Usefulness.

Sometimes, I walk around very aware of this gaping emptiness in me.  The size of the hole changes at times, though I haven't yet figured out the variable that makes it more lonely versus more tolerable.  I'm not sure what, if anything, could really fill it.  Perhaps it has a leak, and as all the things of the world pour into it, they just as quickly run back out into puddles at my feet.

A vessel finds its worth in its emptiness.  Its purpose as an empty space is to be filled, to hold on something precious.  Regardless of the beauty of the bowl, the cup, the vial, regardless of its composition, it is first and foremost an empty space, something without composition at all, defined only by its boundaries.

This leaves me with a conundrum.  If I ever find that which could fill my void, do I become complete?  Or do I simply lose my usefulness in this world?

Hallucinations.

The curtains slowly bellowed with the sigh of an oncoming storm, filling the air with the clean scent of anticipated rain.  Each time the heavy fabric moved, a blue panel of light would fall onto the floor and everything in the room would take on a silver hue.  The breeze would subside, the curtain would fall back into place as sure as if it never moved, and the light would give way to darkness once more.  Besides the gentle humming of the fan and the distant rumblings of thunder, everything was silent.

Each night, I lay in my daughter's bed.  It is our ritual; I serve as some kind of comforting ferryman as she crosses the river from excitement to slumber.  As she fades into sleep, I stare at the ceiling.  I smell the breeze, watch the light move with the curtains.  Though I will remain awake for hours, I am already dreaming.

I don't have many people in my life that truly care about me.  It is a sad truth that most of my relationships are nothing but hallucinations, some vivid imagination that I superimpose over the most innocent words and actions of others.  I imagine I'm much more important to people than I truly am, and sometimes the border between this colorful fantasy and my otherwise monochromatic reality gets blurred.

I recently had a transcendent moment in that gradient middle ground where two very different worlds collide.  I was reminded that I am very small and insignificant, that my hallucinations were a side-effect of copious amounts of optimism and delusion.  I wish I had someone to blame, some poor scapegoat to sacrifice to appease my silent tears, but there is only myself.  I have created this outrageous expectation that I be treated with a modicum of respect, this unreachable standard that people only say what they mean and speak it with conviction.  It is because I expect things that I am disappointed.  There's a lesson to be learned there, but I will not learn it.  I never do.

But in my new-found frailty, in my trifling gossamer reality that blows asunder with every gust of wind, there is that pale blue square of light that reveals the silver lining in every storm:  Though I am no one to nearly everyone, I am everything to some.

As the rain starts to fall, I slowly rise and close the windows.  My daughter is asleep at this point, and I'll sneak away for a moment of solitude before she realizes my absence in a few short hours.  She'll wake up and call for me, and I'll be there.  Just like I always am for anyone who needs me.

Happiness is a Choice.

It is not autumn yet, and the leaves on the trees are still quite green and healthy.  However, I had to rake the backyard today because the maple has had a very fertile season and the grass was full of little helicopter seed pods.  Even as I raked them into a sizable pile, they were actively falling from the tree.  Some hit the back of my neck with force and bounced to the ground, others were more of a tickle and fell down the back of my shirt.  It was peaceful.

Thunder started to rumble, and my daughter became frightened.  She was standing on the side porch, splashing in the water table with her brother.  I always try to explain to her that thunder is nothing to be afraid of, that it's just the sky's way of saying hello and letting us know it's about to give us a gift of rain.  This time, she bought it and as the rain began to fall, we ran around the yard.  We spun in dizzy circles, danced, ran through the wet droplets and looked up at the gray clouds, squinting.

I didn't waste time today with the internet, not with social media nor depressing images and stories of an ironic war in a holy land.  I didn't stare at my phone, eagerly awaiting interactions that weren't going to come. Something about today was simple, and it fostered the contentment that had been hard to find lately.  I was happy today, that simple true happiness that grows inside us when we make the choice to nurture it.

True happiness is not contingent upon external circumstances.  It is not dependent upon how much money we have, how large our circle of friends, how loved we are, how much property or material goods we have.  It is instead a product of gratitude, a conscious choice to hold a mirror up to our lives and see all the beauty contained therein instead of staring out a window onto someone else's life.  If you have to look outside for happiness, you'll never find it.

Lately, I've lost sight of the important things in my life.  I've focused on one dead branch in an otherwise overgrown and robust garden and made that misery the focal point of my existence - this one tiny thing that my life lacks.  Pathetically, I've clutched those dead leaves to my chest and lamented, "Why me?"  I've fantasized about that wilting plant and how much nicer my garden would be if only it could be healed, if only someone would rush to my rescue and pull the rotting roots from my soil.

No one is coming.  The universe doesn't owe me that.  The universe doesn't owe any of us anything.  The only thing we can do is pull the offending rot from our own lives, and look out onto our garden and its ripe fruits and vegetables with happiness knowing that the universe didn't owe us that, either.  But here it is, to be enjoyed for what it is.

The truth is, my life is full of simple beauty.  I have a hard-working husband who excels in his job and provides for his family's every need.  Because of his efforts, I am able to be a stay-at-home mom and raise our children myself, giving them the loving guidance and attention they wouldn't get with anyone else.  I grocery shop without a budget, I cook amazing meals in a beautiful kitchen in a home we own, I put my children to bed in their own rooms, then spend the rest of my evening pursuing intellectual hobbies without any real worry hanging over my head.  I have a tarantula my husband didn't want, two cats my husband didn't want, and might be getting a dog (which will actually be a compromise).

I brought my kids in from the rain and straight up to the bath tub.  Grains of sand settled on the bottom, blades of dead grass floated to the top, remnants of a day spent in joy.  We continued to splash and play as I scrubbed them down with castille soap that smelled of spicy lavender, then dried them off with fluffy towels and watched my little nudists run right to my daughter's room to jump on the bed before I wrestled them into clothes.

Happiness is a choice, and I choose to be happy.

*I feel I need to note that my unhappiness is in no way related to my son's autism.  Anyone who might not know what else is going on in my life or my head (and that's everyone, because no one knows what goes on up there) might jump to that conclusion, unfortunately.  My children are beautiful gifts and their own personalities, whether diagnostically labeled or not, are the spices of my otherwise dull life.

Stress.

I need to learn to deal with my negative energy in an effective manner.  I always think that I've got it under control, that I've had enough practice with times that evoke impatience and stress that dealing with them would be easier than it always seems to turn out to be.

I think the problem is that I tend to practice stress-reducing techniques when I'm actually not stressed at all, when deep breathing and meditation and yoga are much easier to do because I'm not fighting against a wall of anger and frustration.

Today was deeply stressful, and I dealt with it very poorly.  I decline to go into detail, because looking back on it, I'm ashamed of myself.  The things that I would whine about now are so unimaginably trivial in the grand scheme of things that anyone looking in on what upset me would wonder how I could lose sight of the multitude of blessings I have and focus on these tiny complaints.

The truth is that I am incredibly blessed, even when I feel suffocated by tiny dark clouds.  My son was having a bad day, but he leaned on me for his comfort.  My daughter got to run in the sun, to play at a park we've never visited before, to laugh with her dad.  The weather was beautiful, and we were outside to enjoy it even though our planned picnic didn't quite happen the way it was intended.  I might not have been able to photograph the several varieties of beautiful spiders I found today, but I got to see them, to let them crawl on me, to peacefully return them to safe places.

But I failed to see these little beautiful things, to really focus on the positives because I was too caught up in how the day was "supposed" to be instead of letting it shift and change organically.  I dug my feet into the sand and didn't move when the tide came in, so I really have no right to complain about my wet legs.

Instead of focusing on how to calm myself when I become stressed, I think I need to simply combat the stress before it even arrives by simply giving up, and giving in.  Giving up the plans, giving in to the flow.

When we got home from our excursion today, I was moody and irritable.  I quietly seethed to myself as I shoveled food into my mouth, though I wasn't hungry.  I let myself be broken, and the worst part is that I broke myself.  I will not let myself be broken again; I will prevail.

*     *     *

Men are born soft and supple;

dead, they are stiff and hard.

Plants are born tender and pliant;

dead, they are brittle and dry.

Thus, whoever is still and inflexible

is a disciple of death.

Whoever is soft and yielding

is a disciple of life.

The hard and stiff will be broken.

The soft and supple will prevail.

(Laozi)

This Neighborhood.

I'm back in my old neighborhood, the place where I grew up and lived the better part of my life.  My daughter was watching a cartoon with my mother, my son was rocking to sleep with his dad.  Everyone was taken care of, so I used the opportunity to take a walk to the lake and watch the sun set.

The neighborhood is beautiful and simple.  Humble Cape Cods and ranch homes line the streets where well-tended lawns seem to glisten.  Cars parked along the street are unlocked, their windows are down.  There are no sidewalks, but you can walk in the streets with no worry.  It's a quiet neighborhood, a slow neighborhood.

Down at the lake, I sit at a bench.  Long grasses flow in the breeze before me, and the sun glows like a golden lamp in the sky.  The lake moves gently and constantly, reflecting the light like drops of golden oil floating on the surface.  I am a alone, but there are other people watching the sun.  Everyone is content to sit in silence, to simply watch the earth slowly turn and welcome the evening.  I am sure that my blood nourished a mosquito or two, but they take very little and I have much to share.

Soon, the black trees of Presque Isle in the distance swallowed the sun, and following it, a slow exodus of people.  Some walked away.  Some rode their bikes up the steep hill.  Others hopped back into their cars, to drive to some other neighborhood not quite as blessed as this one to have such an unfettered view.

A purple tulip shoots proudly among a small garden of yellow and pink flowers; a robin with her beak full of worms bobs her head into the dirt for another.  Lights start to come on in living room windows.  A man stands in his garage with a beer, talking to a friend out of my view.

It is a safe neighborhood, a peaceful neighborhood.  A neighborhood of working families proud of their homes.  Some yards are full of decorations with no worry of vandalism or theft.  People walk the streets after dark.  As I head home, two young boys are playing a simple game of basketball in the park.  One stops and waves at me, and happily says "Hello."  I wave back with a smile.  They are quiet, respectful.

Soon, I come back up to the house where I grew up.  It looks like the other homes around it, but different.  The front yard is littered with white petals delicately fallen from small flowering trees; a lilac bush peeking around the side of the house sends a sweet smell through the air.  I will never see this house as anything other than my home.  This neighborhood will always be the ideal in my mind.

Who can blame me?

Good Day.

Today was a very good day.

It started off with a typical morning:  My daughter curled up next to me in bed with her arm across my neck, telling me "Good morning" and how much she loves me, my son sprawled on top of me giggling his sweet morning breath in my face.  We wrestle, we play.  Someone eventually gets tickled before we finally march downstairs for breakfast.  It was sunny and the wind that came in through the windows was cool and fresh.

My son's therapists arrived a little late for today's appointment, but the visit went wonderful.  We talked about the small hurdles my son has made, how he says an approximation of "Go!" when we prompt him with a "Ready, set..." and a wand full of bubble solution.  It was a trick he was eager to show us again and again as we met with applause and excited squeals, and blew long strands of bubbles into the air as he shouted "GAAAH!"  We reviewed a video we had taken at our last appointment of Gus and I playing together, and I was given much needed pointers on how to imitate more than initiate, and techniques for more therapeutic play.

After they left, we went to Costco.  We had pizza for lunch, and the kids sat happily at the table with me without a single fuss, ate happily.  When we walked around to shop for a few necessary things (like chocolate-covered caramels with sea salt and dried figs, y'know, the important things), I was able to slip a little cinnamon and sugar-covered churro into Gus' mouth, and for the first time out of many, he actually seemed to enjoy it.  He ended up eating at least a third of the churro, and while it's not anything I'd consider healthy at all, it is huge that he took a textural leap of faith and accepted a sandy-feeling treat.

When we got home, we settled down with a little bowl of pretzels and watched "Frozen" for what must have been the 40th time so far.  Then, we went to the park.

Taking my children to the playground is a pretty predictable routine:  Gus climbs up the jungle gym, runs to the slide, goes down.  Tries to climb back up it, gets frustrated, runs to the swings and expects to sit on my lap as I swing.  Evelyn is more than happy to run all over the play equipment by herself while I watch.

This late in the day, though, there were a lot of girls there, some only a little older than Evie and some much older, and they eagerly accepted her into their play group.  They had bags with dolls and they sat on a step brushing their hair.  They climbed the slides together.  They ran around holding hands and jumping.  The joy in her little face to be included and welcomed, to be enjoyed and adored, to be among peers melted my heart.  It made me think of preschool and how my little social butterfly will be in full flight when she starts to make real friends, not just passing acquaintances at the playground.

We walked home, kicking and chasing our ball.  I got Chinese takeout for dinner.  Everyone honored bedtime happily and fell asleep quickly.  Gus even let me brush his teeth without a fight.  I am tired and worn out, but I powered through my yoga in a hot attic with sweat dripping down my cheeks and I feel amazing.  My life may be simple, but it is beautiful.

Yes, today was a very good day.

My Everest.

The Indian tectonic plate slides deep beneath Asia, and where the two meet, the rocks push to the sky.  There among the Himalayas, we find soaring Mt. Everest.  In Nepal it is known as Sagarmatha, or "Goddess of the Sky."  At 29,035 feet it seems to be the point at which Earth and Air become one.  It took nearly sixty million years for a humble slab of rock to become the majestic and iconic peak that it is today.

This is how the earth moves, slowly and deliberately.  It accomplishes great things over even greater lengths of time and to those who have patience, it offers nothing less than itself as a reward.

The wind on Mt. Everest is wild and free.  It comes and goes as it pleases, blowing up to 175 miles per hour at its own behest, picking up as it desires and dying down when it has grown bored.  It dances with the snow like a swirling cloud; it kisses the summit hard like a lover.  It is the constant companion of the lonely mountain, urging it ever forward, ever higher into the realm of the sky.

This is how the air moves, capricious and volatile.  It accomplishes what it can in very little time, and to those who enjoy the unpredictable, it offers nothing less than itself as a reward.

I have a proverbial Everest, a lofty peak to climb where these two opposing elements dance harmoniously in solitude, cold and set apart from the rest of the world where the only warmth is in the joy they must feel when night falls and together they reach for the moon.  

Alternate Reality.

I don't regret many things that I have done; however, I regret many things that I haven't.  Words I didn't say, doors I didn't walk through.

Every decision I made not to act was a link in a very straight and narrow chain leading to the here and now, and each action I did not choose branched off into what is now its own parallel universe, its own hypothetical world that would lead to entirely different circumstances than the ones in which I find myself now.  I know that I'm where I'm supposed to be, but I can't help but wonder about all these other points on the map that I'll never travel to.

I journey to these worlds in my daydreams sometimes, and once in a while I find points where these chains run parallel to my own, and I fantasize ways that I could somehow skip between these realities without losing very much, almost like doubling back with a handful of what I have and taking a different route at the intersection of confusion.

Failure is the standard when trying to jump between the worlds.  People haunt these spaces the most, opportunities for social advancement alone stab me in the heart.  I care not about jobs I had lost, or the college degree I never finished, or the hobby I didn't pursue.  It is the relationships gone and forgotten, the ones that never were which make me long to leap that phantasmic space between these chains.

If only is a delicate whisper on this cosmic wind, a light breeze against my soul that turns me around sometimes.  But because I walked that particular chain and made no divergence in what must only be my destiny, I have my eyes focused solely on one bright, shining star:  My children.  They alone are my reason, and they alone are the only things I'd take with me if ever I doubled back, that handful of whatever goodness I found along my way.

I eagerly drink from the springs of new opportunity only to find myself eternally thirsty.  If only...

Ahimsa.

Ahimsa is an ethical discipline, or yama, that at its simplest means non-violence.  This concept is practiced in as many different ways as there are individuals who strive to adhere to its message, but the theme remains the same:  To practice a life of compassion, gentleness, and love.

Like a rose, the petals of violence are many and they unfold one atop the other.  At the center is spiritual apathy, a disjointed view of who we are as a species, who we are as individuals, who we are in relation to each other and where our place is in the natural world around us.  This apathy opens us to emotional despair - confusion, depression, anxiety, low self-esteem and no sense of our own worth or the worth of those around us.  Finally, this leads to the outermost petals of the rose, the ones who seem to decay the fastest, those of physical violence, the manifestations of which are devastating to who we are a species, who we are as individuals, who we are in relation to each other and the natural world around us.

Ahimsa isn't only about those outer petals of physical violence, the blows we inflict upon ourselves and others.  It's about the emotional and spiritual violence, as well.  Hate, prejudice, anger - all of these things cause injury, all of them are harmful.  Our thoughts and our words need to come into line with a concept of non-violence if we are to reap the benefits of a life lived truly in compassion.

We all are guilty of planting seeds of violence.  When we exert our power over those who are smaller than us, like stepping on an ant, we are actively guilty.  When we walk past a beggar and avert our eyes, we are guilty by omission.  When we spread a rumor, hold a grudge, feed a deep-seeded hatred, we are passively guilty.

Ahimsa requires some initial discomfort.  We need to make ourselves small so that we can see how big everything else truly is; we need to make ourselves nothing so we can see the something in others; we need to let go so we can give back; step back so others can step forward.  When we are all doing these things, we will all meet in the middle.  If something pleases me but hurts six other people, I need to sacrifice that happiness, because I am only one but they are many.

In my own life, I fail a lot.  I am impatient, I am emotionally volatile, I am lazy.  Each time I stumble, though, I see it not as a fault but as a teacher, an opportunity to recognize the bad in me and hopefully exorcise it so the next time I'm walking down that same sidewalk toward a violent outburst, I can try to avoid tripping over the same cracks.  I have a long way to go, but I have a long time to get there.

You are stronger than me.  Walk with me.  Hold me up.  Forgive me my faults and know that I am trying.

Rainy Day.

I was driving into a storm waiting to happen, a horizon composed of blue and gray clouds stacked one atop the other.  Erie had faded behind me, and Cleveland was too far away to see.  I felt like I was in limbo - I was nowhere and anywhere, driving what might as well have been the same mile of highway over and over. Trees, an exit ramp, a bridge.  Repeat.

It always feels weird leaving my hometown.  There's something that feels incomplete and empty, something I can't quite explain - plans conceived in a wild imagination that come to naught for lack of desire, lack of time. A sensation of leaving an important job unfulfilled.  Sometimes it feels like I'm not heading back to my home in Cleveland, but that I'm heading there only for a visit and that I will return to Erie, to my real home.

Driving in limbo, rushing toward a storm.  Somewhere between here and there, almost without space, almost without time.

This emptiness, this loneliness springs forth from a door that pivots on a rusty hinge, a tiny joint that opens and closes the channels of my peace.  In my tunnel vision, that empty space is all that I can see.  All I have, the walls that hold up my whole structure, are blurred along the edges while my focus is centered on that hinge just waiting for it to break, for that door to stop creaking open and slamming shut with every unconscious gust of wind.

I was overcome by an intense sadness, and could feel it hot and stinging in my eyes as tears began to well. Just as they hovered along my eyelashes, it started to rain.  It felt like the sky had taken on my burdens and shouldered my load for a little while.  The clouds cried for me, and I no longer needed to cry for myself.

The thunder even now as I lay here in bed rumbles a message, that all storms pass.  Whatever hides in the darkness will be brought to the light in brief flashes.  The earth needs the rain, and sometimes our souls need depression so that in braving it, we will grow stronger, larger.  Let us soak up the storms so that when the sun shines again, our flowers will bloom.

Why I Write.

Nothing compels me to write more than disconnect, that feeling of being alone in a full and busy world, of being composed of things unearthly and beyond reality.  That deep part of my soul like the bottom of the ocean where creatures we haven't yet discovered make their homes is cold and untouched by the sun.  I don't know what hides there, but I long to.  I drop anchor in these dark places every time I sit down to write; I imagine the strings of black letters are like a fishing line at the end of which is an enticing bait that will draw these creatures forward and pull them into the light where they can be studied, and known, and released.

I felt a compulsion to discover my oceanic beasts yesterday as I drove east on a nearly empty stretch of highway.  The broken white lines were lulling me into a thoughtful silence that sparred with the dull anxiety I always feel when I drive east, a result of playing chicken with Helios as he drags the sun across the sky and I'm fighting against the solar current.  I thought about how close we can be to someone while simultaneously being so far away, how half a mile of physical distance can be extended through walls of brick and glass that divide us, walls of apathy and ignorance that pull us even further apart.  

I thought about a single heartbeat in a building, this spark of energy that pulsated unseen into the air and was carried by the breeze and into my open car window, delicately caressing my cheek.  I could smell on it the same smell I find on myself, the tarry stink of destiny that firmly holds us in one place.  Our heads and our hearts don't always know it's there, and we get these amazing and lofty ideas of where we'll run to next, but every time we lift our heels, that black viscous tar of fate holds us firm.  And the heart beats on, unaware of my existence as I drive solemnly by, hidden by walls both visible and invisible.

In a city full of people, I saw buildings and cars.  I saw no one.

When I woke up this morning, I stood barefoot in soft moss wet with dew and watched the sun sparkle off the delicate pink blooms of a bleeding heart.  A mother robin nervously approached her nest to feed her naked, hungry brood.  I filled my lungs with the fresh air of a cool breeze and waved warmly to the first golfers of the morning as they made their way to the smooth green behind my parents' house.  I connected.

I am Gemini and Cancer, that zero degree mark between the signs that dives out of the air and into the water.  Born on the last day of spring, I am a daughter of the free sky, sister of the warm breeze and cousin to all those with wings who have tamed the fickle wind; I am a child of the sea, born looking through the rippling waves at the cool dark places the sun can't warm.  I am gaseous and gossamer; I am liquid and flowing.  This morning, I am everything.

I am starting this blog with high aspirations, that every day I can write of the things about which I am most passionate.  I am determined to hold back my wild horses, to no longer want to run against my destiny but stand here in my tar and learn to enjoy the view with patience and love.  Because it is full of beauty.  It is full of life.  It is full of awe.