December 9th - Party

I’m participating in Gwen Bell’s #reverb10 challenge this month which means 31 days filled with daily writing/photography prompts meant to reflect on the past year and at the same time look ahead.

It was the first warm night of the year, the snow had melted weeks ago and the chill had held on...but this night it was warm, no cicadas yet, the spring was not yet in bloom, but we were out, walking the streets, my fellow Atlantans, unfettered, without glove or hat, and we were all feeling sexy. The party was an art opening, my first of what I hoped would be many nights out in my newly adopted city, and I had on a new scarf. I chose pink pink pink for my party clothes, and I drove down Peachtree past the Fox theatre with all my fellow citizens walking, drinking, talking, a convivial spirit enveloping the city. The people were as light as air, the mood was frivolous, gentle, laughter and clinking glass. The food was party fare, finger-y foods, white wine, gin and tonic, this is the south after all, and the characters were in full promenade. I met a politician, a broadcaster, some artists, some trophy wives, everywhere was skin, prickly white in the almost cool first of spring evening, but we braved the gooseflesh, we had had enough of wool and down, and cotton and silk were dancing around like Chanel Cruise collection on a runway model. The music was inconsequential, the dj spinning moody tunes, punctuated by a bit of hip hop when a local rapper joined the crowd, the room was bright, well lit for the paintings, and the conversation swift. I was carted around to each of the leading men and ladies, regaled with tales of Atlanta, its dark, light and funny sides, much like the roads here, all conversation lead to Peachtree Street, How can there be so many streets with the same name? I laughed at the tales of dogs, wrecked cars in ditches from late nights with too much drink, good old boys and college football. I told my tale of my first try at fox hunting, I was already initiated, accepted, a beloved, for southerners adore daring-do.

Looking back now, from my home in Los Angeles, I see that moment as I see all of my short 6 months in the South, as a treat, a bon bon, a petit four, a glimpse into a life that would not be mine. A friend of mine once told me "when you look back at the past, don't stare". Too true Molly, too true. If I were to reflect, and hope to manifest again, then it is I who must seek out the night, the warmth, and I will not judge the Autumn by the Spring.

The Way I love you

The way I love you feels
Like the wind in my hair
and sugar on my tongue
The way I love you feels
Like sunshine warms my face
and fingertips slipping through rushing water

The way I love you feels
Like the lick of a fire on a cold winter night
Like the crisp smooth glide of fresh sheets on naked skin

The way I love you feels
Like the scent of dew in the morning
and the sound of leaves crushing under my shoe, damp, and moldering
freshness and earth, life and death,
sweet and heavy fog blanketing the coast,
comforting us with her bellowing horns

The way I love you feels like all my childhood memories, favorite meals, beloved toys, books, stories, best friends, scraped knees,
The way I love you feels like all things great, good, small, sacred, secret, whispered, shouted, cried over, promised,
like crossing the finish line, like licking the bowl, being tickled, milk out the nose laughing, sappy movies, making love, sleeping in, getting a kitten, losing a cat, reading and old love letter, regret, hope, remorse, faith, fireworks on the fourth of July

The way I love you is so quiet, so deep, so a part of me, that you beat in my veins, flow through my lungs, you are in me, part of me, have always been here, I have never been without you.

The way I love you feels better than anything I have ever known.
You are my alpha, my omega, my soul's closest friend. All I will ever feel will be this.
This is how the way I love you feels.

Keith Urban said it best

I continue to be brought to my knees by this love of ours… I am in awe of how this blessed family we are creating stretches and fearlessly opens my vulnerable heart…and I just want to be a better person, for you, and have you go to sleep every night knowing that no one has ever, or will ever, love you as much as I do…and all we need is faith.

Again? Yes

So here I am, again. Yes. Again. On the floor. Forgotten it all over again. Where have I been these last 100 days? Making love, making bread, making the bed. Busy getting busy. Busy having my way and calling it something else. How easily it slips away. How easily I can fall right back into the abyss. The blind spot. The pink cloud of desire has wiped my brain clean. Well, only partially clean. Like cleaning the 10 foot high windows on our old house in San Francisco, no matter how many times you spray, smudges remain. I have smudges on the brain. Smudges of compassion, smudges of hope, smudges that remind me where I came from, where I have been, the miles I have walked, run, crawled to get out of that mire, and find myself here, in some sort of hazy mindfulness. But mindful I am, even if all I am aware of is my own lack of awareness. So easy to be caught up in this new life, this new love, to walk so tall and proud of what I have done, what I have made, like some demigod I prance, chest, breast held high, puffed and ready to be adored. Arrogance is a sneaky bastard. Lies down with you at night and wakes you in the morning like he has always been there. Today, however, he is banished. And I will peer through my smudges and attempt to regain my poise. I will try once again to walk with my head held not so high, but high enough to see the truth.

It is here, the end, the end of my limbo, the moment of anticipation the closing of one door the opening of another all of me has left Georgia and has arrived in california, the thing that I desired is here, handed to me on a gilded platter, love, compassion, heartful union, all in my tiny hands, to grasp onto with all my might, but the leaving the ending the sorting the unpacking the arranging the assimilating, still to come still a task at hand, still a fear that I need to surmount. Gathering into, moving around, fitting, rearranging, restaging designing, creating, taking what was hers, adding what is mine, creating what is ours....my art, my furniture, my things, all part of me, crushed, smashed and mislaid, by the careless scoff of a man,

so there is an ending, there is a beginning, there is some scene about to shift, the lighting about to fade, the curtain drop, then raise again, the stage transformed from the one to another, and I walk out on that stage, costume changed, skin changed, heart changed. All of it new. All the old gone, all the new before me. i have shaken off that thing that I cling to so hard, replaced it with a soft and quiet space. How could I have been any one else ever? Hiding beneath layers of sadness, crying, reaching, begging, yearning for this that I have now.

Sadness envelops me like summer fog in the San Francisco of my childhood. I start anew.. The sun is shining, my love is smiling, comforting, adamantly suggesting that she will make it alright, that I will be alright, that we will make it through.

Broken wine glasses is all I truly fear. This is small stuff. I will be okay.

Green green trees hours of asana walking to town beer and tofu tacos summerfest the worlds smallest farmers market riotous unfolding almost never ending spring fox hunting slow paced straight a boo bff mlk Carter turner Chatahoochee river air so thick I can feel it on my back hammock Stella aiden russ Josie and mrs smith run club 6 miles through Agnes Scott and back first race ever snow rain pollen town square Virginia highland oasis in republican land oh Decatur my temporary home I could not have conjured up a prettier happier place beltline piedmont olmstead parks everywhere you look hopes that will not see their reward dreams that will not come true but for a moment an island in time you were the cradle the breast the safest harbor I could ever have wanted needed and like a proud mother you send me out now into the concrete jungle and hope that I will prevail like Frederick you have helped me gather colors sounds words for the long winter months ahead