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[itseasyhavinpals]

Gone Fishing

I dreamt I was going about my day 

carrying a fishing pole with a sharp hook on the end of the line. 

I was trying to put together a pizza party for work, 

and all the while,

I was wrangling the fishing line

terrified to hook myself or someone else. 

I wanted the lure as far away from me as possible. And I wanted to be able to see it too. 

So I could be in control of it. 

I was grabbing at the line,

reeling it in, 

casting it out,

trying to find an acceptable way to manage that barbed hook,

Scared it would get stuck in my skin. 

It never occurred to me to put the fishing pole down. 

[itseasyhavinpals]

Bus to Catch

I’ve gotta go, I’ve got a bus to catch.

He says, doing a bit. 

And suddenly, I’m standing with him at a bus station in 1960 and he’s trying to make light of being drafted, and I fear I’ll never see him again. 

Suddenly I see every time we’ve had to part in every other life we’ve loved each other. 

Every time he’s let go of my hand, not knowing it was for the last time. 

Something about those words and the depth of those eyes, shocked awake some knowing in my soul. 

I was sure I loved him the day I met him. And today was the first time it occurred to me that I could lose him. And the thought devastated me. 

I’ve gotta go, I’ve got a bus to catch. 

He’s just going to pick up his roommate from the airport. He’s not going to war.

He’s just doing a bit. 

But, God, if I lost him… 

He is The Most Precious Thing. 

And I cannot go without now that I know of his 

Glorious, 

Incandescent 

Vibrant existence. 

To be without him would to be without air, without food, without sunshine. 

He took suspiciously long to arrive after he said he was on his way. He was only stopping at home to pick up some things, but I feared the worst. 

I saw the flashing lights arriving on the scene. 

I saw the casket descending, and me tearfully saying we’d only known each other for a short while, but I knew he was The One. 

I saw my next relationship, years and years from now, and how the new lover would never have access to the space in my heart where I kept my Love’s memory locked safely away. 

How my life would still be full, but not full enough. 

Because he wasn’t in it. 

I guess he means a lot to me. 

Everything about him is so radiantly full of life. 

It vibrates off the pages on which he writes. 

It buzzes off the canvases he paints. 

It rings out in the music he makes. 

And it flows forth from his loving eyes, so deep and green. 

I know death will eventually come for both of us. There’s no telling when it’ll be time for us to drop our bodies. Hopefully not for a long, long time from now. 

Because he warms my life as gently and sweetly as the soft sun towards which I turn my face. 

I let his lips kiss my cheeks just the same 

and I close my eyes to bask in it. 

[itseasyhavinpals]

Expansion

My heart feels like it has a mouth, 

And he is the only nourishment that will suffice. 

Like my adoration could expand into such vastness

That it would consume both of us. 

It is bliss. 

His presence in my life brings the world into sharp focus. 

All the colors and feeling and sensations existence has to offer pierce my carefully curated armor and leave me defenseless. 

His touch puts me so deeply, intensely into my body. 

I only exist where his fingers rest. 

When he holds me in his gaze, 

there is nothing else.

[itseasyhavinpals]

Where We're At

He comes to be with me in my gooey, mid-morning hours;

We had plans to go be in the trees but I’m not feeling up to it. So he comes to hang out with me before he’s off to work. 

He brought a book, but we talk instead. 

I don’t bother with my hair or anything.

I trust him to see me undone. 

His hair’s kind of wet, and he meets me where I’m at, 

Crashed down in the pillows. 

We tangle up in each other our bodies finding where they belong, and we hold each other and chat, 

I learn his middle name, and that his sister’s adopted, and that he has a calligraphy set that was his father’s, whose scribbles are still in the box. 

The sun is out today, and his eyes are shining too

Cool and green

With that smattering of freckles across his cheeks and nose like he was kissed by the stars. 

He kneels to tie his shoes, I watch his fingers work the laces

I watch the graceful bow of his head,

The shape of his shoulders

The shiver of the loose waves of his hair

Every inch of him, beautiful and drawing me in. 

Everything about him tells me we are on the same team, playing the same game. 

And we’ve already won.

[itseasyhavinpals]

Thirst

I remembered today, the satisfying experience of coming in from the back yard as a kid, dying of thirst. I would grab a cup, and a straw, and I would stick the cup under the water dispenser in the fridge and slurp the water up through the straw while the cup was filling up. 

It was a race.

And when it was finished, my belly would be full and sloshing.

My thirst quenched and then some. 

I think they might call that a zest for life. 

It’s been a long while since I’ve Needed so intensely, and been Satisfied so deeply.  

My childhood memories glow acute and vibrant behind my eyelids. It’s not until my teenage years that the fog descends and the colors dull, and have yet to fully return. 

There’s a car I see often, parked on the street near my work, that has a multicolored bean- bag worm on the dashboard. And it invokes in me some deeply embedded and tantalizingly nondescript memory of early childhood. I know, at one point, I coveted an identical worm. And I can’t remember exactly when, or why, but it drives me crazy to the point of fantasizing about smashing the window of that car; as if getting my hands on that bean-bag worm and smelling its smell would unlock a hidden set of memories and answer every question I have about myself. 

There’s nothing comparably dire in adulthood, as my deep childhood need for that worm. Everything I covet now seems like a vague notion, sipping the La Croix of what a good life should be.  

That partly speaks to a very privileged and lucky adulthood. I don’t want for much and that is a blessing I try not to take for granted. 

But where did all the delicious urgency go? When did I stop gulping up life so fervently? 

I definitely wasn’t aware of the gorgeous love letter to life itself that I was enacting when I raced the water dispenser as a kid; it was the means to quenching my thirst. But I was present for every sip. 

I felt the refreshing cold hit my tongue, I’d fight the brain freeze to take in as much water as I could as quickly as possible. My cheeks sucking in around the straw, the ball of water going down my throat, feeling my tummy fill and gasping for breath after each swallow; The involuntary and satisfying sigh that would escape my lungs when I was done. 

The before and after, my thirst and its quenching, both felt extreme to me. 

These days, that kind of extreme scares me. 

I was scared a lot as a kid, I suffered sensitivities I didn’t yet understand, and yet I don't think the act of suffering scared me then like it does now. I didn’t have the narratives that now go along with my moments of suffering.

A story that can be boiled down to one phrase: 

This is It. 

Like the way people talk about the earthquake that might eventually wipe out the whole West Coast.

With every tremor, I think this could be The Big One.

I’m not even sure what that fear is grasping at, because I’m not scared to die. 

I guess the consideration that the nausea that overtakes me in the Target dollar section, could be the nausea that stays with me constantly for the rest of my life.

Or maybe the fear of house fire, that strikes me like lightning as I merge onto the freeway on my way to work could be the psychic warning of true disaster. 

Or the passing thought that this could be the song that’s playing when I get into a fatal accident.

Or this could be the last time I kiss my lover before something terrible happens and I lose him forever. 

This is It. This could be The Big One. 

It’s not a fear of death, it’s a fear of life.

As a child, when I’d call out at night asking if the stove was off, even after being assured that it was, I’d often have to go check for myself. But my fears of a house fire could be quelled with the malaphor “we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.” by which my father meant “we’ll handle it if and when it happens. And there’s nothing we can’t handle.” That reassurance seemed to be enough. 

Fears like that are difficult to contend with though, because hard things happen.

Trees fall through roofs, houses burn down, cars crash, and our bodies fail us. 

To my father’s credit he did not shelter me from the realities of life. It would’ve been foolish of him to try; by the age of five, I’d already witnessed fatal sickness, death, and the internal rot of grief. I saw the scars from the flambé accident that my grandma suffered running up and down her arms. I knew my grandfather had been to war. I knew my mother had been abused, stalked and addicted. To pretend these things didn’t happen to people would be a farce. 

I don’t know when “we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it” stopped having the power to soothe my fears. Was it a flip that switched? From the broad, easily calmed fears of childhood to the unfathomable terror I now feel grip me by the throat daily? And does it really matter? When and how the fear got pulled into sharper focus than the rest of my life surrounding it? Maybe not. 

But I bet if I got my hands on that bean-bag worm I’d figure it all out. 

Tara Brach tells this story about a woman who’d been abused as a child. As she processed her trauma, she wrote a story about herself as a little girl: 

She was hiding in a closet, praying for help. She said “Please, I can’t take it anymore.” And a fairy came to her and told her, 

“I can’t take you away from here, but I can help you get through this time. I can move this pain into different parts of your body, that will hold it for you until you’re strong enough to let it move through you.” And the fairy showed the little girl how to tighten and dull her pelvis and her belly, and to constrict her heart and throat. And that would protect her from feeling the raw intensity of her experience. 

I think when that fairy came to me in childhood, she showed me, too, how to tighten and dull my pelvis and belly. She moved my pain into my right shoulder, my hips, my tummy, my throat and my eyebrows. And I learned how to effectively distract myself so that I could have relief from the experience of being inside my own body. 

Now, all my hard work has been in the name of honoring and undoing my survival tactics. To become strong enough to let my pain move through and out of my body. 

Because I want vibrancy and satisfaction. 

I want full presence, full sensation. 

I want freedom and peace in the moment. 

I want to drink greedily from life, and walk away full-bellied and ready to play. 

[itseasyhavinpals]

Occhio di Dio

[itseasyhavinpals]

I Don't Think I Can Help It

Sort of missing the lockdown these days. All that's left of those unprecedented months is the Fear. I was very fortunate to not have to worry much during the lockdown. Sure I was terrified, but there was also this sort of bizarre magic too. Taking walks through rainy days, getting lost in music and thought. Sitting outside and, for a whole afternoon, just watching the shadows shift with the sun until it dipped below the horizon.

I was thrust back into a more ancient and true way of life. The work necessary was to get food and keep my space clean, and the rest of my time was for Being. I wasted plenty of it numbing out the terrifying truth of the history being made, sure, and I also spent lots of it feeling an immense amount of peace too. In the way peace sneaks up on you, in the in-between moments.

Everything's gone "back to normal" except it keeps getting worse. Every masked face makes me feel guilty and afraid. Every audible cough and sniffle makes me feel angry and afraid. Every mask I wear makes me feel protected and suffocated.

The solidarity is gone, no one is clapping and banging pots and pans at seven in the evening anymore. It doesn't feel like there's much keeping us together, there's not much to remind us we're all in the same boat. We're all just fighting to survive in a society stacked against us.

Now our shared experience puts us at each other's throats. Everyone vying for the most superior moral high ground, posting their humble-brags online and selling their results as attainable.

Grind harder. Master your side gig. Eat cleaner. Stay woke. Stay young. Reduce waste; upcycle. Stay fashionable. Stay hydrated. Get sexy; stay sexy. Produce. Make money. Save money. Cancel your subscriptions. Make sure to subscribe. Buy this. Do the right thing. Always. Or else.

I think that's why I love snow days so much. It's nobody's fault, no one's responsibility, so we find it easier to take responsibility: we salt and shovel the sidewalks, we push each other's cars out of their icy prisons, we feed each other and check in on each other and dig each other out. And we understand when the shops are closed, and we go on walks to watch the snow.

After our last snow fall, the weather got unseasonable warm very quickly. It feels like Spring's upon us in mid-winter.

Not that I don't love the sunshine, but everything in my body seems to scream that something's off. At a time where one's very existence feels like a juxtaposition. When too many options leads to paralyzation, and our own fate feels like it's out of our hands, but it's up to us to save the world.

How are we meant to survive this?

The sheer power of pure, human resilience can only provide me with so much hope and comfort.

Mister Rogers said to look for the helpers. I know they're out there. Behind every helper, though, is a crumbling society necessitating the help. Or at least that's what I feel. So many of the helpers I perceive seems less like help and more like a mad scramble to momentarily tip the scales in our humble favor.

Though, I'm absolutely certain this perspective is swayed by my hours hours upon hours on the internet. When I look up from it for a moment, the world gets smaller, and the helpers I see are strangers holding doors open for each other; friends giving each other rides; people letting people pet their dogs; buying each other coffee; returning lost items; giving directions; picking up dropped things; putting a good word in; looking out for each other; dropping off supplies; helping each other up.

It's the day-to-day helpers that makes me feel like maybe life's worth living.

My world is definitely far too big when I spend a lot of time online. Inundated with the thoughts, opinions and experiences of other people, there's no room for my thoughts, opinions and experiences. Initially there's comfort in drowning myself out, but then I get stuck in the fray of all the news and compilations and reviews and video essays and how-tos and story times and break downs and hauls and get-ready-with mes and information and instructions and parodies and clips and previews and interviews until the very act of scrolling happens so fast I literally make myself dizzy.

And then I pivot, hard, into simplicity and quiet until the vibration of my own voice in my skull becomes alarming and disruptive, and the whole cycle begins again.

I'm disgusted by it. I give myself whiplash with these massive dips in quality of life caused by whatever mental, emotional, hormonal flux I'm experiencing, followed by panic induced lifestyle overhauls that never stick.

I think we're sold the myth of true balance, the myth of one right way to be, and how to feel good. What to strive for; what success looks like. And I buy into it. Maybe if I tried the latest viral health challenge, or gave myself more rules, or followed one plan or another, or read this self-help book I'd feel better.

For someone who really doesn't like being told what to do, I really do a lot of asking of others to tell me what to do. I already know what I'm going to do, though, it's true. I think a lot of the time, what I know I'm going to do, and what I actually want to do are vastly different things.

I seem to do a lot of resigning myself to myself, until most of what's left is disappointment.

I might be driving myself crazy, and I don't think I can help it.

But I just want to feel better. 

[itseasyhavinpals]

Honey 4 Sale

There were moments in my childhood, primarily in social situations, where I would feel overcome with a sense that I was, inherently, a joke. Shameful in my existence. And that it was pathetic of me not to have been aware of that before someone had pointed it out.

Moments where I came to know that my thoughts and feelings were, not only laughable, but deeply incorrect.

Moments where I felt so alone, for I felt I was being actively hated, that I needed to desperately reach out for help. But the only person there to claw at for relief was the person who had just made me feel like I was nothing. 

Moments where I felt like I was falling through darkness, and I needed the person who had just ground me into dust, to teach me how to breathe again. But they wouldn't, because they knew something about me that I didn't. 

And so I would just keep falling. 

That feeling visited me recently again. 

I’ve been working on a mural that I was commissioned to paint, and I was really struggling with it. After I’d smeared white paint over the work I’d already done that I hated. And after I’d yelled at my mom on the phone for offering solutions to problems much simpler than the end of the world.

I sat on the plywood scaffolding, built to ensure my safety which, in the depths of my depressive episode, I no longer cared about. And I gripped my head in my hands and I spiralled.

I squeezed my skull between my palms, like a foot over the edge of the bed to stop the spins, and that feeling came over me again, pitch black and heavy. 

And there was nothing to do about it but to let it envelope me. To play music that would feed it, and to let it take me, so that my brush strokes became brash and violent. To slather paint over my mistakes like covering up a murder. 

I let the music and the dark feelings guide my hand. And I thought about how as a child I'd once slipped in wet shoes on the hardwood floor, and put my knee through the drywall in the hallway. How even as my father picked me up and carried me to a soft place, all I could do was think about the damage I’d just done to our home, and scream 

“I hate myself! I hate myself!”

until my mother, horrified, yelled back “stop saying that!”

I still don't remember if I'd actually been hurt.

When I came out of my fugue state, the result of my work was, with a little bit of tweaking, something I may be able to proudly sign my name on. 

And I cleaned my brushes. And I drove home through a little town with a church with a sign that read, 

drive safe you’re worth it. 

And I saw signs on stakes that were hammered into the ground with the words 

HOT FRESH CIDER 

and 

HONEY 4 SALE

hand painted in white. 

The 4 in HONEY 4 SALE really got me for some reason. 

And I thought about how someone in town must keep bees and apple trees and one day they must’ve thought 

I simply have too much sweetness, maybe I can sell some for a little extra spending money.

And how they must've spent an afternoon nailing wood to stakes and looking for a spare can of paint with which to make their announcement. How maybe they walked with their signs to that corner by the gas station. And, after pounding their signs into the ground, they walked away feeling a sense of accomplishment, and hope that someone might stop by for some cider. And my tears fell for the pure humanness of it all.

And for the sweet possibility of HONEY 4 SALE.