The Big D

I am 47 years old.  For at least the past five of those 47 years, I have lived with a recurring mantra of sorts.  Maybe it was more like a silent threat.  Or was it a reassurance?  Whatever you want to call it...it sounded like this: I'm getting a divorce.

Like the Wasatch Fault Line, it lay hidden under an otherwise peaceful environment.  I heard it's rumblings several times a month but spoke of it to no one, ever keeping up the peaceful, happy landscape that was to everyone the essence of who I was.

Why?  You want to know reasons.  I have reasons, three of them to be exact, but for the time being...they are not what is important.  In fact, I would discourage you from asking the reasons for a divorce of anyone unless you are yourself entering a relationship with them.  They just took giant, courageous steps to leave their yesterday so they could have a healthier today.  Meet them where they are.  Help them now.  You can gawk at their back then's later...when they are ready to bring it up.  Instead, just know that it was a heavy, painful decision and one that, just like any natural disaster, will alter the landscape of multiple lives for a long time.

So the thing with mantras or promises or whatever it is, the longer you listen to them, the bigger and more powerful they grow until they manifest themselves like a magnitude 8.5 earthquake.  All the dirt, homes and streets will move aside to loose the monster.

And that's exactly what happened in my case.  I took the echoing four words that rang inside my head from ear to ear for years and I invited them to come out of my mouth.  I invited them to leave. They left my head and entered that of my husbands.  And of my children.

That was a year ago.

We have all since walked through the rubble.   This is critical information.  We WALKED through it, which means we are NOT lying beneath it.  We were not buried or destroyed.  Our futures are still wide open and ready to be whatever we decide to make them.  The pieces of yesterday stare back up at as we kick them around, but we decide if and how to use them and then we move on.

You are View-tiful

I'm sitting on the stoop of my duplex in my underwear.  I can't decide if this makes me trashy or classy.  They are boyshort underwear for your information, so as far as skivvies go...these could easily pass for exercise shorts.  But technicalities aside...I'm sitting outside on my stoop...in my underwear.

Let me tell you some more.  My stoop is in the shade of this enormous tree whose branches stretch out wide and low and that cover the entire width of a three car driveway.  So as far as stoops go, this one is pretty chill, both aesthetically and climatically.

I don't know what kind of tree it is. The leaves don't match the standard and easily identifiable shapes of the oak, maple or pine. It's pretty.  It's old. It's big and often messy.  I'm obviously no expert...but I think it's doing a kick-ass job of being a tree.  That's all I know.  Thank you tree, for being you.

Some people cut trees down, because they are messy.  Or because they block their view of something they would like to view. An old neighbor of mine campaigned to cut down a huge maple tree that blocked his view of the mountains.  The tree in question didn't just sit on my property next to my bedroom, it hugged my bedroom.  Branches from the same tree graced the window behind my bed as well as the window next to my bed.  Reason after reason as to why I would not let him cut down my tree fell on deaf ears until one day I simply said "You can't cut down that tree because every time I wake up and see those branches outside my window, I know God loves me."  The campaign ended.

He wanted to cut it down because it blocked a view.   How come he couldn't accept that the tree was a view? A perfectly good, useful view.  Who better to ask that question than nature observer extraordinaire himself,  Henry David Thoreau? He is quoted as saying "It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see."

To be honest, I can't help but wonder if some people will want to cut me down because I'm blocking their view.  I mean right now.  If I post this, will someone be upset that I'm sitting outside in my underwear, and that I had the nerve to write about it publicly?  Scandalous, I know.  Will they want a different view of the world, where 47 year old women do not sit on fabulously cool stoops on lazy summer evenings and quote Thoreau on the internet in their undies?

Me and my tree. Not pictured: my underwear.

Of course they will. They (and when I say they, I mean WE) do it all the time.  We decide how we want people to be and then when they show up as just themselves; just old, big, pretty, messy themselves, we fire up the chainsaw. "Hey....you're blocking my view of the pretend people that I made up in my head.  Please don't be you right now."  Brrr...umbrumbrumbrumbrumbrummmmm.

But wouldn't it be more fun to find out why I'm out here without pants on?  Oh yes.  The answer is yes.  If you saddled up here next to Henry and I, I promise you'd have way more fun hearing my story than you would by merely walking by and rolling your eyes at me in disdain. Way, way more fun.

So back to my original question: am I trashy or am I classy?

My Aunt Holly says, "You are at your best when you are true to yourself.  Classy all the way."

So there lies the answer.  I'm not sure what kind of tree I am, but I'm me.  I'm a view.  And I don't know what kind of tree you are either, but it doesn't matter because you're a view.  And he's a view and she's a view and I'll be damned if we aren't doing a kick-ass job of being our own view-tiful little selves. Look at us being all classy and stuff.  And when you look at us, I hope you see a bouquet of incredible persons all ready to open up their worlds to you; give and receive light and love in ways unique to each of us.

So thank you, for being you. I see you, you're amazing.

Love Always Wins

I’m just a little

Freckle-faced girl

Who wears a scar

From a crazy home-base slide.

Who loves that scar

Because she played with all her heart

To get it.

You, you threw the ball

That put me there; pushed me there

Where I met me

Now I proudly wear

A jersey spun of sun and dust and grins

And though I've never played it
Without the pain

It's always been love

That wins the game.

Denial by Screen

Turn on the news feed
And show me
Something other
That what just happened.
Give me
A new reality
For what I can't unfeel
Or eyes unsee.

I'll take anything.

Where I'm Coming From

It's 2017 and I still think it's entirely possible that someone will want to steal my iPod Classic.  It's a 120 GB 7th Generation.  Yes...we're talking about this bad boy:

Did I mention that it's 2017?

You should also know that it took me over two years to try the bidet at work.  It's just that the words "learning curve" and "toilet" made me incredibly uncomfortable.  I don't know what I thought could go wrong...all I knew was that the darn thing had a control panel with more than one button and not one of them had the word "dignity" on it.   

Purge

And so tonight, I hope I cry
Push up, not down
The twisting knife
Go out; release; and let me free
Take all my pain, tears
As you leave.