when so much of my writing was yours, already, to read?

It is curious to me, for it was you who was caught in a trap of reality… and I have certainly been accused — before, by others to whom I gave my reality — of spinning a web in which they became caught.

You thought yourself the spider, and I the fly; but truth shows a mirrored reality: that truth, not lies, not deceit binds people. And it is truth, reality, openness that keeps us, nourishes us, gives us life — and love.

I get tired of the secrets; they’re only good when they’re revealed, in any case.

I’m intriguing only because I’m real, open, honest, vulnerable; and my vulnerability keeps me safe because I choose to be vulnerable — but not unwisely so, not naively so.

Conscious vulnerability is the safest place in all the world… because in this act, alone, I can see best all that there is to see; because I can see others’ shields sparkling, and I can see where vulnerability remains. I can see it, and I choose to prod those spots gently… not to cause pain, as others might; but to give life, to encourage increased vulnerability — with me, if with no one else.

So, take from me this:

You have a choice to be real, to be vulnerable, as I have seen you to be. You have a choice to read and respond, or not to respond and remain in your dark secrets.

But I live in the freedom of life, and I can feel the breath of breezes touching me; while you and all of those who shield themselves — in others’ skins, as you tried with me, or behind the walls of their other fictions — feel only what slips beneath the seams of your various armors.

I am real. And that is honestly the most valuable thing I have… but you cannot have all of my reality, nor anyone’s (not even your own), if you do not remove your own armor first and step into your own reality.

I hope, for your own sake, that you abandon this fruitless cause that isolates you so deeply.

To All of You I’ve Loved and Lost

I studied everything you gave. I learned. I lived. I changed.

Darlings,

You may have broken my heart a hundred-thousand times.

You may have hurt me physically, hurt me mentally, hurt me emotionally.

You may have cut yourselves off from love, and cut me off in the process. Maybe you just cut me off.

Maybe I’m too much for you.

Maybe I’m too intense for you.

Maybe you didn’t know how to handle all the love I expressed to you.

Maybe I was wrong, and maybe I was right.

Maybe, sometimes, you just weren’t ready, you didn’t like something about me, you couldn’t put your finger on it but it just wasn’t right.

But certainly, I’ve changed because of all I’ve been through, all you – all of you – have put me through. I changed because I loved; and if you loved me enough, I’m certain that I changed for you.

But here’s the thing:

If you would love me enough, if you had talked to me enough, if you’d been brave enough to face your own heart and emotions and mind, if you’d been open enough to talk it out with me, tenacious enough to stick around…

We could have had something beautiful. Something amazing. Something wonderful, whether it lasted or not.

Instead… I studied everything you gave. I learned. I lived. I changed.

Because that is how I must live, so I don’t kill my feelings, so I don’t live forever and ever and ever in underscored, unspoken pain, trying to understand how this has happened again.

Love – whether mine or others’ – changes me. It changes me, because I feel.

So, when you’re not sure if you’re brave enough to love, or even just to accept my love; when you’re not sure if you can speak your heart and mind because you’re afraid to hurt me; when you go silent, dumbfounded by the enormity of me: Just be true to your feelings, and you can’t go wrong.

Or, to make it simpler: Just be true.

But, regardless of everything: I still love you because I still know how to.

P.S. My love belongs to me, until you’re willing to take it. Then, it’s ours, from me to you. I’ll never beg you back, but if you come back humbly, respectfully, it’s all still here, with me, waiting for you.

On the Tail of the Poetry Half-Marathon

Twelve hours and twelve poems, nine a.m. to nine p.m. on Saturday.  And that was just the half-marathon.

I knew it would be a challenge, emotionally and physically; I didn’t expect it to be what it was, nor to lead me to the freedom of my heart and mind that it has become.

With that much writing – and particularly with poetry – I had to tap into the things that were most pressing, which was (as usual) love and romance.  Normally, I write one or two poems at a time when things really get too much, release a bit of what’s bothering me – enough to be able to continue – and then forgive, forget, love again and stronger.

This time…

This time, it’s different.  Around hour four, I got mad.  Really mad, because I felt so very cut-off, so very misunderstood, so very neglected, so very taken for granted by those around me.  It’s one thing to be left alone to write, but to realize that no one is even checking up on you?  It’s like they don’t even understand how much emotional energy it takes to expose oneself so deeply, and to create something honest, open, truthful, beautiful, comprehensible with that raw emotional energy and self-awareness.

So, I got mad at my best friend – who understood “leave me alone so I can write” as “cut me out of existence for twelve hours”… and understood the opposite as “pester me whenever you have a thought”.  I was furious at the insensivity… so I let him know.  Then went back to my writing.

Today, in the aftermath, I woke up tired (just as the full-marathoners were finishing their last poems, around 8:30 a.m.), though I couldn’t sleep any more.  We had planned, my friend and I, to go to my favorite farmers market, held in Grant Park, Atlanta, every Sunday morning through the growing season; and then we were to meet with a friend from my freshman year of high school, whom I’ve not seen for twenty-some-odd years.

Coffee at the new donut shop in town proved amusing as a twenty-something year-old college student flirted mildly with me as we bought coffees, and then we were off to the farmers market and to wander around Atlanta until our meeting with my friend, which proved to be more intriguing for my best friend than for me, as he and my high school friend had more in common, more to relate to with each other than I had to relate, frankly, with either of them.

And, in the end, I realized the following:

I’m tired of caring what others think, have no longer have interest in “becoming someone” or “making money” or even in having my writing read – no matter how good it is.

Dusk is beautiful in Georgia, and I’m very lucky to have grown up in a small, quiet town north of Atlanta where the evenings are undisturbed, where I can sit on the front porch and contemplate the thunder and the billowing clouds beyond the pine trees.

And men, most men, will never understand me.

Photo ©2017 MLM

A Way Out

Nobody can make it “okay” except for you.

You’re struggling. I get it.  I’ve been there in so many ways, so many times, you wouldn’t believe it.

The only way out is you.

I’ve been penniless before.  I’ve starved three times in my adult life:  twice when I was pregnant with each of my kids.

I’m talking:

We daydreamed of what might be in the refrigerator,

we were so poor;

and that’s not even nearly the worst I’ve suffered through.

So, I get it.

But here’s the thing:

Find what you love,

not WHO you love.

Do what you love,

not WHO you love.

That solves everything.

Literally everything.

BE who you love;

That’s really the only step.

There’s just one. That’s it.

Your stories are, unfortunately, just a slow way for you to examine yourself until you can get to THAT TRUTH,

and, until you figure out THAT TRUTH, your stories are unfortunately just excuses.

I’m not dismissing you. I’m trying to help you.

But it is up to you to decide that you are committed to you.

Write.

Every single day.

You can use your computer, if you like.

Just use Notepad.

But write EVERY SINGLE DAY:

Write your stories;

Write them THERE.

Write about your frustrations.

Write about your dreams.

Write until you’re sick of hearing yourself write.

Write until you’re sick of complaining about the same old shit.

Write and write and write and write and write and write.

Something will break in you.

Don’t judge ANYTHING you think or feel.

Write it ALL there.

It’s your sacred place without judgement.

Let no one read it unless you feel like they are someone you feel you could die with:

I mean that very very literally.

Let no one read it unless you TRULY want to share it.

Write like it was going to save your life –

Because it WILL,

if you keep writing.

When you feel like it, go back and read old pages.

Write about your hopes, your dreams, your frustrations.

Write about how sick you are of whatever you’re sick of.

Write about how stupid I am for giving you this damned assignment – if that’s what you feel.

But WRITE

EVERY DAY.

Give yourself a word limit. You can write more, but not less.

You’ll fail.

Do it again.

Keep writing.

THAT is how I saved myself.

Part of it, anyway; but that was significant, huge.

That’s why you have to commit, first. You see?

Your conscious mind will find a way to express to you all of what matters, and the writing will tell your mind that these are the things that matter to you most.

It will focus on solutions for those problems

and it will help you find them;

but if you are dishonest

you are only cheating YOURSELF

and you will find yourself unhappy.

It’s as easy as this:

If you go to McDonald’s and order a Big Mac when you really want an ice cream cone, you can’t blame anyone except yourself for NOT getting the ice cream cone.

Understand?

And if you HATE McDonald’s?

You can’t blame the existence of McDonald’s.

You can only blame yourself for GOING there.

Super-easy, huh?

** With credit and profound thanks to Julie Cameron for her wise advice in The Artist’s Way and to the late Frank Herbert for his immense wisdom in all the books of the DUNE series – all of which has changed my life only because I took it all and made it mine.

The Justice of Love

…If I ever hurt you, do not let me be until there is some kind of justice in it.

We make our own justice, those of us who love and leave love — for whatever reasons.

Is not the absence of a loved one justice enough?

Is not the torture of having left, of being blind to our lover’s ways, of missing their movements, the flow of their minds, the smell of their skin, the union of bodies and minds and souls —

Is this not justice enough?

Justice will find you; so mourn as you will the loss of one loved, who loved you true, who loved you until the day of her final parting, who thought more of you than of any other being, who loved you more than any other soul —

Whose soul still loves you,

Whose soul still craves you,

Whose soul still aches for you,

Whose soul is clambering to find you, anew —

But whose mind and heart and body could no longer bear the lingering absence of you.

Photo ©2017 MLM

Seeds of Truth and Love

I once loved a man more than all the stars in the universe, more than nearly every cell in my own body, save for a few.

I once trusted that man’s reason more than all the reason of all the wisest philosophers in all of history, more than nearly every scrap of reason in my own mind, save for perhaps two.

I loved that man more than my own children, which drove them both a little mad – and which has certainly driven me more than a little mad.

I still love him; and that may be absolutely mad… but, once one has gone mad, can one ever truly be cured of madness?  The psychologists deny the possibility; my friends insist upon the necessity; and who am I to say?  I have gone mad and I love him still, love myself enough to love my madness and the journey into and out of it, thus far.

And I love our children more than him, I think (unless, in my madness, I am lying; though I think not); and I love myself more than him, certainly (for I have become transformed).

Once, in my consternation over a beautiful film and its profound message, he told me that most writers do not know the messages they deliver; that most writers are asleep; and I imagined it to be as if their minds simply catch onto meanings like seeds improbably planted in the ground, having been carried on the wind or upon some creature’s coat or in their stool.

Once, I believed him entirely.

I may still believe it, to a point; but, coming to write with increasing frequency, coming to know of more conscious writers, I am certain that, though we may not know the full implications of our words — just as we cannot know the full implications of our actions when we take them — there are more writers, more artists, more people who know at least something of their depths.

Perhaps I will find, one day, that my own belief is just as faulty, just as ill-based and fantastical as his own (which is not to say his is any less beautiful in its meaning, as I have always found it so).

Perhaps I will find that it does not even matter whether we are speaking in subconscious intelligence or that we know, at least in part, the depths we evoke.  For now, all I can know or do is to write with simplicity the truths I hold and bear, the knowledge I have found and created, the worlds I have seen and imagined… and watch as those seeds grow.

Photo ©2017 MLM

One. Two. Me.

1.

That day when you came to stop me from saying “Goodbye, I love you.”

That night when you picked me up from the airport, when – again – I wanted it to be over.

Those lingering embraces.  Those passionate kisses.  Those heart-felt words – from both of us.

That could have been forever.

Don’t tell me I made things up, that I exaggerated emotion, that I took things beyond their meaning. Don’t try to convince me that I took things out of context when the only thing I took out of context was myself from the context of your vicinity.

Don’t tell me I’m immature in love when I have the capacity to love beyond the space of a few miles, beyond the finite moment of right-now.

We could have been infinite, beyond all time-and-space.  We could have been epic, magical.  We could have been of the things true love and gods are made.


2.

Those nights-after-nights and days-after-days when you “didn’t expect to fall in love,” “to feel so much,” for me to stay.

Those months-long epic conversations when I explained my inner workings, my likes and dislikes, when I wrote books to you in long, verbose dialogues that you repeatedly did not hear, listen to or understand.

The fading patience; the increasing bitterness; the overbearing misery amidst your blissful ignorance.

Did you really not see, understand anything of me?  No; nothing.  You took only what you wanted, needed, and disregarded the rest, left it for posterity, thinking – having had my love and devotion for years upon years – it would last indefinitely.

When I told you I wanted nothing more to do with men, was that not explanation enough?

It’s not that we had nothing.  It’s that it was repeatedly disregarded, discarded in lieu of your past, in lieu of so many things you chose poorly that sapped your soul until I came along and filled you up again.

It’s not that we couldn’t have come back together.  It’s that you somehow ceased caring about what brought us together in the first place; and somehow, you expected me to care about how I brought you back to who you are now… when I have always told you I preferred the man you made of yourself before we first met.

Me)

Go into the desert.

Sing.

Dance.

Walk.

Capture beautiful moments and share them with the world, with friends, with the wind, with no one at all.

Be.

Write everything, and love every stinging thing like so many spines upon so many cacti, guarding what precious flesh lies beneath with so much fought-for life-giving waters.

Forgive even those who bit you, stung you, hurt you, maimed you; for you are forever-forgiving, forever-giving.

Love.  Again.

Let this time be a lesson; and, this time, find that wolf, that coyote, that mountain lion, that bobcat, that bear, that eagle that will forever-love you, whom you can forever-love-give-love-receive-love-amen.

It’s time:

Kiss the sands and the dry earth.

Swim and sail and surf in those big, beautiful, blue waves.

Go.  Wherever.  Life takes you.

Be your heart.

Bring the rains to barren lands; and dance, laugh, kiss; let the waters wash every pain clean.

Be forever-good-and-loving.

Indulge your every desire, dream and wish.

Find your fantasies in life and love, and live them fully, for so few will leave their pains and morbidity to bring childish dreams to reality.

Do.

And dare, as you always dare.

This is your life, your posterity.

Bring about me.

Photo ©2015 MLM

Scorpions

Give me a reason not to erase us from me, not to complete the job you are already doing so well.

They drop bombs, here in the desert, where they harm no one but the scorpions and the snakes.

Give me a reason not to throw out all we are and were amidst our brothers and sisters to be likewise obliterated.

Because, although I find myself afraid and do not know what yet I will become, I do know this:

I, at least, will rise from the flames and become something beautiful, renewed, in the death of you-and-me.

Photo ©2016 MLM

This Side of Nothing

It’s not what I thought it would be.

I gained a good thirty pounds, I’m sure.  They still say I’m sexy, and maybe I am…. Sometimes I feel so, and mostly I just don’t know.

I never thought I’d be so comfortable lounging around in the late English summer, breezes blowing coolly across a grassy lawn and stirring the leaves in the trees so they sound like ocean waves coming ashore, RAF planes flying overhead at indiscriminate intervals.

I didn’t think I’d feel so comfortable after starting to fall out of love, to rest so gently on its precipice.  I’ve always thought:  If I’m out of love, I’ll be alone.  I won’t be me.

But I’m not alone.  And I’m still me.

Maybe I’m even more me than ever.  I certainly express more of what I think and feel, in the moments of thinking-and-feeling.

And he’s not too bothered, not enough to wish me gone.  Perhaps it’s because I still love him….  Perhaps it’s because he loves me.

I’m just, more or less, alone.  Exactly the way I like to be.

Falling out of interest with falling in love, but sitting on this precipice, nonetheless.  Not in love nor out of it, but just loving.

It’s funny, because it’s what he talked about from the beginning, what he’s been so concerned that I feel, more than anything:  That I’m comfortable.

I didn’t want to be comfortable.  I resisted fiercely.  

I’ve grown so accustomed to being uncomfortable, to being on the verge of falling off a cliff of some sort or other, to facing my fears, to facing my demons, to mirroring others’ demons so they can face them.  It’s not always fun, but the coming-out is; and it’s always rewarding.  You inhale a great breath as you walk out of Hell and you never know where you’ll end up.

Before, you were often there, or rather, you’d come around again to check in with me, to check in on me.

C: “How are you doing with your injury?”

M: “It hurts, and it’s very swollen.  I have to take the pain meds pretty regularly, and I get really tired.  But it doesn’t hurt as much as it did.”

C: “…How are you otherwise?”

M: “I’m lonely.”

C: “What about the 50k guys that were swarming you?”

M: “That’s why I’m lonely.  Swarms mean there’s no connection and the real people can’t get through.”

C: “I understand.  I am kind of a needy male, too.”

C. & M. text conversation

I told him when I met him that I’d lose you, if I fell in love with him, if I ever wound up with him.  Was it Fate or some strange connection between us, some strange agreement made long ago in an unspoken language?  Whatever the case, the timing was as queerly precise as ever.  And, boy, did you seem angry.

But I guess I’ve walked out of Hell again; and, instead of you (or anyone, really, except for him), I’ve ended up on a very cozy, quiet farm in the east of England where the birds chatter all day and for most of the night, where the farmer is flirtatious and kind, where the horses nibble grass all day long, and the foxes cry at night like complaining factory machines.  The doves, however, drive me crazy with their plaintive coos that sound, to me, like a sleeping baby with a bronchial infection.

And I am alone all day long; kept watch over all night long.

I thought I was coming to Europe to run – actually, to sail – away from my problems and into myself.  Greece was gorgeous, but it didn’t work the way I had planned. I was sad that I had nowhere to go next, that my plans were dashed.  And you made it clear that I was not to come visit you, expressed in no uncertain terms; and I couldn’t alternately arrange to visit my friend in Italy.

So, I returned to England.

Sex with the Englishman I’m with is grand, but it is not enough.  But I knew that with you.

Nor is it an escape.  I knew that with you, as well, but I never knew it so well as I know now.

Supplant “sex” for “travel,” “TV,” “books,” “writing,” or “work” and the truth clings intensely in all cases:  

Not a single one is ever enough, in itself.  Not a single, solitary activity can ever be a viable escape.

You want to know what our problem was?  I’ve wondered for seven years.  

It wasn’t money, neither having exorbitant amounts to spend frivolously nor suddenly having next-to-none.  It wasn’t that we loved our love life and explored voraciously.  It wasn’t your history or mine; it wasn’t even your jealousy or my vehement heart.  

It was our isolation, yours and mine, from each other, and from ourselves.

Particularly from ourselves.

I find myself as isolated as I’ve ever been in my life, now, for most of the day, for most days.  I still wake up vibrant and excited when I know I’m going somewhere new to explore and see things I’ve never seen before, to indulge in my passion of connecting with strangers, to let my curiosity guide me.  I can wash my bare feet in frigid ocean waters as comfortably as burying my toes in warm sands under the intense sun.  I wander sweet-scented woods, wondering at the ages of gnarled trees and all they’ve seen.

The difference in my thinking is that I’ve realized that no one thing can be everything, no matter how much I love the activity.

Because: In-between atoms, what is there?  In-between the protons and electrons and neutrons, what is there?

There’s a whole lot of nothing, with everything floating, colliding, meandering.

And that, I’ve realized, is where I like to be: In the ‘nothing.’  

The past, the present are somewhere in all of that nothing, all of my feelings and all of yours and everyone else’s, too.  There’s an endless supply of possibilities… maybe not everything you or I would wish to be, and most certainly some things we don’t favor, but plenty that we do, or might, or could.

Right now, between us, there’s not much.  There’s our past, but I’m not really holding onto it anymore.  I daresay there’s nothing between us, except perhaps my love for you (which may or may not reach you) and whatever you feel for me (which may or may not reach me).

And I’m okay with that nothing.  I can sit very peacefully in nothing, having spent a lot of time in it, listening to the cacophony of guilt and accusations and suppositions and wishes and dreams racing through my head.  Having let it be, having remained doing nothing, being nothing, I can listen to a whole lot of things.  I can remember nearly anything I want; I can look and examine the past or the present, or dream about and even try to plan the future.

I start to realize that the only reason I wanted you with me, the reason I wanted to see you again, the reason I wanted to re-start our “something” was because I was so desperately afraid of the nothing.  I was afraid it would consume me, my feelings, my everything.  

Us.  

And you.

But: There’s nothing between us now, and it’s not consuming what we were.

There’s nothing between us now, and it’s apparently not consuming you.

There’s nothing between us now and I still love, can still love you.  And I still do.

There’s nothing between us now…

And you’re still you.

And, better still (because it matters so much to me, and in me is all of what I love, including you and us):

There’s nothing between us now.  

And I’m still me, too.

Photo ©2007 MLM

Listen, if you will.

These words are the result of Nothing.

I’ve been quiet for a very long time; most recently, for the bulk of four months.

That’s not to say that I’ve been silent or that I don’t speak my mind to people, nor that I’ve been completely isolated of people.  I’m not repressed in my thoughts or feelings (though I do sometimes withhold or choose to express only certain thoughts and feelings).

Lawn Chairs on the Farm

But, by the nature of the way I am, and by circumstance of where I live, I am silent, alone with myself and my thoughts, my memories, my perceptions, the tides of my feelings for nearly nineteen out of twenty-four hours on weekdays, maybe twelve hours on weekends.  I bask in the dreams my mind concocts at night, consider which of the dreams I concoct during the day that I want to follow; I watch, with peaceful habit when I’ve thought too much, the tall trees brushed by invisible gusts and breezes; I listen, my mind aching and yearning for adventure, to planes from near or far flying over this quiet tract of land, to the repetitive birdsong of my contented woodland neighbors who put my mind at ease.

Of course, in this well-connected and media-driven world, there are always ways to reach out, across the Atlantic and back to my home to communicate with my parents, my friends.  There are always ways to distract my mind when it becomes too full of worry, of dismay at the stillness I now live after so many years of trial and turmoil — never mind that stillness is what I sought, never mind that a deep peace was what I need.  When the ghosts in my mind start screaming that I’m not doing enough, that I need to meet people, that I need to have some kind of adventure; when I can’t convince my body-and-soul to listen anymore to the quiet in the woods that I nevertheless always love; when writing and coloring and doodling is too frustratingly unsatisfying, I watch for hours and days some soul-wrenching series on a widescreen TV, a luxury I’ve not taken for much of my life.

It’s the stories that keep me, the well-written screenplays exploring gangsters’ lives in the 1930s, creative genii inventing worlds and monsters in believable and unbelievable ways to pull viewers in and make us look over our shoulders in fear at night.

I watch them with a passion, with a thirst for adventure that doesn’t exist in this phase of my life, with gratitude that, when my mind is filled with too much danger or fantasy or incredulity, I have complete control to turn it off with the press of a button and set the stories aside to embrace, again, the cool breezes playing with palm fronds and shimmering leaves or the languid, grey days.

This is the therapy I give myself daily, for months, as I ease myself into the truly-peaceful life I feel is mine.

Shefford Victorian Sea

Finally, it is hot in a way that is familiar to my Southern-born skin.  My mind pulls out long-ago-formed dreams of lazy walks on remote beaches under tall palm trees, of owning and creating a retreat so thoroughly, intoxicatingly relaxing that those who visit are changed while there, are converted to peace and beauty even after they leave, become so completely the antithesis of stress and commonplace angst that they change the world in the wake of their everyday lives.

I know this has been the dream of people, in various forms, through many ages; that even the hippies in my parents’ day were ultimately after this goal:  to spread peace and love.  It is the goal of many, even today, through so many venues of spiritualism and activism….

When I was a child, I watched and loved Fantasy Island.  It was, to me, the most beautiful dream of a place where people went to live out their fantasies, where real magic happened and people left utterly changed for the better.  My mind always wandered into reality and wished, hoped for, wondered where this place was in the world… wondered how one would create such a fantastical place.

I still don’t know how to create the place of my dreams such that others can enjoy it, can walk away changed from being in it… but I am certain that is what I am working on, more than any single piece of writing, more than visiting any single land, more than meeting any single culture of people, more than any single love affair.

River Fireworks

I didn’t leave “to travel,” and I always knew it, even before I left Atlanta five months ago.  I didn’t go to “see the sights,” to visit museums, to wander through cities — even if I love doing so.  I came to Europe to find peace, to find myself again, to get lost wherever I was in ways I’ve not been lost before – since that is the best way I have found to face the demons I’ve carried with me, and to make peace with them again.

I came here to be terrified of being alone, and, through that terror, to remember that I’m most well when I’m alone.

I came here to feel morbidly unloved, and, through that desolation, to love myself and let myself be loved.

I came here to be bereft of everything, to have utterly nothing but the clothes in my bags, to find that nearly everything I owned was of no use to me – even most of my clothing, my computer, my iPhone and all of my apps, my pencils and pens and coloring books, my notebooks and fountain pens and the gifts others gave me… none of it satisfied me; none of it fit.  I came here to discover that I am more well in myself, whatever size or weight I am, whatever little I was creating, whatever temperament I was in, however many days I thought I was wasting, however few people I had close to me…

I came here to learn what I always knew and forget, sometimes.

I came here to fall in love with myself again.

You know those people who you see and just fall in love with them, instantly?  That boy or girl who is just so fantastically beautiful, who moves in ways that mesmerize, whose smile is so charmingly profound that seeing it sends you into fantasies – whether the smile is directed at you or elsewhere?  You know those people whose faces you can see in your mind, whether your eyes are open or closed, to whom you feel connected even if you’ve only spoken a few times?

Filly Newborn

You know those people you fantasize about, who are larger-than-life… or sometimes just small enough that you want to put them in your pocket and carry them with you everywhere, like a totem that you can pull out whenever you’re unsure or alone or sad or frightened that will instantly make you smarter, brighter, happier, braver, more alive?

Everyone has them, I think.  And it hardly matters if they are as wonderful as we see them, as we imagine; it hardly matters if they love us or don’t know we exist.  They’re like angels, like fairies, like imaginary friends, and they make everything, everything better.

Well…

Imagine…

If that person…

Was you.

I don’t mean:  Imagine you were that person for someone else.  No doubt you are, for someone.  Knowing you are might even make life harder for you, for you undoubtedly feel you are not worthy of such adoration, and you might feel you now have to work harder to be the person you’re expected to be… and those expectations are sometimes unreasonable.  Unbearable.

I mean:

Imagine if you felt, knew, believed in and saw yourself as that fantastically-inspirational love.

This is not a pep-talk.  Such pep-talks rarely work, I have found.

What it is, is a suggestion.

Jordan's Mill Flower

Because, what I have found through loving many, many people in such bright-and-beautiful ways, in holding them as the ultimate prize, in adoring them with fantastical ecstasy, in giving them the position of muse and profound inspiration…

And finding that they yet hold themselves accountable for countless things, despite their successes or failings…

What I have found in being rejected countless times, in having my gushing adoration refused and ignored and placated and even sometimes accepted for a time…

Is this:

No matter how many people I love.

No matter how many people I adore.

No matter to how many people I give myself and all of my talents and passions and skills and knowledge.

No matter what I do.

Every single person I love is a reflection, in the most profoundly simple way, of me…

of what I love…

of what I do and can do…

of what I enjoy and can enjoy…

of the way I am with others and how I’m seen with others…

exactly as beautiful and quirky and broken and together…

as old and young, as spirited and complacent…

as kind and as cruel.

I am drawn, over and over and over again, exactly to me.

So, you know that person who you hold so magically beautiful that you cry when you can’t have them, when you sob because you’ve been rejected, when you ache to have them near?

That person

is

YOU.

And that’s the trick to never being alone, to doing nothing at all or all kinds of things.  That’s the trick to everything.

We’re just looking in a mirror, talking to ourselves, seeing and sharing the beauty in everything.

That is me.

Farm Rainbow

Tempted to the Realm of Woodland Sprites

I finally went for that walk I wanted to take around the back side of the stream. It felt good being in my flip-flops and tank top, even with the nettle plants and thick overgrowth. I needed it more than I realized, far more than I gave it credit – even if I coughed raucously as I walked, death rattles of this persistent sinus infection.

It was beautiful. The tufts of flowers sprayed poofs of pollen on my black top and pants as my feet stepped on dark earth, stepped over and around tall, green stalks of small purple and pink flowers that bees fancied so much, I talking to my flying friends in warning so as not to startle them into stinging me. I felt like Alice, wandering through giant gardens….

It was curious, too: here and there were large patches of growth that something – some animal or erratic person – had smashed down to the ground and trampled more in some places, less in others. I kept wondering if it was a deer or a fox… But it couldn’t have been a deer, for the patches would have been deeper; and I would think that foxes would be more spindly than to make such messes of the flowers. It hardly makes sense, too, for any human to have knocked down the growth along the sides of the path, as opposed to on the path. As a matter of fact, nothing showed that anyone human had been on that part of the footpath in a while, the overgrowth was so tall and thick throughout.

And the stream rushed by, no further than ten feet to my left, the only live body of water in my regular vicinity since I left Greece and the Aegean Sea a few months ago….

…I still miss the sea, the ancient beaches of stones smoothed by millennia of gentle waves caressing the rough edges away, beaches where it was easy to bask in a warm sun’s rays and cool my tanned skin in cold, crystal-clear salt water, where the luxury of nature made it so easy to understand how volumes of art, wisdom, beauty once came of the inhabitants there.

But I had left the sea to return here to England, where my heart had left loves, where I was not nearly finished exploring my own country’s motherland….

Of course I was mad – not because I wasn’t at the sea, but because… well, because I didn’t feel free. And my mind kept going back to all of the reasons I was mad; but the tall, flowering greens kept my attention, and I needed my wits to avoid the nettles and other spiny plants growing on the path. Even so, my bare ankle brushed one nettle plant and my forearm brushed another – I was only caught the two times, and the red welts are now already tiny marks on my skin that sting but a little, reminding me in an oddly-pleasant way of both the anger and the beauty of my forage along this infrequently-trodden path.

…And then it started to rain in light, sparse sprinkles (though no one here calls it “sprinkling,” and I’ve infused the term into my Englishman’s language as something lovely and akin to colored sugar sprinkles falling from the sky). The rain cooled my skin, warmed from the heavy walk; and I wanted to sit somewhere in the falling water to watch the greater, speeding waters flow past, burbling to no one in particular about its journey and days….

And then the path cleared, went on, over an unexpected concrete bridge where the stream was wider and flowing quite fast and deep. Perhaps I’d take off my beach shoes, damp with dew and yesterday’s rains, and sit for a bit….

It was a fleeting thought, though; the movement of my feet and body through so much green was closer to what I needed, and so much the stronger urge.

The path followed closer to farmlands, edged with old trees and tall grasses that showed this part wasn’t used very often, either.  I couldn’t tell if I would wind up walking all the way into town or to the gates I had seen before, on the other side of the stream….

I didn’t really want to go ‘home’, and my mind raced with reasons why I should:  what if the door was locked when I returned? What if I got caught in a heavier rain? The legs of my cotton pants were already swinging heavily with the dampness they had picked up in the thick, and I was still recovering from this illness….

It didn’t work so well as I would have wanted to erase the pain of the evening’s madness, and my mind rang with the article about wisdom of that Greek ancient, Hippocrates, of walking until one’s mood has improved — and if, by the time one has ended one’s walk, it has not improved, to walk some more.

I could have walked all day before my heart found peace, I think.

And, even as I reached the long, granite-graveled lane, even as I stepped into the hot shower, I knew my heart needed me to walk some more.

For, as terrifying as it was to risk being stung by plants and insects, as cold as I am sure I would have become had I been caught in a storm, it was safe, too, to be amidst other natural things that grow strong and tenderly, that brushed my body in gentle-if-sometimes-painful caresses as I wandered down an unknown path in a foreign land that feels yet not unknown; and some part of me wanted, with each patch of pressed-down foliage, to sit and stay and watch the bees and dragonflies and butterflies and wasps and other flying things, to see snails carrying curling shells up spindly stems, to wonder at the huge, black slugs and other crawling things beneath my feet… to lose myself deep in the green, as quiet and unbroken as a woodland faerie, lost from any who would not be as natural and free with themselves, who would query and misunderstand my eager return to my own nature and freedom… who won’t let themselves be, and cannot, therefore, truly let anyone be.

The Elusive Poetry of a Misty English Evening

The sky is white-grey in a way I’ve never seen before, except in movies.  It mingles with the silence of this farm in a blanket that feels warm, embracing, romantic, especially as the birds are not yet asleep; and their high-pitched calls to each other embellish this scene like golden-threaded embroidery.

I’m in England again.

I could sit and stare for hours at this line of trees along the path to the road, especially in this light:  They and the birds and the tiny black bugs stand out in fragile, muted silhouette against the empty canvas of the sky; a living tableaux, displayed perfectly by the thick, black window frames.

I step back for a moment, in my mind, and realize that the architect must have planned this out, must have known these vast days and nights would be made more picturesque by four panes framed like this.  He must be humble, to create such a thing that lends one not to appreciate the window, but the beauty beyond….

And my eye is drawn back to the white sky outside and that line of trees that barely move in this quiet spring rain.

I am a fool to think that anyone else can live like this; and I have been told often enough by friends, lovers, enemies that I am different, that I see and live the world differently; and I always protest.  But the reality comes now, as I sit inside a tiny renovated barn at a table that is not mine and behold a scene that could only belong to me in happenstance, an accidental gift from a man who profoundly cares for me – and whom I can barely even consider in this moment because of the profound feeling of wonder I have for nothing more than those unmoving, dark, spindly lines on that infinite grey-white backdrop inside obsidian frames…!

I could suggest that others come to England and behold the beauty of the rolling hills from which, in mornings, mists arise and hover with sweet-scented grace beyond the city of London – mists and hills and scents that inspired poets and authors and painters to create what sedentary city-people the world over can only faintly imagine.  Those things, only hours beyond London’s borders, are accessible to all, if one leaves the city early enough and drives down the well-kept expressways or through tight country lanes that curve in their own ambling ways through multitudinous old villages – where “old” does not even begin to connote what we Americans understand of the word; where thatched roofs atop buildings of centuries-old-brick are yet commonplace antiquities to residents and wondrous novelties to those youthful, pridefully-modern eyes that come, and look, and see.

I could beg of travelers to make friends of locals, as I have and do, and spend time in out-of-the-way towns and villages and shires that hold nothing apparent, which even the English beyond this area ridicule, that I visit for the sake of love and friendship and a quiet kind of adventure that I love dearly.  I fancy that I forage for adventure here – even though I see it all around me in the lingering sunrises and sunsets that last for hours, in the rich, upturned soil beyond the nearby fence, in the stream beyond this barn and the horses and their riders meandering by; in the owner of this farm whose friendship I’ve already earned with nothing more than my honest openness, quick smile, and a genuine interest in his work, his land, his barn.

I could suggest that friends and loved-ones let their hearts take them where they may – even walking barefoot into stinging nettles on chilly days and through soothing, soft, black clods of not-quite-mud; along horse-trod paths where long, silken grasses grow just beyond the reach of nearby thoroughbreds that one mustn’t touch.  I could suggest that those who read this befriend and ingratiate themselves to someone with whom they mysteriously connect, and offer everything beautiful they have to give, that they may find what their heart yearns for….

Except that I’m told, over-and-over, that I am different; that no one does this.

And, I guess, it’s true.

Because:  who will make themselves so vulnerable, so exposed, so fragile as to not know what will happen from day to day?  Who will let themselves live in a moment so completely that every moment before and after threatens to crush one’s mind with power and complexity and fullness that comes in nearly-certain waves of uncertainty?

I know very few.

So:  I can write and tell of these beauties I see.  I can tell true tales of love, of a white sky opening, finally, with the faintest hint of blue to let the clouds beyond display themselves for a moment before fading altogether, this evening, into a single sheet of translucent grey-blue.

But I cannot suggest that anyone attempt to live or duplicate this life… for it is, and it remains, uniquely mine.

Romanced by the Motherland

It’s not supposed to be this sunny in England, this often.  Even today, the weather report on my phone promises mostly clouds and a 50% chance of rain in six minutes… and, while I see the clouds steadily marching in, the sun persists.

It’s not warm, by any stretch of the imagination. The wind blows in strong, cool gusts that tease the fronds of grass along the fence-line in the exact way I tease my love’s hair, brushing it again-and-again the wrong way, just to watch it fall back into place.

And the rain finally comes, half-an-hour late, streaming in insistent beats from a now-grey-white sky, as if to tell me it will do as it wants and the sun may not have my full attention; as if to tell me that even the sky happily indulges my Englishman’s and my playful tales of his power to bring the elusive, illustrious rains for my pleasure; of my power to bring the sun to this usually-cloudy land after captivating Helios’ affections while in Greece until a week ago.

It rains in sideways-streams as my darling drives down the long, gravel path from the road, past the horses and the dark, upturned soil just beyond the beautiful barn reno that he — that we live in.

It’s somewhat stunning to realize that I’m living here as much as he, and sometimes living here more, since he drives off to work in the mornings and home in the evenings, while I actually live here all day when he’s gone.

I wandered away from the house for the first time since I arrived at this lovely country home a couple hours north of London and incidentally met the landlord as I walked along the horse-path next to a pretty little stream bordering the property.  The silver-haired man drove up in his red car with three dogs inside, stopped beside me and stepped out of the wrong side of the car to gently-but-firmly ask who I was.  I smiled, as I always do, and explained that I’m staying at the loft with his tenant; I saw his clear and lively blue eyes shine back at me as his own smile broke across a beautiful, weathered face.

We got on immediately. He teased me in a way that I believed was earnest (for a moment) about my “awful color” – the bronzed skin that I brought back from Greece that contrasts starkly with that of this Englishman, whose pale skin betrays the normally-cloudy-and-cool conditions that keep most residents well-covered.  While in London a month ago, I stood out because of my wild, merry eyes and quick smile; I now stand out even more starkly with the mark of the sun god on my skin and gold-streaked hair.

We chatted for a while as his daughter’s black-and-white springer spaniel ran to the chase the ducks and fowl near the stream, impressing me with a confident, gently-firm manner he must have learned over many years and with many animals.  Every moment I spent with this farmer made me like him more.  My mind delighted in his wit and charm as we chatted; and he explained to me that the people in his village would be more likely to converse with me than those folks I might meet in London.

I’ve since been queried harshly by other Englanders on social media as to why I would spend time in Bedfordshire – which seems a silly question to me, as here is where my heart finds itself well-cared-for and extremely happy and restful on this quiet farm with a man I fell in love with years ago.  Adventure is dictated by one’s nature, I think; and I had plenty of adventures in Greece that would fit many people’s definition of the word; while here, on an out-of-the-way horse farm within walking distance of a small village, I find the kind I most enjoy: Discovering myself, taking long walks and making strong connections with random strangers, and falling in love.

I haven’t yet found that the citizens of Clifton are very chatty; but I’ve only walked around the town twice and only once spoke to locals at the butcher’s while picking up a bit of fresh produce.  While it is obvious that my American accent is quite a novelty here, I do best when I’m with my Englishman:  People catch some part of our lighthearted banter and, seeing a curious look in their eyes, I include him or her in our conversation.  Perhaps if I was to take some time in a pub….

Whatever the case, I was tickled by the landlord, that gentleman-farmer who stood before me in red coveralls, obviously as charmed by my wildly-American, childish openness as I was charmed by his display of English breeding that flirts ever-so-gently with impropriety without ever crossing the line.

And I am charmed by this land, by the gorgeous cobalt clouds laden now with rain, highlighted by the hidden sun.  I love this quiet life where, once-upon-a-time, artists like Jane Austin and Vincent Van Gogh were inspired to create their individual masterpieces of love; where the active mind can rest and find itself joyful in the tiniest of things: In flickering blades of grass and gentle horses and proud-but-nervous pheasants.

And, though I love the city of London, I would rather inspire Americans to come to the countryside, where our childishness is cherished, where our naivety finds a welcome home – if we are open and honest; where our busy and hard-working souls can find respite in the arms of our motherland — one that knows us, in paradoxical truth, better and as distantly as any mother may.