The Eye of the Storm

Do you feel that,
The eye of the storm?
Is there a safer place?
Another place I could call home?
Why do I run then
From the silence,
From the emptiness
From the void that is everything and
Nothing?
What answers will I find?
What changes must be made to soothe the
Parched lips of my soul?
What lies of complacency will come undone,
Once I realize I am whole?

What Divine Mystery?

Your eyes are the kind that delve into me
Caressing the leaflets of my soul like some sacred text
You see me and
I am beautiful
(every inch of me, every piece of me, every jagged, slivered shard)

What divine mystery prompts you to open me like that
Touch me like that
See my strength
My fragility and
With reverence kiss the tenderness that is my heart?

What divine mystery prompts you to cradle so reverently
Each of my doubts, fears and sorrows
So that they wither and fade to dust?

Instead I am awakened
Each nerve ending renewed
You are inside of me and
I am inside of you

Wanting

This wanting is a sickness
A madness eating away at sleep
A rapid decline into a wasteland of need
My heart burns with its own desires and intentions
Irreverent
Unrepentant
In spite of my pleas

The Return of Love

For months
I had been waiving my love like a silent flag of surrender
Hoping it would return to me in the form of your
Undivided attention
For months
I had been counting down the many reasons I didn't deserve
Couldn't afford
Wouldn't be able to live up to
The kind of affection I have craved
And now the love returns
Unrequited
I could have waited for you
It would have been dark and rich and sweet
Scalding your tongue
The kind of love that you feel warming your insides
Melting away all that makes you numb
And now this love returns to  me
Unrequited
I think myself weak for not being able to let go
I think myself strong for being able to hold on
My heart is not fickle but weaves with a kind of intricacy
and slow anticipation
a web of strong, secure connection
But now the love returns to me
Unrequited
And instead of empty I am full again
Instead of numb
Tears spring to my eyes
A kind of sad acceptance but not despair
Instead I am returning the love that belongs to me
Fuller yes
Always full of hope.

New Year, More Posts?

Hello 2014!
It's been a while, so forgive me for the clumsiness of this post.
I want to say that this year brings with it the promise of more posts to come, but I know how life can get during the semester. Sometimes things are so hectic I hardly have time to process how I feel or what I think, let alone breathe. For now I can say it is nice to be back.

I started the New Year with the family that I love so much. Spending time with them is always a bit of a rollercoaster ride. On the one hand I feel so loved and cherished, welcomed and seen. They remind me that I have gifts to give to the world and I am eager to share them. They appreciate what little knowledge I have attained and ask my advice, they see a beauty in me as a person that I often lose sight of when I am on the daily grind. Through this, the food, the hugs, the kisses, the laughter, even the disagreements, I feel their love, I feel strengthened, I feel renewed.

Somehow in their eyes I feel I am bigger and better than I often imagine myself to be. They have such faith in the things that I doubt and question about myself everyday. Will I make it into the physical therapy program? Do I have what it takes to be a strength and conditioning coach? Should I continue to make time for dance or am I just wasting time? Am I stupid if I don't get all A's this semester? Am I worthy of love and will I ever find someone who is as committed and passionate as I am? Should I write? Does anyone care whether I write or not? Am I too sensitive? Am I too cynical? Am I too much of an introvert? Am I pretty enough, smart enough, fit enough, creative enough, disciplined enough?

I am lucky to have them. Without even expressing the plague of emotions that sweep through me from time to time they provide that acknowledgement, that support, that love. Leaving them to return to this place I now call home, I feel a deep despondency hit me. Perhaps this is what empty nest syndrome feels like, a house once full now feels empty and I am empty with it. Empty and questioning again, what is this life for?

It is not to say that everything is a bed of roses. With news of proposals, weddings, engagements, the purchasing of new houses, advancing and fulfilling careers, I can't help but be reminded of my failed marriage to my first love, my current singledom, my return to school to pursue an alternative career path and my inability to declare myself financially independent. My path thus far has been a series of winding wilderness where for others it would appear straight and narrow. I could argue that I have always been the wild card of the bunch but sometimes even this wild card wants something to call her own.

More soon on New Year's resolutions and other deep thoughts.

Always with love.

Willing and Able

I know you’ve been disappointed.

You feel like anyone you’ve ever loved has left you behind

Fumbling in some awkward silence.

I came to tell you that the love inside of you will never run out.

What you see with your eyes,

What you feel with your hands is the flowering of love

Run your fingers across the soft green carpet

Lie down in that grass

Gaze as sunflowers do

Raise your brilliant head to the sun

But do not be fooled

There is more

Deep in the belly of the earth lies the seed of something eternal.

Knock with soft slow steps upon its earthly door

Take this pilgrimage with me

When you feel the world is empty, dig deeper

Trace the roots back to its origin

There you will find the reflection of your beloved

Press your head upon its chest

Let your heart sync

And when the time comes you will be willing and able.

Enlightenment

I am searching for ways to no longer Be

Because Being is painful and

Loving is painful and

Wanting is painful and

Losing even more so.

I am beginning to understand what Hafez said when he speaks of the lover’s hand

Opening and closing

Opening and closing

This is my heart opening and closing

Loving and then no longer wanting to love

This is the Beloved giving and taking away

This is you coming into my life with those blue eyes and that silly grin

This is you leaving me and the ghost of what we could have been.

Leaving

There is a draft building up in my bones

Grief slipping through the windows and doors

You are leaving me behind

(Because the people who care the most are always the ones that are left behind…)

I should have known by now that I always want more

I’ll take my axe and my pick and chip away until I can gobble up your soul

But you are leaving me behind

And there is no more time to do all the things we wanted to do

And there is no more time to become all the things I hoped we would be

And now we’ll never know

And this grief-like chasm cracks me open and leaves me exposed

And now I must remember again what it is like to be alone.

The Thought of Losing You

The thought of losing you caused so much pain I wanted to run from it

I wanted instead to feel nothing

To eat something

To watch something

To clean everything

To talk

To laugh

To sing

To dance

To move away from the rawness of my heart

To move away from the truth

You are leaving

My teacher told me that I am to sit with it

I am stubborn

My teacher told me to sit in it

Love is not possession

My teacher told me to swim in it and so I swam into the inky blackness

Blind to an end and an outcome but hoping

I swam

The fire in my lungs burning away my tears

I dove

Deeper and deeper into the darkness

I plunged

Until there was

Only light

Only ribbons of sparkling water on the bed of the ocean

(A heart ripping open until there is no pain, no numbness, no heart)

Only me a crystal reflecting the sun

Only me

Only bliss

Only love

Thoughts From Last Fall

(Here is another scribble I found while uncluttering...(is that a word?)

I am beginning to think that I am surrounded by sacred spaces even within the city itself. I am going to make an attempt to connect with them, observe, just absorb the hushed peace of my surroundings while being aware. I try to avoid other people and conversations in these spaces but I think that I must respect that even they are a part of this wilderness. As I reach out to nature, I feel her in turn reaching into me, through me. I don't want to forget this feeling, this hushed sacredness, this subtle language of the breaching of barriers. No longer closed I feel something within me open. Perhaps this is prayer, no pleas, no supplications, no demands, but beautiful communion with things seen and unseen. I can feel Fall approaching, cooler mornings, crisper breezes, leaves slowly being shed, whatever is no longer needed discarded leaf by leaf- transformation in the many faces of one tree. They say Fall will come early this year- we shall see. A bird came to peek curiously at me. I forgot to bring an offering. I hope to remember next time just to say, "Hello, I have missed you and I am happy to spend time with you again."
I have seen butterflies, squirrels, birds that remind me of sparrows, spider webs and strange winged insects hovering near, bees busy over garbage cans, a man dancing while he swept leaves into piles by the church, a Native American in traditional dress walking through the mall with a Thank You plastic shopping bag.
I turn to the Mother, "No messages for me today?"
She says, "Bring me an offering the next time around. Listen, and discard what you no longer need. It is that time."

These Kings and Queens

(This is an old poem I dug up while Spring cleaning my room- I kinda like its simplicity. Not sure when I wrote it...)

 These kings and queens
carry within themselves
something broken,
cocooned within the secret tunnels
of some unknown paradise.
Such dirty pretty things
cannot be mistaken as frivolous fantasies,
but as the foundation of our essence
our sanity
our livelihood
our dream.

Write Me A Poem

Write Me A Poem:

This morning I woke to the sound of birds singing
A text message from you at 3:45 saying nightie-night
The lips of spring lingering on the hard angles of my face
Happiness cracking me open like a surgeon preparing for a transplant on a heart that's too afraid to want anymore,
too afraid to dream anymore,
too afraid to climb the highest peaks of passion only to find that when I get to the top that I'm
Crashing
Free-falling
Ass-over-elbows,
Head-over-heals
Plummeting towards the surface of a heart that hasn't yet thawed to my delicate affections

You see this is about connection for me
Hands on skin
Tongue in cheek
One part of you filling another part of me
Souls lying barer than bodies could ever be

You see
"I am ready for love/ why are you hiding from me?"

This
Is a warmth in my breast
That
Travels to my thighs
And
Lingers on my skin
And
Breathes in my chest
Singing, "You are a melody I don't want to forget"

You see I want to breathe you
Curve my flesh around your limbs
I want to consume you
Dump the contents of this love on your lap for your inspection
Trace my lips down each vertebrae of your thoracic spine
Count the freckles on your nose, on your chin, around the corners of your eyes
Learn the blueprint of your soul
Fill the empty gaps of your grief with sunflowers and marigolds
Give me your dreams
Let me fold them up and set them a-flight on paper wings
Give me your songs
Let me learn the notes so I can attempt to harmonise and sing along
Give me your poems
Let me etch them with ragged stitching on my chest so that
every time I feel my loneliness gnawing at me from the inside out I can
retrace my steps to a love that doesn't demand that I
Be anyone
Be anything
Other than who I am because
Who I am has always been good enough
and Who I am will always be good enough
and Who I am never ceases to be good enough
(More than good enough) For you.

Winter Blue

This winter blue I’m feeling
Has a monotonous beat.

Between the notes I find
I lose
All sense of
Direction
But carry on

One nameless face along the halls of my reflection,
One faceless wanderer shuffling carefully through the snow.

I Am Enough...Aren't I?

There is a certain variety store that I frequent right across from work if I have a break to grab a snack or get something to drink. The last couple of times I’ve been there I’ve felt both insulted and ignored. The first time I was roughly reprimanded for not having enough change to purchase a pack of Combos. I had a five dollar bill and the combos were about $1.65. The fact is that I didn’t have enough change but I was not about to defend myself over a five dollar bill. Here I was thinking really? How rude? The fact that I was shocked, highly insulted and angry at his behavior must have shown on my face because he forcefully explained that he was running out of singles and didn’t have much change. While I was infuriated because a) I would never treat a customer like that and b) I’m in that store at least once a week, I politely refused to purchase anything and quietly left.

The second time I went to purchase a large bottle of water on behalf of my supervisor even though I was still quite infuriated about the way that I had been treated previously. This same cashier, who I think is also the owner, was counting out singles from the register (imagine that) and didn’t even look up to acknowledge me when I made the purchase. He just took the money and gave me change. Now I was willing to put the other day aside and say maybe he was having a really bad day, shoplifters or personal problems but twice in a row and he was more than beginning to rub me the wrong way.

Writing about it now it seems like such a trivial matter but the fact is this whole incident left me feeling disturbed and highly upset. I mean you could have fried an egg on the top of my head I was steaming. What was it about me that gave him permission to treat me so disrespectfully and with such callous disregard? Was it the colour of my skin, the fact that I was female, or the fact that I still look between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one? What was the issue?

I recounted this story to my sister and a fellow colleague of mine and while I tried to dismiss my feelings as the petty ramblings of a supersensitive soul, a bigger question began to eat away at my core. Why is this bothering me so much? I could just stop being a patron of the store and move on with my life. I mean if he was racist, prejudice or sexist, there was nothing I could do about it and it had nothing to do with me, right? As an individual I deserve respect, love, affection, and good customer service among other things, regardless of my age, race, gender and that is a fact.

These pep talks were useful to a point, but a part of me somewhere deep inside couldn’t help but put a question mark after every affirmation. This is why positive affirmations don’t work on me. You tell me something positive to repeat to myself over and over like a mantra, and something inside of me will say really? Is that true? Dude, I’m not an f@#* idiot!

Here’s an example:
Positive Affirmation: “I am enough”

Inside voice: “Really? You dress like a teenager. You don’t take the time to take care of yourself. You eat too much chocolate. You waste money. You’re indecisive and scatter-brained. You have horrible time management skills and you’re too shy among other things. Plus you were acting like a total b!@tch to that guy the other day. You could really make more of an effort to work out and eat better…if you managed your time better you could probably get more done…you should make more of an effort at work, spend less money on crap and save blah blah blah blah…

Need I say more?

So, in effect, what the positive affirmation actually does is remind me of all the ways I’m flawed and provide me with “solutions”, or at least remind me of all the ways I should be working to make myself a better person and hence worthy of respect, praise, admiration, love and affection. Sounds perfectly normal right? Normal maybe but it’s what I’ve been doing my whole life, telling myself how I should feel instead of acknowledging what I am feeling; telling myself I need to be better, work harder, be faster, thick-skinned, stronger to be worthy of all what is already my birthright and you know what I’ve found? That this has been to date nothing but a pattern of counterproductive self-loathing that’s exhausting and uninspiring.

What I’ve really been telling myself all of these twenty-six years, soon to be twenty-seven (God I’m getting old) is that I need to be perfect, or aiming towards perfection to be worthy of all that is good. But is that true? Is the constant movement toward perfection my sole or soul purpose in life? What do I do in the meantime while I’m imperfect? Do I just settle for whatever I get because I probably don’t deserve to be happy anyway seeing what a crappy human being I have a tendency of being? Do I just bargain my energy, my time, my strength, my “love” for whatever little piece of heaven I can get and hope that someone Suppose I never reach perfection? What then?

That isn’t good enough for me, and that is not the definition of love that holds true for me. Love is that thing that liberates. It’s that unconditional love that doesn’t seem to exist in The Bible or in the kind of marriage vows that say to “love”, honor and obey until death do us part.

“Love liberates. It doesn’t just hold-that’s ego. Love liberates. It doesn’t bind. Love says, “I love you. I would like to be near you. I’d like to have your arms around me. I’d like to hear your voice in my ear. But that’s not possible now, so I love you. Go.” – Dr. Maya Angelou

“love does not mean surrendering, losing oneself; it is a call to ripen”- Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love (the movie)

Love says, “You are not accidental. Existence needs you. Without you something will be missing in existence and nobody can replace it. That’s what gives you dignity, that the whole existence will miss you. The stars and sun and moon, the trees and birds and earth- everything in the universe will feel a small place is vacant which cannot be filled by anybody except you…”- Osho

This is love for me. It says, I’m not asking you to be anyone, do anything, or go anywhere. I’m just so happy that you are here in this Universe, breathing air, walking around, eating, talking, sleeping, doing all of the things that you do. I’ve created a space especially for you and only you. The fact of the matter is that there is no one like you in this entire Universe and if you were gone all of creation would mourn and miss you.

This alone is confirmation that I deserve love, respect, admiration, friendship and all things good and holy. Why? Because there is only one me. I am a child of the Universe. I am supposed to be here, doing this, walking, eating, laughing, sharing…being me, and if you don’t agree, if you don’t want to give me these things then you’re not supposed to, it's not your job too.

"How do I know this is true?" Byron Katie's The Work might ask.

Because you aren’t giving me these things, and I can't make you. I can't get inside of your head and change the way you think.

And it’s a good dose of reality. It reminds me that I am looking in the wrong place for what I already have, and it has been painful, depressing and exhausting searching and searching for someone, anyone to take care of me, fill me, complete me, and make me whole. And silly me, I keep forgetting. I keep bouncing from wholeness to emptiness. I keep thinking I need and forgetting how much I already have. I keep forgetting that I am already all I need, even if there are people I want to know, places I want to go, and things I want to do. I am enough.

I am enough, it's as simple as that.

Sunday Nov. 21st 2010

I stared into the Emptiness
Thought it time
Soon enough,
For my death
A hopeless existence ravaged by a past I cannot salvage
No matter how much I bargain
No matter how much I repent.
I was sure
That all hope was lost
All love was lost
All happiness
All freedom
And my worthiness of such precious “gifts”
Gone the day Everything I Thought I Had
and
All that I thought I’d built
Broke,
I was wrong.

I stared into the Unquestioned
Waiting for the vastness to swallow me whole
Waiting for the coldness to rattle me numb
The weight of it all compressing me deeper and deeper into the seat of my being
The weight of it all hollowing
Shifting
Filling me instead with a lingering sweetness
Inside of me
Strength
Love
Peace
A flower that I crush against my cheek
The scent nourishes me
A seed planted deep in my womb
Here
Inside of me
An open sky
The scent of the ocean
The sunlight on my skin
Love (again)
Friendship
Laughter
Lust
Intrigue
Inside of me
Adventure
Passion
Dreams upon Dreams
Moonlit caresses
You holding me

I carry the Universe inside this being
I carry the Universe inside of me
Feel freedom’s flight through a bird’s wing
I know
It‘s all here
Inside of me.

This Love is All Me

This love is a vessel that beats inside of me
It never leaves
It moves where I move
It breathes where I breathe
And though you have chosen a life without me
This love chooses me
Nurtures me
Sustains me
And though you have chosen a life without me
This love/ Your love still flourishes
The flora and fauna of my being
It cannot die
There is no end and no beginning
There is no less and no more
There is only a love that lasts for all time
Changing shape and changing face
Demanding nothing of me
This loves fills the silence between us with things like
Compassion and
Understanding
This love says it’s okay that we are over
I only want you to be happy
I only want the best for you whatever that may be
This love does't understand words like
Abandoned
Alone
Discarded
Abused
This love says that This is enough
That I Am Enough
That indeed I have everything I could ever need
You can’t touch this love
You can’t deny me this love
This love is all me
This love is all
Me

Declaration of Independence

I am
Black
Caribbean
American
Woman

I am
Fleshy Lips
Protruding Hips
Thick Thighs
Narrow Waist

My hair curls rebelliously against my efforts to follow the
Straight and Narrow
Beautiful Ebony
Essence
Black Hair/Weave
Successful
Independent
Strong Sistas

I prefer Joan Osborne to
Aretha Franklyn
Alanis Morissette to
Indie Arie
but I love me some Lauren Hill

I wear Aeropostale
Forever 21
Charlotte Russe
No Sean Jean
Babyfat or
House of Dereon

I like
Black
White
Chinese
Indian
Hispanic boys
slanted eyes
curly hair
freckles
dark skin

My grandmother is half Portuguese
Half Indian
Even she is a part of me

I eat
eggs
cheese
milk
but consume no flesh
no meat

What part of me do you find discomforting?
What part of me should I ignore for the sake of your sanity,
for the sake of your acceptance
approval
respect
love?

This is me
This is who I am
Listen if you can to my voice,
There is only one.

Updates!

So here we are. I know I've abandoned the blog for months now but here are some updates!
I moved again farther north and into the cold =(
I'm job hunting again-ugh!
Finally decided to get myself together and go back to school, hoping to start some courses in January.
I actually miss CT a bit, especially the field near our old apartment complex and taking long walks with Elvis watching Fall creep into Winter, and the people at work =(
I'm volunteering at a Medical Center starting next week- scary but cool!
I starting doing Yoga again- yaaay!
I'm getting stronger, moving on with life and getting healthier than I've been for a while.
I'm inspired to write and share again- sorry no poetry yet but hopefully soon.

I think that's pretty much it. Exciting right lol

Lots of love,
Courtney

Hit and Run

This is a hero’s journey
Life.
You wake
Your eyes not seeing,
Only seeing what you want
But
Cannot have
For now.
You force yourself to wait for happiness one more day.
You force yourself to be ok
Until,
Always until…

There’s an awareness,
A fullness
The promise of new beginnings all around,
But you‘re shivering in a chill of winter
Left behind.
The power of positive thinking does not numb This
Does not flood this pain
Out.
This pain demands you
Be Here Now.
This pain
Withers
Warps your body into fetal position
Slices you raw
Open
Exposed,
Love may be a hit and miss but this pain
This pain is a hit and run.

Into You

There is a feeling beneath the sadness
Behind the restlessness
The heart no longer frantic finds a steady rhythm in it's glass-like chamber
And sets a new pace.
Silence trembles that translucent barrier that separates
You from me.

To lift my weighted thoughts I attach them to birds wings and watch them soar high above me,
Higher than I ever could reach.

There is a place inside where things grow,
Try to grasp them too tightly and they'll slip from your hold.
Everything slips or
melts or
breaks or
fades away.
Everything sweet turns sour
Except for you,
Except for you.
You see me
And I
Melt into you.