Response to Debbie's Text

My sister sent me a text today.

She said, "I LOVE YOU! Be strong. Find happiness from within not from outside. Figure out what would provide MEANING to you personally (besides your kids). It will not come from attention and approval of others. But rather will require deep soul searching."

Yes. She is wise. But...isn't that the big question everyone is trying to answer? What will make me happy? A big career? Big house house? A big car?...to be perfectly honest, I think what would make me happy is to find that special someone who fulfills me. I think she was trying to tell me to not need someone else to make me happy...but I think the truth of the matter is everyone needs someone to complete them because noone can be everything in themselves.

I seem to have everything. I have a sincere, loyal husband, 3 amazing children and 2 beautiful dogs. I have a nice house in a nice town in a nice neighborhood. I have a nice car and a cool job that I don't need and I can quit any time. I have tons of hobbies and interests with which I pursue with vigor, I have a house full of beautiful things and a closet full of stylishness, I have tons of amazing friends, several with whom I can really confide...I have siblings with whom I am practically connected at the hips and parents who live nearby...what I don't have is a special person in my life that interests, stimulates, challenges and motivates me. I don't have someone who makes me feel alive and for whom I do the same. I don't have someone who makes me feel complete. I feel hollow. I feel lonely and bored...almost all the time. I feel so empty.

I love my huband. He is a wonderful man...But is he the guy for me??

I don't know.







I thought love didnt matter. I thought there is no such thing as a person with whom one can connect with for the rest of their lives. I basically thought marriage was a living arrangement. I still dont know if that special lifelong connection with someone exists. But, now, what I have discovered that it is neccessary and important to be with someone that gives their lives emotional, intellectual and physical satisfaction...someone with whom there is a profound connection on many levels and with whom there is room for change and growth...as life is maleable and so is love.





It seems that without love, life, no matter how perfect it may appear on paper, is tasteless. I feel a lack of motivation, strength, patience...





I suppose in the end, noone can really tell how things will turn out...but I think if you start with the finest ingrediants the end result is more likely to be paletable...and something you'll want to ingest over and over and over again.

Fog

Like water,
she is obvious in every way
and the sustenance of every life.
She nourishes, heals and rejuvenates
(but she can also destroy)
She goes with the flow, moving effectively
to find a new path as obstacles arise.
She is difficult to control and always in a rush
to get where she doesn't know she's going.

He, on the other hand,
is invisible to the eye
yet obvious to the senses
as nothing can be without he.
There is nothing to hold
but you need his touch.
He is real and always present.
He is the simplest necessity for life.
He is like the air.

Every once in a while,
Water mixes with Air.
In these moments
Air becomes visible -
a mysterious fog moving about
define by the moisture
who snuck into his house...

There is comfort in this coolness,
as for the briefest of moments we hovor in this tranquil state - 
this peaceful, gloomy state - 
the density of our entanglement

Fog

But the fog is transitory.
It's a temporary veil
behind which reality is hazy
and the sun waits insistently on the other side,  
where the the horizon disappears 
and the present feels innocuously sticky
yet unbearably offensive...

The Salmon

A salmon swims upstream
struggling to make her way
past the rapid currents
that threaten to sweep her away

Her mind would reason loudly
with urgency and pain
Don't go there
just stay here
with familiarity and comfort near

Yet she could not mute that voice inside

insisting she take the plight

begging her to travel the extra mile

Despite the rationale of thinking
and the un-logicalness of feeling
she heads up the river backwards
forward into her life

So toward the river's basin
she fights a valient war
in a desperate attempt at happiness
she struggled very far

In the end her mind was right
her demise was at the end
but the very interesting thing is
her heart, it turns out was also right
she died in her own true skin

Drifing

I am drifting in a vast and seamless sea
lost and alone with just my thoughts and me

There is no wind
and barely a wave
but I am moving toward something -
something out there

Where the current is taking me
I dont know
and that's the disquieting part
You see,
If I could get me over there
I would...for sure, I would

But there is no wind in these hollow sails
to take me further from here
and closer to there

Loco

Yesterday evening I went down to the cellar to get a gallon of milk. I happened to spy something strange out of the corner of my eye. It was something floating around in the jug of water I keep down there to fill up the dogs' water dish. Through my peripheral vision it looked sorta like the nose of one of those moles with the weird looking noses that looks kinda like a flower. I tried to ignore it because we had company upstairs...but it was so strange I had to invstigate. Hmmm....are those feet?...fur...kinda puffy looking...what could it be??? is it a toy? what kinda toy?...those feet look so familiar...I stood there quizically...confused...studying this thing floating in the water...trying to decide what toy it was...and then it hit me like a ton of bricks...

OMG! Loco is DEAD!

Loco was our hampster. He was our second hampster to be specific. He was a little crazy (hence the name). He was a white and tan Russian long-haired hampster. We have had him for almost 2 years and in those 2 years he escaped from his cage at least a dozen times (our first hampster, Hammy, only escaped once).

In the past we always found Loco...usually in some strange place. For example, once on a freezing cold, winter day, I opened the exterior door to the playroom and there he was sitting outside the door. So I scooped him up, wrapped him in a face cloth and tucked him in his cage with some fresh food and warm water. Another time when I came home from work, I opened the refridgerator to get a snack (it was about 1am). I looked down and there he was...sitting by the bottom of the fridge. So I scooped him up and put him back in his cage with some fresh food and water. There have been a number of times when friends have spied him amidst the chaos of one of our friendly gatherings where children ranging in age from 2-10 are running amuck in our home and adults are socializing and getting drunk. There were the occassions when one of the boys would feel something wobbling across their bodies in the night and wake to find Loco snuggling up to them in the dark.

Well...Looks like curiosity finally got the hampster. Sorry it had to end that way Loco...But it seems like a rather appropriate ending to an adventerous life.

We love you Loco...see you on the flip side dude.

e

I thought it would make it better
and it does...
for a little while,
but in the end it only makes everything worse

I should quit it now
forget it somehow
and learn to live without

but the craving is so intense
I cant bare to face that
alone
a lone
al one
one
on e
e

just me

e

The Sea

I must escape to the sea again
The vast and wonder filled sea
where all I need is the open air
and a star to guide me to thee


Briney sea spray on my face
Salty wind, a cool embrace
Rocking, swaying, current playing
Yielding sweet release


Please
Stop this painful yearning
constant agitated burning
Meet me in the sea
I plee
where all we need is a tall ship and star to let us be

Lessons Learned

Pleasure turns to pain but a lesson's learned from the strain of the questions burned in my brain about whether love is humane in its touch .

These thoughts are like whirlpools created by the tears of deceit and my mind is possessed by the demons that have been the overseers of my enslavement to these lies. The seas of these lies rack me so. So deeply that they've cracked the very foundation of what we once shared.

You see, I had sealed the truth of us long ago and now it is threatening to gush out like a river from a broken damn with an improvised seal. The strength of its current is ripping the image of our future together from my thoughts as violently and as brutally as that of a child being taken from his mother's arms.
I am struggling to preserve what we created with the intensity of the heat of our intertwined bodies while struggling to pluck Eros' arrow from the vessel of my devotion.

But seperation is not as simple as the distance that has come between us.

I am left surrounded in darkness.

My loneliness is like the night air -
Invisible to the eye
Obvious to the touch.
It is cold uncomfortableness.

Yet, if I could do it all over again
Would I do it just the same,
despite the pain,
in this same skin I'm in.

I don't know.

But what now?

Do I lay down and let love lie?
Just stay down and let love die?

No
no
no not I...
I am gonna let love fly.
For even though I've seen it in it's darkest form
nothing else...no nothing else
can feel as warm or taste as sweet.

Lonely Pants Pocket Slumber

I am like a forgotten balloon neglected in the pocket of your pants.

I am sitting here out of sight...out of mind...lost, lonely and sad.
I am waiting...hoping...willing you to discover me.

The only thing that keeps me from utter despair is my silly optimism that at some unpredictable moment, the touch of your hand will reconstitute me and your mouth will blow life into me as your breath inflates my spirit.

Then, I will become the prized possession of one special boy.
I will be full and round and happy...
floating on the air you exhaled.

Alas.

I know.

Something will come along and persuade your attention away from me.
You will not tie that knot to keep me full and round.

So,deflated, flattend, and lifeless,
I will go back into the pocket of your pants.

As I am now...

waiting...

for your hand to reawaken me...
for your mouth to revive me...
and your breath to rejuvenate me
from this lonely pants pocket slumber.

Just us

If I was just me
and you were just you
might we be just us together?

Sweet Escape

A sweet escape from every day
a few stolen hours
I wish I could stay
released from security
relinquished from sanity
normal
unextraordinary
disappears
emerging now is this new place
a profusion of tantalizing things
Inhale - breath deep
this is serenity
Exhale - blow hard
that is vitality
see
touch
taste
hear
but don't think
no think