In June of 2019, I parked my car on the righthand side of a street just off of 6th to rush into a Tibetan store. I remember there was no need to hurry, only that the stuporous heat left me half-detached from reality. If not the sun, maybe it was the soon arrival of someone who was, at the time, my world, that left me in a daze. I was wearing typical Colorado attire, donning Birkenstocks and perhaps a flannel tied at the waist.
In the store, I had wanted to find something that would connect me to my then lover. Constantly, incessantly, I want to be bound to those I fall in love with, long after my physical self is gone. I long to not be forgotten, to prove that love is important, it prevails. Love during childhood felt nameless and shapeless and out of that, a desperation to nail it to the goddamn ground grew. Please don't forget that I love you, I seem to always scream. Forget the silly fact that I often give all of my love away till I'm empty and unable to be recycled. No, wait, this isn't a story about love. It's one about fate. Is fate the same as destiny? Is it the same as love? In the store, I would find two bracelets made from stones - a pattern I would repeat at least once more. It had felt successful to me until I was walking back to my car. In the haze of the summer I couldn't understand what I was looking at. My car was unlocked and running. I had parked my car and left the engine on. And it was still there, 20 minutes later. This is a story I have never spoken aloud because I find it so embarrassing. Yet, it's also so remarkably unusual that I've yet to forget it. Unusual for me, a young woman so careful to build a world where she is able to withstand the pressures. I remember the hot leather seat sticking to my thighs while I sat there shell-shocked by how careless I had just been. Then I reversed, put my car in drive, and continued onward. At that time, I wasn't living in Denver and I never thought I would be. I was spending the summer in the mountains before moving my life to a different continent come Fall. Time passed without much pain and I enjoyed being in Colorado, only partially heartsick at the distance I was creating with my then lover. It's now June of 2021, and I've lived in Denver for the past 6 months. In the two years since, I've seen a lot of the world and felt it reflect back on to me. Pain powerfully dealt, I moved my new self to this city. A new self, an ever-changing being. During the snowy month of January, my dog and I settled into a small corner of the Capital Hill neighborhood, piling blankets on bed and lighting candles while making a lot of pasta for meals. I have fallen in love with two more people since June of 2019. My heart breaks softer now than it once did. It took awhile for my half-conscious self to realize. Driving down 6th, back into town, during those first few wintery weeks, I took a left on to my street. The street where I've been living, the one that now reads on my license. Clarkson Street. Just before the left, there stood the Tibetan store, smushed between sushi and a pub. My face froze as it hit me, it was on Clarkson two years prior where I had left my car running. I live a few blocks up now, but it's the same street. I've been wondering since if a part of myself knew. If the Universe was laughing down on me. If the pieces were rearranging. If future me was acknowledging the past me. If the past me felt the current me pass on by. And in that strange symmetry of parallel worlds, I left my car on in a state of silent disturbance, making waves that my two different selfs had run into each other, quite unknowingly. And it comes down to this, the ultimate realization; I have no control over what's to come, or to be. What life will emerge as is always quite unknown. That is for certain. What deems questionable is the idea of fate. What's behind this world? A thing called God calling the shots, painting the picture? The stars crossing your path with significant others? Time bending forwards and backwards with every person's decision to take a different path? Or is it all, always, chaos? Places like Denver and caring for certain people make me believe that it is not random. Where I've been and who I've met cannot be tossed away as chance. No, it is all fate. Fate that I'd be here. Fate that I'll be there, wherever that may be next. Coming to this conclusion, I hope and strive to be whatever the people I met need in that moment. I'm okay with giving, expecting nothing in return. I only hope that I give what is right and needed. Then, perhaps my fate will always keep pushing me forward.
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I was in another country when you entered this world, completely unaware of your existence or your importance in my life.
I was sad, alone, broken, and empty when I met you. Nothing felt right, not even holding you the first time, but I went along with things because what else was there to do? You hid under the bed, in between books on shelfs, in small corners, and gave me stubborn side-eye. I would take you down to the creek behind the house I grew up in. You learned to swim in that same creek, months later. The tip of your tail was black when I first met you. Now it’s mostly white, curling upwards at the end. Your face was more smushed as a baby, whereas now its grown longer, making you look wiser. Wiser you are. The past few months I’ve felt us grow closer. It took awhile, but I can feel you start to love me almost as much as I love you. Now, you make sure a paw is reaching out toward me while we sleep, side-by-side. Now, we run together and you find joy when I come home. Now, you are One Year Old. Do you know? I hate the concept of time. I would stop it all to have you forever. Maggie, you’ve saved me this past year and I’ll never be able to repay you in enough love. Happy Birthday to my little bug. With cookies and cream and repeated kisses,
the soft torment of time passing Crushed by a shoebox of space, a healing love never felt before You spoke of wonder, and big ideas Drifting through gray skies, heated seats with intertwined fingers There’s peace, but also a rush of emotion The holiday’s spent together, an intermingling of family and senses Soon you’ll leave, just as fast as you came. No doubt there’ll be emptiness, but no greater than gratefulness. The next time I love, it’ll be with one rooted down firmly next to me.
Our roots sharing the same sweet water, branches grazing against one another. Our love will be side by side, facing each other. The storms my bark has weathered remains strong, but not strong enough to survive another love carried to me by the wind, from far away places. I can’t rely on the distance any longer. The pollinators flying between, the moon whispering sweet nothings. Time isn’t enough any more. The canopy of my tree seeks warmth through the sunshine and the embrace of nature. The musings of some future doesn’t cut it, the past speaks of reality, the present something to be felt, not wished away. Planting seeds all around me, I’ll wait. But not for you, or for some, or for another. I’ll wait for the changes I’ve made to find solid ground and spread the tendrils until I’ve unraveled, unraveled into what I’ve been searching for. Myself, only bigger. Growing into a taller tree, 6 feet and beyond. I’ll accept no one else’s version of me, only my own, whatever that may be. And then when I’ve decided I'll never stopping growing, my roots will meet yours. We will tangle together until the option of separation isn’t an option, or a possibility, or a breath of an idea that lasts even a second. And when the time comes for my rings to stop spreading and the trunk of my tree to sigh a deep relief, I’ll be comforted knowing I didn’t wait for someone to tell me when a good time to grow is. No one gave me permission to reach for the sky and feels it’s soft kiss. After so much torment, I gave my own consent and lifted my head to meet the clouds. My branches tired of holding up proud, I’ll dwindle away next to you and together we’ll find our way into a small cabin, lighting a fire, keeping our home warm. Magnolia trees,
Shallow roots. Maggie Mags Magaroni Mag-a-million Magster, Magnolia. Love-bug Trouble-bug Sleepy-bug, C'mon my bug. My molars ache when I'm sad,
I want to rip them out. I never want to say I love you again. Anger management with vines that leave me red. Wine poured only to waste time, Ninety degrees with goosebumps on my arms. Please don't leave, just go. Simultaneously feels tight and heavy
A stone in my chest being pressed Down by Hercules. Sinking into sadness A self unrecognized Damn how things change. Said to an empty room, Anyway this is better Digging my way to oblivion. Mountains, glaciers, time, places, wild, nature, domestic, faces. A friend demands, if ONLY our senators saw these spaces! Instead of destruction more protection. More conservation. More appreciation. “We’re running out of time!”, our scientists proclaim. Humans feeling bigger than our world, more demanding day by day.
Looking out at Alaska, watching glaciers retreat, there exists the smallness we are all meant to feel. The water, the animals, the wind, the Natives, they are all teachers – WHY have we ignored them? In ignorance our world struggles to breath; running out of trees, of habitats, of kindness. Watching bears tumble one after another. Watching birds bob and dip beneath the surface. Watching whales roar and become ballerinas, arching and diving. This is the world as it is meant to be. Our world, our cosmos, our Universe. And who are we? It is easy to become pessimistic. To turn away, those scientists are silly, let’s keep on expanding, consuming! There’s no point in turning the boat around now. We are top of the pyramid! We can roar just like those whales. Who taught us this narrative, when did it begin? Just like my friend says, if you saw this land – this state, you too would think twice. You would breathe in, breathe deep. And see that you are small, and this world is big. It does not need us. We need it. This summer has been delirium. Disillusionment. Satisfaction. Confusion. A mixture all rolled into one heart.
Time is a fickle thing, having too much, having too little. Learning more about what is healthy and what is not. Putting things off, feeling like a letdown. Feeling a lot. I’ve been thinking about birthright. What about my life is a possession solely from my family and what has originated from the point of my birth onwards? How do I relate myself to my relatives, when can I recognize my privilege, and are there any moments in time where I can see past it? Should I, am I, allowed to disavow this immense advantage if only for a second? The world screams a resounding no and I am learning to live with that. To find gracefulness in my circumstances. To understand and appreciate opportunities with deeper widths. And when it comes straight down to it; only I know the truth of me. Only I can understand my birthright, and only I can work towards acknowledging it and how unfair this world can be for others. Lately my mind has been trickily seeing the world through money. Something that is cruel and ugly. It has been sneaking into my head constantly, now that I am on my own – with a little less of that birthright. I have been furiously typing notes into my phone, why is it money vs. people? I can’t quite figure out my thoughts on this, just that I know my life has been technicolor while other’s struggle with black and white. This truth bleeds through my actions and my experiences, it bleeds through me a night, staring up at the ceiling that I find myself under due to nothing else but my birthright. And when I am exhausted under the weight of money, the world shoves in my face color. How dare you feel exhausted when your skin shines white and, in this country, it gives you power. This body has hidden me, opened doors for me, and produced kindness from strangers for no other reason than its appearance. It shames me. For I know not what others have to go through, have to endure. It shames me for wanting something different, if only to allow me to connect better with those who have had to learn to be strong. Stronger than anything I have ever had to be. It is a strength that my privilege has allowed me to live without. And when I feel unkind or ungrateful, I know I do not deserve to ask for anything else than who I already am. So, this is me wondering if I can demand a world with more connection, less money, less color blindness, less birthright. This is me wondering how I can make it true. How I can make it fair. How can I make lightness where there has always had to be grit. This is me wondering if it is my place to stand when my privilege tells me to sit. There are really hard things in this life, in this world. Things that crumple me up and make me feel small. Things that weaken my knees and tighten my chest. There are things that squeeze out my words, but sound barely a peep. There are things that seem to go on forever. And I believe there are things that will remain deep down in my soul to stay, silently grieving way past when.
But some time ago I heard words, that for in one person hope and hurt can be. There doesn’t need to be a life living from one extreme to the next. There can be a life full of color, full of suffering and joy. Days spent twirling in minutes that pass through so many emotions, one’s mind can’t keep up. From sending a text, telling someone who cares, “I’m having a hard day, just beware”. To the next moment feeling free, unaware. Sometimes you can’t see what you have, those closest to you become taken for granted. It’s the small obtrusive bubbles that burst like sunflowers on a warm sunny day. Those bubbles wake me up to the happiness that exists, oh it’s out there! They are people on challenges to meet new faces, it is the smell of fresh coffee and comfort of rain. They are kind hello’s and talk to you later’s instead of farewells. They are speaking the truth no matter who cares. Because you care. And that is already enough. I wish I could bottle things up. Oh but you see, not in the scary way of not wanting to feel, but in the way that I wish experiences and memories could go on forever. Even the days, the hard days, where really hard things take place, are days that pass by and that the ticking of time keeps clicking. Don’t get me wrong, I love change and I love to see where it takes me and who it takes me to. But I wish I didn’t have to leave people behind. Because at the end of the day, there are really hard things, and those people are the ones who make getting through those really hard things seem quite alright. When I practice yoga I’m either one of two places. The first, out in space. Blackness all around me, floating amongst sparks of light, looking at our planet far below. The second, I am a tadpole swimming upstream in the creek behind the house I grew up in.
When I am in space, I am not an astronaut. I don’t wear a space suit or have a loopy line connecting me to a rocket. I don’t have a mini intercom in my helmet that broadcasts another person’s voice into my ear. It’s completely silent out there, in the stillness. It’s bliss and comfort all at once. It’s interconnectivity and wholeness. It’s time stood still and it’s everyone I love safe on the planet beneath. These are strange feelings because I can’t necessarily know that everyone’s okay while I am floating. Yet, I simply do. The calmness absorbs my mind and it’s like dark matter. I don’t even know what dark matter is. But I feel it. Being a tadpole is different. It’s being so completely alive that every skin cell vibrates against the cool rush of water. It’s feeling my whole life all at once. Running as a child, the smell of wet grass, bristles of fir trees, paper-wrapped sandwiches, belting Abba, folded into the corner of my Dad’s big, blue chair. Instead of time stopped, it’s time in warp speed. Thoughts always float in and out, no matter if I’m swimming in the creek or floating in space. In a memory that feels incredibly distant, a monk taught me that thoughts should be treated like balloons. Simply allow them to float on by, like clouds moving in the sky. In a way though, thoughts open up new clam-shells of awareness. A new thought sparks a new feeling and so on. It makes me wonder about all the things I have not thought of, all the alternate realities left unconsidered. Windmilling my arms and placing my hands down around my feet, practicing yoga makes me think of all the people who have helped me. The woman who held my face and forced me to come back after all I wanted to do was give up, who since has beat cancer. The man whose laugh and childlike freedom gives me hope despite everything bad in this world. All the people who are kind, who encompass the entirety of the word. The people who teach me, inside classrooms, things that cement what I learn outside those four walls. Family that will always listen when I give them the chance to hear what I feel. Yoga is balance in gratefulness, no matter if I am floating in space or swimming upstream. On Valentine’s Day, I accepted my next move in life. I committed to serving in the Peace Corps as a secondary English teacher in Zambia.
One of my fears is running away. It scares me to think people might see me as abandoning everything and everyone. Of course, this fear is driven by my own self, my own doubt. It scares me to think my coping mechanism is isolation. Am I running away from my life? In the back of my head this question sticks hard like chewing gum. There are two conflicting feelings within me. One, is the idea of running away and two, the idea that this choice hums in perfect tune with my heart and mind. Becoming a Peace Corps Volunteer falls gracefully in line with my life’s journeys thus far. I can look back and finally understand the time I’ve spent away from family as preparation for this next great adventure. My past serves as a template for why. Now that I’ve seen it, becoming a volunteer, I cannot unsee it. Nothing else makes sense anymore. Not graduate school, not any city, not the loneliness of being on my own at home. At least not for right now. The nagging loams big though. Am I making this decision because of my fears? Because of the solitude in my life? Because I am afraid of taking the concrete next steps towards a career? Because I am still so unsure of who I am? I am, I am, I am. Composed of a subject and verb, centered on myself taking action. Taking action for what, for whom? Me, me, me? The Peace Corps will also be a lonely experience, but it will be different. This would not be about me. It would be a journey of community love. I listened to a TED talk recently about empowering young women. There is self love, romantic love, and community love. Community love has the power to lift you up, support you, and serve as a mentor. Being apart of a community that could use my service, my independent, sensitive and soulful self - giving myself wholly to a place and the people for two years - will demand me to give them all I’ve got. I spent 2018 battling against who I am. Despite my best efforts that year, towards the end I came back to myself and listened to my intuition. The Peace Corps is exactly that, a conscious decision to follow what’s deep within me. Here’s to being a part of something big. 2019 is the year of living large. “We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” ― Joseph Campbell January is a month of reflection that takes you along a lazy-river in inner tubes of both boredom and creativity. This month always sparks irony for me, as it is one of my college’s selling points for attracting students. Look! A whole month of doing something different, something exciting. My time on campus is decidedly not that. It’s filled to the brim with alone time, my watercolor pallet, long runs, and waiting. It’s an odd period of time where I could either be home with family or beginning an actual semester of work. Instead it falls in the in-between, such as most things do. I felt proud of myself this month, maybe for the first time in a long time. The feeling was so big that it’s newness made me question if I’d ever felt proud of myself. I’ve always been able to acknowledge when others feel proud of me, or when people tell me I should be proud of myself. But this, this was just me. It was something that I did, all by myself. Despite everything… I did it and I was shouting from the mountaintops p.r.o.u.d. I stood in Charleston and promised myself that this year I’d feel proud more. This month I took down a car ornament in Juniper. Hanging from my mirror was an elephant that pronounced, “Today is my lucky day!”. After almost four years, I tucked the elephant away in my glovebox. I stopped feeling lucky. Honestly, I feel as if I’ve been caught in a riptide for quite some time. I always used to say, “Let’s see if the karmic forces are on my side today”, whenever I entered my parking lot to see if I could snag a spot. I haven’t spoken about my karma lately. I had a good spell but I feel very weary lately and thus, retired the elephant. The first month of the year I reconnected with a friend. She’s been there for me, someone to text, someone to share with. This has been so special to me and so treasured. We sat together and watched cable T.V. and murder documentaries for an entire weekend. She watched me shed a single tear in a Domino’s late at night and carried me through into the next morning. She has been someone I could confide in about the future. She makes me feel like me, probably because she’s known me through so many phases of my life. January has subtly and not-so-subtly showed me many things. I have grown older in many ways, while also noting how I want to remain young. I lost something completely precious to me. In February, fingers crossed, it will come back to me. The government was closed for the vast majority of the month, keeping me on my toes for a potential life-altering move. All of these things, all the ups and downs, has been my month. Lastly, I’ve witnessed so many people and thought that each and every one is incredible. This, being in awe of others, has brought great perspective. This means that I can awe people as well. It shows me that I have the power to reinvent myself, one more time. Or rather, again and again, each day a new person. I have written many versions of this month’s blog post and loved them all. I have a deep well of stories and I am beginning to want to share. My truth is beginning to shine forward. The next few days will bring me to share discoveries with someone who has raised me, who half-formed me. I am nervous but also confident. Change comes in waves and I am eyeing a tsunami in the distance. For awhile, I lost my tune to the Universe. Perhaps I could not hear it, or maybe I had forgotten how the melody went. I was being pushed along by a current of people, a mix of strangers and those dear to me. Pushed, pushed, pushed so far down a road until I forgot who I was. The pieces did not align together, despite how much I tried to explain their misshapen, discombobulated appearance. I could see it plain as day on people’s faces, from their masked confusion to their resigned empathy. I was forcing my life in an attempt to find happiness. I had captured happiness for a brief while, felt it in my hands, and was desperately trying to follow the same steps towards it again. They were steps that I full-heartedly wanted to take. They were steps that would lead me to a life that I had always craved; one of dependency, comfort, safety, and warmth.
My emotions turned against me in a wild way. I felt everything all the time, like a sticky wound left untreated. But no one noticed. Or maybe someone did. Suddenly I found myself taking a step off of the path and all at once, I lost my compass. I lost someone who anchored me, someone who had been my only constant. I took this step only half acknowledging the finality of it. This step veered me into a lonely place, a place where nothing is certain. It is a place where I need to be for awhile. However, I have told myself that I am only visiting and that this place is not my home. I have been on my hands and knees, searching. Searching for the missing parts of myself that I had lost on a path that was never truly mine. I find parts in songs that I listen to late at night through headphones while lying on the carpet. I find parts running through familiar streets feeling unfamiliar feelings. I find them over the phone, hearing a loved one’s voice, and being unable to avoid certain thoughts, certain losses. Most of all, I find them through writing. Curled in a chair that makes my knees creak, I write what I fear the most. Someone once told me that if you feel afraid then you are on the right path. I hope that’s true because I’ve never felt more fearful in my whole life. My Mom says I’ve had a lot of "upsets" the past few months. My upsets upset me more than anyone knows. It’s funny how life works. I have been achieving great things during my last year as an undergraduate. I have been doing everything right. A friend recently gifted me a bracelet with the word ‘strength’ stamped on it. Oh but how wonderfully weak I really am. I want people to ask me the right questions, and then keep asking them. I want people to see me and understand. I want a type of love that I’ve never had before, one that challenges me towards bigger dreams but that never leaves and instead, grows with me. The tide is slowly turning as I begin to realize that these things I want? I have to achieve them first. I have to be able to ask the questions to others first, to understand myself and then show others, to love myself in a grand, HUGE way and then be able to recognize this type of love out there, in the world. These tasks seem familiar to me, without a doubt. They are missions that I gave myself almost three years ago, but then promptly threw them under the rug when I found a pair of eyes that I could never not love. His eyes held bottomless kindness, his arms abundant loyalty. He taught me new feelings and he tethered me for the first time. I learned everything about him, loving each part slowly. The problem was they weren’t my eyes. They were eyes with entirely different dreams and ambitions, expectations and realities. They were eyes that danced to a different tune of the Universe and no matter how hard I tried, I could not match the rhythm. And what is there to do when you know you must say goodbye to someone you love? You become resilient and find your own tune again. “Life can be tricky, there isn’t a doubt. You’ll skin your knees trying to figure it out. But life works together, the good and the bad, the silly and awful, and happy and sad, to paint a big picture we can’t always see… a picture that needs you, most definitely. Remember that next time a day goes all wrong… to somebody else, you will always be strong.” -You’re Here for a Reason by Nancy Tillman One summer I worked in a small town near the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Those were long days of going back and forth between smaller villages, listening to strong Maasai women and writing everything down. After visiting the villages, I would return to the office and sit on my floor cushion and respond to tourist’s inquiries about visiting and discovering the ‘life of the Maasai’ through tours. I was there assisting in a concept called sustainable tourism. We aimed at making traveling a more appreciative experience that returns the profit directly to communities and limits the environment’s expense. It was an interesting dilemma, confronting exploitation and discovery. These seemingly innocuous tourists wanted to expand their worldview, how could I judge them for that when I was doing the same? With time, there comes a feeling of being territorial. It sneaks up on you, this urge to protect a place and its people. You may have been transplanted there, but with time it seeps into your bones. Most days were harder than not.
I met a friend in this small town. He spoke only through metaphors, discussed the stars at great lengths, and was adamant that every moment of life held meaning. We met through his taxi business and he would take me where I needed to go. Some days his youngest daughter would ride along, watching movies in the back. My friend was wise but had a youthful exuberance. Above all, he was in tune with people’s feelings. As he sped through the streets, dodging the occasional dog or person, he would give me advice. When he was younger, he was a race car driver. During one race out in the empty dirt spaces between clusters of homes, his car crashed, and he lost a hand. Afterwards, Allah opened his eyes; he had found his purpose. He would tell me that I was put on his path to learn from him. I find this happens to me, that I encounter people who determine that I was beamed down to them, so they could push me forward. Just a few years prior, I had a stint in a foreign hospital that ended with my doctor telling me he had cured me so that I could go forth to do something meaningful. So, I sat in my friend’s taxi and I let him teach me the rhythm of life. I question a lot; how things unfold, what knowledge is, why opportunities are withheld from certain people, the speed of progress, globalized ideas, opinions that conflict, and how I should react to it all. My friend would look at me as I would stick my head out of the window and feel the wind on my face. He would tell me stories about how the world was formed and the journeys people have undergone. He would look at me, knowing I was worried, and tell me to remember the trees. The trees represent the small, precious moments of life. The trees remind you of why you are working towards the bigger picture, which is to save the forest. My entire life, comprised of all the experiences that have deftly shaped me, has taught me why one small but victorious battle matters. I have learned that when a battle leaves me broken, I always come back stronger. Confronting myself, my thoughts, and urging my mind to overcome the obstacles and plant a new tree is something important. At the end of the day, I can feel conflicted and doubtful, but I am steady and will reach out to those around me and know that the forests will thrive. |
Author's note:Hi, I'm Helen. Welcome to Lifted ~ I write to lift myself up. Archives
June 2021
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