Thursday 12/22/2011
All the carefully ordered placement of yesterday has been overlaid by a new layer of boxes, furniture, packing materials. And a layer of dust that traveled with M’s furniture from the old house to the new. Waking up this morning with ultimatums in my mind, afraid to come downstairs…
Dot dot dot. And here we are among our boxes and our stuff and our dust and our detritus and our dreams and fantasies and emotions and sometimes we sit and stare at one another with forlorn expressions, and sometimes one or the other of us is mad or frustrated, and often we stop to hug one another. And last night at ten-oh-something I said to M “come to bed” because I could see that his brain was beginning to wind down like a giant clockwork or a music box, just tut-tut-tut-ing. And he did, and I rubbed his front and I rubbed his arms and legs and back and he was happy and we fell asleep.
This morning, a burst of pure hatred for clutter and disorder drove me to start unpacking the china barrel I’d filled with his kitchen’s contents the day before. He wisely ran away for a little while. I have boxes and boxes of books and papers and I don’t feel like resigning them to the great ash-heap of history. Already there’s so much I have given up and let go of.
And God will come with her lion claws and split open the rest of my dragon skin and turn me back into a girl.
The Move: After
Wednesday 12/21/2011
Solstice. The Longest Night. The shortest day. We wake at 6:00 a.m. or thereabouts, with the windows outside still black. Day dawns rainy, chilly, but not freezing cold; it’s in the 50s on the solstice. Still, we know that January and February — the real bitch-winter months — have yet to come.
I’m hurrying to get through these pages because M has already left and the movers are coming to his house at 9:00 a.m. They were late, so very, very late, when they came to my house on the 17th. Five hours late. By the time they were done unloading the truck, it was 10:00 p.m. And I tipped them anyway.
Stop for a moment and be still. Know that the Goddess is with me always, the door as close at my own heart. Invite Her to walk with me today, to travel with me.
And with the invitation comes gratitude for M, my life’s partner, my heart’s desire. The first man in this lifetime I’ve trusted enough to intertwine with like this. Gentle soul, sensitive and real — and still a man, unaware of his privilege and its effect on me, as unaware as I must have seemed to Quick, as a white woman partnered with a Puerto Rican.
Echoes of Quick, echoes of April, all the myriad mistakes I made in the past and learned from — and learned from. All the bumps and stumbles in the dark we made in our marriages, because lesbians have always known what the state denies: that marriage begins when you rent the U-Haul and put two sets of china in the same cabinet, not when you rent a church and put two sets of relatives in the same function hall.
All the bittersweet lessons I learned from my lovers, and all the savory friendships and sisterhoods I’ve been blessed with since.
Anaphase and I, two bright minds burning in the darkness. Lucy’s gentle soul, pregnant and fulfilled, endless source of love and compassion. Two things I’d never expected to have in this lifetime: straight women as my good, good friends.
The Goddess in all her guises, made manifest around me.
What joy and passion to be alive, in this place, at this time. Oh brave new world, that has such wonders in it!
The Move: Before
Friday, December 16, 2011
Twenty minutes. Half the house in boxes, half my body in distress, half my mind in disarray. The movers come tomorrow. Yesterday I wrote the checks and opened the door and walked in to the empty apartment and it was bare and freshly painted and beautiful.
Relax and let it go. Move forward. Relax and move forward. Relax and let go and move forward.
So grateful for so many things right now. And I still (the manager in me sure loves this expression) have to do the work. Knuckle down and buckle under and do the work. When Lucy and Desi come today, I can go ahead and give them their Christmas presents, half-wrapped or almost wrapped. Everything doesn’t have to be perfect. Relax into the imperfection, keep moving forward, rest on the page, and do the work.
Work as a spiritual practice. Can I have fun while doing the work?
Garden of Words 