we say goodbye

sometimes saying yes is easy-
yes, i'll be there- yes, i can---but saying goodbye is always so hard- like taking big steps into the next unknown moment with a big raw open heart, i do this now... goodbye twenties--goodbye sunny day swimming in the pond--goodbye house in the woods--goodbye expectations-goodbye all sense of security... And with little weezy breaths i get pulled into each now as if i have no choice..time happens so fast now- seems like there are so many people I have lost touch with; if only i had known when we last were together- seems like there is so much still wide open and calling to me from my past, and yet the future too is all ablaze with the moaning of things to tend to.
When i left my partner of 4 years a few months ago i did so with fierce bravery and sureness.. I wanted the fights to end and didnt trust we could end them together..wanted so many things that i didnt trust i could get there.. not trusting, and trusting at the same time--trusting that leaving was the right thing to do- trust in knowing that the fights were too big, trust that things would be better...and they were.. and they are (?)(?)(?)...
right now i sit in the midst of flowers that are not mine, smelling smells that bring me back to places i long to visit agian- California as child with my grandmother and her quoy fish and ripe melons we would eat with dinner, California not so long ago-working so hard and being so hot with children in tow- but there was vanessa and sita to celebrate the joys with and dance with and cook fried beets with- new zealand and the many places i love there, the simple quinoa dinners adam and i would share in the garden, the asparagus and tahini-ginger dinners lindsay and i would giggle over, the bread i would bake at arahanui.. and mississippi too- all thick and full and deep and calling to me like a ghost. I know nothing but memories lay there, and yet i am there now too, 15 and alone on the streets looking for love and breathing in the smell of fried chicken and pork barbeque.. I am here longing as i've longed so many times before- not knowing still how to fullfill myself..i work with anxious rhythm, i love with unstoppable force and devotion, i sit, i walk, i read, and still i yearn for something that is always just beyond my reach..

forever i have wanted a restaurant..i have wanted to be published. i have wanted my own place in vermont. and now i have all of this and more..2 kids. fancy car with dark windows.. sunny summer days.. friends..health..and..........this..this deep deep feeling of fear.

i am right here, smelling the past as if it clings to my nose; writing to myself as if it could ease me, drinking beer and eating popcorn covered in sheeps cheese and pepper, breathing in smoke and roasting in the fire of my anxiety..i am waiting for someone and i hate that..when i know that it is me i am waiting for..

then..new day

so much stress..not feeling like i am enough.. missing my children and needing space at the same time.. fearing the future, unsettled with the past, angry at myself, in awe of myself, and not knowing how to communicate, ALL AT ONCE..

she says: "you are doing do much"

i say "yes, but nothing very well.."

she says : "yes you are doing well"

I say (with force and meaning) : " NO I'M NOT"

then...

like predicted

i stick the knife in deeper because it seems like i just cant even help myself..

emergancy room.

stupid hole in my hand from cutting an avocado...

wounds so real and here, in my hand...in my hand..

now i have something to work with, i suppose...something to focus on that really IS all about me..but pain is so liquid and overflows into everything..looking back i'm sure i'll see it more clearly.

chewing steak outside by the fire- i know that if i chew slowly it will bring me strength- i am so completely here i feel stuck sometimes, and though--where am I? three months ago i longed for space- a seperate life and privacy..now i have this dream and because i am dreaming i can't live it??

we said i love you

as my thirtieth birthday came near (ok, it was still 3 months away) i began thinking alot about my life. Like everyone i've spoken to about it, it was like getting ready for a big transition- i couldn't stop thinking about my 20's, how they were over, and about the expectations i had been putting on myself about growing up.. Looking back, my twenties seemed so full- I got pregnant just three months after my 21st birthday to a new zealander after my first trip there, and spent the earlier part of my twenties coping and recovering from that. When I turned twenty five I made big changes- left the new zealander, became a single mother and moved back to new zealand leaving my home friends and family in vermont. After being in new zealand long enough to trully and really miss vermont, i returned and spent the next bit of time re-inventing myself. Who was I trying to be? where was I going? Just as i began i to contemplate the perplexities of my situation, accepting the discomfort of my really big mistakes, and at the same time enjoying my son and his little steps towards Independence, i went form one to another to another and conceived again-

this time with an artist who lead me to california to birth, and become mom again.

During this time of my mother dance, i couldn't help but feel urgency welling up inside of me. something was missing- something was missing- and when i looked, i realized--

it was me.

Again- big questions...who am I? what do I do? so busy with millions of little mundane tasks in a world of war and poverty, carrying my own wounds and worries, i rose with my children to my obligations to show them the light of the world. How long could i do this when my own light inside was muddled and distant?

With two children in tow i went to work finding myself...where was my passion? what was something I was really good at? What did i like to do? Seems funny now- but after nearly 6 years of taking care of other people's needs first, I felt so far from knowing my own self. I started reading- reading anything and everything- i went back to school, i started writing again, and then, I started watching myself making more room for me- slowly, haphazardly, and without organization, i started tearing little holes into the seams of the days to make ore time for things I really likes---picking flowers, reading cookbooks, going to the beach, drinking beer, watching cheesy romances, reading teenage fiction, making movies, dancing naked in the middle of the night in ly kitchen, and cooking with curioustiy and force. I indulged myself by meeting all the farmers at the farmers mrket and taking their experimental crops home with me to create new recipes, I found a bar that had organic beer and and a child friendly happy hour, I videotaped myself walking, driving, waching dishes, and dancing..When the choice came to return to vermont or stay in california, i painfully told my partner I had to go- that i couldn't stay there anymore- it was time for me to return to vermont and for me to take the next steps in rediscovering me. We returned- me with bright excitement and adoration, him with dark clouds of regret and anxiety. We faught crazy fights and threatened to hurt eachother, we invoked panic within eachother, and stirred eachother up in ways that would take years to mend. I would distract myself though- as i am so good at doing- from the death that was awaiting, by working on things that were mine..that little cookbook i started in california because I was bored and needing a creative outlet became a 100 page manuscript and when we would fight or things would get dark, i would reach for it and work on it, or force myself to send it our to yet another publisher. When the publisher responded i knew that i had created this little hole in my world into which i could slip into another. I knew that this was going to be my way out.. out of what? out of old patterns, out of the regret of having not finished anything before, out of my insecurity that i had no talent-out of my nothingness and into somethingness..For the next year finishing and editing that book was what kept me alive after each fight- and each fight pushed me further to finish, and at the same time I was just barely holding on- and felt so mush like I was just flinging myself out into shark laden waters- or an abyss of falure. I worked into the hours of the morning, made my children watch tv on sunny days so I could work, and made hotdogs and pasta salad a few too many times to ever really feel good about..Then I had an opportunity to buy a restaurant and so I took that on too- so that each time a fight arose or i started to sink into my who am i mode, I would just get up and start working harder. Pushing pushing pushing as if i was birthing and being born at the same time. The last three years have been a blur. And it was just a few months ago that (during a bout of pnemonia) i stopped pushing quite so hard and started to look around.. What of this would I want to do again? what of this do I regret? what do I really really want? Then, while rolling basil leaves and slicing them paper thin, the knife would go in slow motion, and the colors all illuminated, and like amber so clear and golden, i would hear my own voice asking for specific things... a penthouse in tokyo...a bath and a filet mignon and buttery potatos... to dance all night with lime on my lips..