Grieve like you really mean it. A freestyle poem for tough times.

Freestyle, no edits. From my body, to my heart, to my mouth, to your ears. (With some fun technology tossed in the middle).

The audio, in real-time:

 (5 minutes)

Grieve like you really mean it

grieve like you really mean it because life is hard but you’re still alive, you still have this

this

this look out the window at the bird on the shovel hanging out of the wheelbarrow in the afternoon light

you still have this

this shadow of the chair standing still against the wall while the shadow of the leaves dance around it

you still have this

your beautiful body in the mirror, that woman you’re learning to make peace with amidst all the pain, all the things you never thought it would come to

grieve like you mean it because you are still alive

and it is a blessing to feel sadness so deep

sadness you want to find someone else to blame for

sadness you want to break things over

sadness you wish you didn’t have to feel

yes—I’m talking to you

to that part of you that knows, not in your head, but in your body

how badly you need the sadness

for all those winters you avoided the cold

for all those summers you stayed by the fan

for all the times it rained and you had an umbrella

you need the sadness

us humans are good at creating shelters, homes to live in, comfort, stability

but even we cannot avoid the pain that comes with being alive

even we have a price to pay

and maybe it’s not so physical

maybe we don’t as often suffer the terror of tsunami

or the chill of a tornado… ripping and ravaging our towns

but we are left broken-hearted

we are left alone in our rooms when we thought we had forever

we are left at the doormat of the home we no longer recognize because it is not embodied and imbued with the life of our parents or our children

we suffer, we suffer despite our shelters

suffer like you mean it

wail. do not wait.

wail loudly. now.

if there is suffering in your heart, find the song, find the poem, find the picture that breaks you apart and let go.

you deserve it.

to know that you are part of all things that have to suffer

it is the price we pay for life, it is the price we pay for beauty, it is the price we pay for breathing and for smiling and for laughing and for orgasming and for kissing and for eating delicious foods and tasting blueberries explode in our mouths; it is the price we pay

it is its own form of beauty

all that have had a lump stuck in their throat for years know that when they finally break down in tears, it is freedom

grieve like you mean it

grieve like you mean it

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 

The invitation:

Deep loves,

I've been in a dark hour of the soul over here, transitioning and growing up in ways I was never expecting. My answers to these questions are emerging like flies on the wall; an overflowing trashcan, asking to be emptied into poems:

• What’s between you and that life-changing release of grief? 
• What gets in the way of letting your guard down and letting it all out? 
• When you do… when you grieve like you really mean it, what are you letting in?
• What or who are you forgiving?
• And what happens, in your body, as you go through this experience?

The comments are yours for the taking. Simmer on it. Speak to us. Or muse in your own private space. Extra credit if you're currently in an especially tender spot in your life.

I honor and appreciate you so much for being here.

madlymadly for you,

rachael

not mine

Consider this your invitation, if you feel so called:
What world is not your own?

be with mine

Be with Mine from Jodi McLaren on Vimeo.

Heavy heart, I'll carry you tonight
I do my best, to try to see the bright side
I take you out downtown, just you and I
The roads are blocked, the traffic is thick

I start to cry
I start to cry, to cry - y- y- y 

I used to see your face more than my own
I used to touch your skin more than my own
I used to hear your words more than my own
I used to feel your love more than my own

What's there to feel? In my bones, what's there to feel? 

It's kind of funny, it's kind of sad
How it's so easy to hold the hand
Of someone else in their imperfection

why can't I, why can't I
be with mine? be with mine? 

I believe my heart was made to heal,
was made to breathe in love
and then exhale
and with each breathe released
I can choose
the song I sing 

so I'll let it out, let it out.

~~~~~

Jodi,
Thanks for giving the gift of being with yours... your whole self, your whole life, your whole everything. I adore every shade and side of you and your process. You truly do inspire me. Here's to being with ourselves, through and through, and when that becomes too much, remembering that we can also be with each other. Forever and ever, amen.
Love,
Rach

When everything falls apart

crossed between shadows and light this morning at Qualia Coffee.

Everything will be okay, she told me, because you are brave.

Her r's rolled like a lopsided wheel, not quite as smooth or sultry as an engine's roar... more weathered, more rough. Rough also was her touch, her cool heavy hands slapping and rubbing the side of my arm like a woman in the field smacking dirt from a dirty rug. Our colors contrasted like shadow and light, only I was the shadow, despite her dark skin. No, I was nowhere to be seen on that beautifully made bed with the golden glow filling the room, filling my lungs, filling the spaces between her wise words, her motherly body and mine. I was dark like an audience, happy to disappear and listen.

Turn the page, she told me.
Do a ritual. 
Buy new underwear. Burn the old.
How open is the window in your heart?
Open it all the way.
You must open it all the way if you truly want to turn the page.
How open is your window?
If you were writing in your journal, what would you say?... You know, if you were just to write how you feel? How do you feel?

I'm tired, I told her. So so so tired.

Good, she said, her hand doing a healing dance on mine. You are brave. You have done a very brave thing. It is the time to rest. But do not look back while you are resting. Turn the page. The future is bright. Everything will be okay because you are brave.

She trailed off into stories of brave shadows who learned how to come into the light, and I believed her. I believed that I was brave, that I could begin again, that everything would be okay. I believed her simple message, her strong hands on my tired body, her smiling eyes loving mine even though we just met, even though she knew me not.

I believed her maybe because of the rough way she rolled her r's, or her rough hands, or her free body in exactly the position it felt comfortable being in. I believed her because she believed in me without hardly knowing me, and there are few things more medicinal than confidence and a calm touch when everything falls apart.

~~~~~~~

What's your saving grace when everything falls apart, loves? What sentence, phrase or face gets you through? Let's make a pool of wisdom. One we can all take a little dip into when the heartache gets too hot.

madlove and a grateful heart,
rachael

Calling All Creeps

Come, love. Sit down with me. This is for you...

When it seems like there's no where to put your love
When your desire becomes a splinter in your heel that you cannot remove no matter the tweezers
When you just keep walking, pain and all, beginning to limp from longing so deeply

When what you prefer giving and what they prefer receiving doesn't exactly line up
When you have no fucking clue what it is that you're meant to give
When you can't control your energy in ways other than outbursts of desperation or denial

When you're the only one at the party buttoned up, or wearing flannel, or ready to kiss with as much as a hint
When you're never invited to the party
When you always choose to stay home

When you're popping xanex in the bathroom to kill the edge
When you just can't shake your judgement
When you can't understand why everyone's judging

When you get the best gift of your life and then have nothing for the giver but a thank you that he won't even receive
When you know the truth will most definitely break something--like the inertia of your body or the frozen fear of your voice
When you'd rather lie than go through the pain of restoring a shattered life
When you decide to let things break, and no one likes your recklessness

When you begin to see yourself in everyone and everything
When you can call yourself what you really are, without pretending that you are not
When your big bold life begins to topple over the edge of normal and into the realm of whole
And when you let yourself worry that this--this expansive way of being alive--makes you even stranger than before when you had no where to put your love

What if your belonging doesn't depend on someone else's word or approval?
What if there's no one coming to comfort you--I mean down-to-the-bones comfort--but your own tired self?
What if you are the so fucking special and also the creep, the weird-o?

We are all so very vulnerable. No one immune. No one getting to play hookie in the health room during the math exam. Not forever, anyway.

We all eventually have to sit for that test--the one that exposes how little we know, the one that makes us feel like beginners again, the one that softens our ego and teaches us to ask for help, or say nothing at all and just be with our own tender limitations.

We are all creeps. All weird-o's. And there is someone out there, someone so fucking special meant to make your creep stand tall like hairs on your back. Meant to remind you of your fragility. Meant to point you to your strength by illuminating your wobbly parts.

Sit for your test. Struggle to let someone see your vulnerability. Over and over and over again.

Passing's not the point.

You're learning. Perhaps, if nothing else, how to let go of the need to get everything right, to know all the ways of the all the worlds, to always have an answer.

You're learning how to be a creep, and therefore, relatable. You're learning how to be a weird-o, and therefore, low-pressure for everyone else. You're learning how to be one of many drowning in the pool of desire for a perfect body, a perfect soul.

And this, this makes you more known, more normal, more human than you ever thought you'd be. It makes you just like me, just like her, just like him. It makes you one of us in this big, messy, beautiful human family that's trying to learn love despite our differences; that's trying play and grow up and stay young and feel free and feel safe all at the same time.

We see ourselves in you.

We all have our days (or months, or years) wondering, What the hell am I doing here?

We're all in this together.