What is the space between motion
And stopping called?
Beyond suspension
Spinning still
Silent in its embrace
Stealthy threads of deaths despair
Looped round to hold me there
Stillness holds
This moment, next
Beyond the sweet peas dream
Forge onward? Retreat? Recreate?
Persist besieged resist
Perhaps the moon has held you fore
And ever will again
I'll sit in his embrace
Lunar loved I'll be
And leave the fragile reckoning
To him that bereft me
Wrapped in embers of golden shame
Fueled by years of pain
Submerged in murky depths beneath the sorrow and the ache
What has he that held my heart
Gifted with all of me
Set ablaze in one cold breath
Waked of stammering regret
Grasping hold what was
Written in July 2023
When I stand in the ocean, I am home. The water swirls around me and the waves crash at my feet. The salty sea sprays my face and I am instantly wrapped up in arms of love and understanding, safe to be me. I cannot hold back the tears of heartache, sadness, and fear as they finally mix with the sea holding me. The waves crashing are the voice of a loved one saying, "You are home." It is hope, it is release, it is awareness, it is relief... and it has been too long since I was here.
My brother told me a little while ago that I am the ocean, and when he said it I have never felt so seen. Perhaps it is why I feel so held and so accepted in the arms of the sea. We are one, and yet my daily home is in the heat of the desert. It is the perfect picture of how I am not and never could be boxed into just one easily explained picture of who I am. I bring the sea with me to the desert when I come home, and return to refill and refuel when my heart has been drained by heartbreak.
Sometimes I feel like the ocean walking in the desert, never conforming, never fitting in, and yet I am finally at peace being me. Some people find me refreshing, cooling, calming and loving. Others experience me as never letting them rest, never letting them win, and chaos in the ever changing motion.
I cannot be controlled or contained and yet I hold an ocean of love that has no end and nourishes life. It wouldn't be the best day at the beach without my waves reaching the sand, and yet I can also swallow your boat whole, turn your world upside down, and have the energy of a typhoon when the storm sets in. The ocean just being the ocean - without any pressure of windstorms, air temperatures, or cold fronts - is still, nearly silent, and smooth as glass, calm and clear. Sailboats stop and sit in wonder. Dolphins dance and play. Whales breach, laughing as they spray,
There are people who don't like the ocean. The waves scare them, they are overwhelmed with the vastness of it, and are determined it is filled with sharks and jellyfish and not safe for them venture into. Maybe it is sometimes and definitely in some place those conditions exist. And sometimes, people don't like me either. It's okay. My waves scare people, the emotions that roll in and out and the ever changing presence is unnerving... sometimes even for me.
Sometimes people look for the waves and the wind that wields them, ride the surf, set their sails and embrace the power. Those people know the energy may be massive, swirling, unpredictable and never taken for granted, still ebbing and flowing, sending the tide out each morning and returning each night with a rythm and flow that is predictable ease to someone who knows. There are patterns to look for, times to surf, times to wonder, times to sail, and times to sit and watch and times to dance with the waves. I feel all of it within myself every day and have even had to learn how to work with myself to not be caught off guard with a new wave, the surging tide. I've had to learn that when the waves come in and the result is a strong current pulling me under, I get to move, stay moving, and dance with myself. The undertow only sucks you under when you don't move.
Others are respectful, or even sit in awe, and stay cautious, never trusting the full presence, embrace, or experience. I get it. I have not always been loving. I can even be scary, unrelenting, hurtful, and for some, they have experienced me as cruel, uncaring, and unkind.
I stood in the ocean today with the waves knocking me back, surging and playing, teasing and laughing... and I felt sad for the people who have been knocked on their ass by the unexpected waves of the ocean that is me when they thought they were having a day at the lake. Everyone deserves a day at the lake when that is what they want it to be.
At the end of the day, I just don't who else to be. I am me.
