Podcasts

You are allowed to want small things. You are allowed to desire very little. You are allowed to seek simple experiences. You are allowed to follow clear paths. You do not have to better yourself. You do not have to progress.

You are allowed to want big things. You are allowed to desire everything. You are allowed to seek complexity and a variety of experiences. You are allowed to carve your own path. You can want to be your best version. You can discipline yourself so that you feel and become aware of your own progress.

If you can be honest with yourself about your pursuit, believe in your capacity to obtain it – however big or small – while also acknowledging the odds and difficulties, attempt it with conviction, and remain aligned with the result you envision and the honesty with which you pursue it, you will experience satisfaction and growth that arise from unexpected places, and you will emerge as a person you can be proud of with known points of reference and knowledge that you created out of your own experience instead of tips you bought from a podcaster that you desperately re-preach to your peers in hopes that it will eventually calm you by explaining the reason behind the discomfort you feel about the complex nature of existence and your inability to tolerate that which you can’t explain. Try responding to complexity with kindness and curiosity. And make your own podcast.

Sundays

A tree grows on Sunday. And we, we held so tight, arms like branches studying the ways we might merge our fear and dread into the body of the other. Staring over a bluff refusing possibility, certain what we know is better than what will come. Here on life’s weekly eve. I once saw a film about the end of the world. She forgave her father when the wave of death approached. She grasped finally, “Daddy”, she whimpered, held no greater strength, or resolve, or chances for redemption than she. How unprepared are we who’ve been shot into a world like this one? Digging our heels into this dirt, you and I embrace. Thank god for you. No one to rescue us, but we hold each other. Your tears falling on my shoulder, my shaking loosening your own leaves that so carefully and patiently emerged. “Shake” you say, and I know I’m not alone. Here, let me loosen what no longer serves. I whispered, “Take my other shoulder.” I drink your tears like a baby does milk, cheeks filling with healthy flush. How strong we are together, how deep we broke ground when we embraced. Our love stronger than our resistance. Look out there, Monday rising. Purple and orange haze, everything we fear. And yet, a depth we’ve never known. Roots found their way down to the way down, entwined with earth and bugs and ‘oh’ there you are, I wiggle my toes against your leg, burrowed too, deep and secure. Look what we found, look at our luck. Unprepared still, but, A tree grows on Sunday.

Friends

That lady said, “toot” and we were twelve again. Rolling on our backs, you know, me and you we swim in laughter until the water’s been splashed out of the pool. “Toot!” Got to dry off a leg but let’s be careful we don’t lose our skin. I’ve seen you so many ways, wanting so many things, trying so many ‘try’s, sniffing so many hours of the night because me and you, baby, we got something to talk about, something to say, something to work out. There’s a rhythm of our cackle that falls in line. Bum bumm ba bumm pa paam pumpaaa bum. It’s jazz and it’s purist and there’s no way to learn it unless you live it. I wonder what you want for yourself, deep inside your heart? I sleep with a hope that you know this for yourself. You know something, can I tell you something?  I don’t tell you to fix your frizzy hair because, darling your frizzy is life living itself in its chaotic, original form. Sister, did you see my belly heave in and out when you took a breath to make your joke. Could you even believe, can you even know, the joke has already landed before you opened your mouth. You belong to your life, and I to mine but remember when we saw the sun rise? Remember when we called in the sub? Do you still love me the way I love you?

a prayer.

I prayed for you today. For the first time. I’m ashamed to say it’s the first time because I think you’d like it if you knew I was praying for you. Every day. Every other day. But you know me, I don’t believe in that sort of thing. You’re always thinking, “how’m I going to live?”, and so you always fight so hard to break free of your body, your history. I’m always thinking, “how’m I going to live with myself?” and so, me? I’m consumed with a ‘right now’ reconciliation between who I’m becoming and a fat, heavy world pressing itself against me. Resist the urge to conform, they tell you. To peer pressure, to the crowd. I don’t know how we shake it, how we stop asking these questions about living. How to stay a ‘self’ and survive, how to stay a ‘self’ and have peace. But I put my reconciliation aside today. I prayed for you. Deep, deep love will have you inventing a god and burning incense and scraping your pockets for an offering to save a worthy person. Did you feel my prayer? I said every word, thought every thought, schemed every scheme. Squinted eyes so tight. Called to a space where love and hope and peace might reach you over there on your funny little island. Did you feel it?

5 minutes in June ‘89

Hey, do you wanna go with me?

Where’re you goin?

I don’t know.

Ok. What’ll we eat while we’re gone?

Goldfish and sweet tarts.

My mom has a Coke in the car? 

Get that in case we get thirsty.

M’k, yeah... Where’ll we sleep?

A barn. We can find a barn. You use hay for a pillow, just ball it up and put it like that.

Ooh, we could build a fire.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I have a stick we can use for protection.

I need something. This is sharp… like brrrmm, whhhuurp whrriirrp srrriiipp!

Yeah, lemme see it. Like PEWR, zzzzzllllipp, zzzwwrrp!  

Ok you take that, gimme the stick.

Ok.

Is your mom going to be mad?

S’long as I’m back before supper…

Yeah, me too.

Ok.

Ok.

I love you.

I love you, too.

The dream about teeth

Again. There. A dream, a tantrum marking its territory again last night. Wailing, refusing. A pretty little baby’s face all red and slippery with spit. Hush, little baby. Don’t you cry. How to comfort what you can’t understand? I bent down to offer myself to you, but I became frightened, my teeth shattering into a thousand broken pieces. Images, hopes, identities, emails, pride, friendships, pain, love, grief. I’m busy with this, little baby. Someone help her, please. I’m busy with this, little baby. I touched my chest and felt the heart of mother, but the song wouldn’t come. A thousand broken pieces standing guard at the spot where melodies emerge and baby sniffs the air for mama’s loving breath. If I sing to you, who will save me? Years of doomsday hoarding all the things I thought I was, all the ways I pretend to be, a Good. Beautiful. Honest. Person. Darling down on the floor. Your tears and your cries and your spit and your demanding, I hate to tell you this, but you can’t hold on to things forever. I try to open my silly mouth. I test the moment, testing gravity. Peel my lips apart. Hope falls smug like it was line-leader on the first day of school. Pride dangles like a limp weed. The naivety. That it might survive. Grab it with a thumb and a finger, I put it out of its misery. Love tumbles over a protective lip, and emails swim in saliva waiting for the big rinse. Little girl, pretty little baby, is that a smile? Your nose is a perfect button, did you know? Touch my mouth with your small, sweet hands that smell like honey and dirt. Investigate the crime, the war on self, the barricades and the arsenal. Tiny fingers touch the spot where expectations hung, and it feels like forgiveness so I kiss your fingertip. This, a sweet touch, a kind of grace, soothes me. All you want is a song and I’ll I’ve done is imprison the tune. Let me sing for you. Does this sound Good. Beautiful. Honest.? ‘Mama’s little baby loves shortnin’ shortnin’, Mama’s little baby loves shortnin’ bread.’ The rest of it falls. Teeth, dreams, they’re all the same. And you, Content and Delighted, couldn’t be more in love with a mama who sings to you. I smile at you. I smile at myself. My voice is not so bad, is it? ‘Mama’s little baby loves shortnin’ shortnin’, Mama’s little baby loves shortnin’ bread.’

Considerations

If you’re a wanderer and a wonderer, you walk. You don’t have a problem with it. I prefer it. In the city, it’s easy because you are always found; found by people, found by landmarks, found by the man counting bottles whose name you never learned but whose spot is claimed. How long will he own it without a deed? No one knows, but it’s his and I respect this assignment he’s given himself. He knows something I don’t, but the knowledge comes from a time before and a time below; before the world was so recognizable, below the layer of want and desire. Without lifting his eyes, he signals the way home, or at least the way to what is known. I remember a time before knowing, before reprimand and shame and courage.

In the country, I chewed on a weed because an old man in a picture was doing the same thing. Sour grass is a way God reveals itself. There was a time I didn’t know I should be grateful, but hit a patch of sour grass and I celebrated like the best birthday you ever had, or the best birthday you ever could have. It belongs to you, sour grass, because it comes from God. In the country you find yourself in the strangest of places. Before you shaved your legs, before anything was wrong with you, the sour grass tickles your ankles and reminds you it’s there. Before they say your writing is too flowery. Before a bike lane is a bike lane and you have to pretend that this is real life and roads can’t be roads without bike lanes and carefully selected paint colors. Wander, reassured by the weeds, but we from the country know every step is a leap from a cliff; nothing to remind you of where you came from and nothing hinting at where you’ll arrive. Up is the sun, over is the tree, corner is the flower, right is the deer. You never end up anywhere here really. If you’re lucky you can rest a while in Nana’s lap. You hit the end of a trail, the stone marking the spot singing a song called Carry On, because it knows home is just another way, another road, another walk, another trail. It’s better this way, not to name anything, not to invent more bike lanes before you deeply understand sour grass. Not to really have a home, not to even seek it, but look for Nana and find her where you can so weariness dissolves into rest into newness. Let her chin tickle your forehead, let your head on her breast count the rhythm of her heartbeat, something to remind you of the pulse of the before and below. Smell the overused pan with the old oil burned into it in her shirt, on the walls, in the couch cushions. Let it rock you to sleep, but don’t stay too long. You must Carry On.

Original art by Eliza Fedewicz @elizabydesign