When the ocean around you turns gray,
clouds roll in blocking the light,
and cold foamy arms reach for you
I will be your 1st mate
As the storm gathers; winds rising
waves rolling, tossing your ship
mast shaking, sails snapping
I will be your 1st mate
With the torrent pulling at you,
drawing you down into an eddy of tears
Screaming at the hurricane’s wrath !
Remember you are Not Alone
Hold tight to the wheel my son
Fight against the torrent, as it
Threatens to swallow you whole
I will be you 1st mate
When waves crash onto the deck
I will batten the hatches
bend the lashings and set lines
I will be your 1st mate
I will stand in the heart of the storm
with you, offering you my strength
and my knowledge of these waters
we will ride out the storm, Together
As I think we all are I’m reflecting on 2020 today, relaxing in my writing space sipping a coffee, the dog snoring at my feet. It was not the year that we expected it to be, was it? I was hopeful at the end of 2019 I felt like the turning of the year would magically put behind me so much turmoil. I was looking to 2020 as a new beginning after so many personal endings. I was looking to rebuild and create. I wanted a calm year, where I could rebuild and find some peace after the biggest battle of my life.
Not all of that came to fruition. A global pandemic shifted a few things around.
I did find more peace; in the lockdown that cultural idea of busy as a badge of honor was shattered for me. I am still not sure how this change will affect my life as a whole, how it will colour my perception when we move into the post pandemic landscapes. Right now, I like the new pace of my life has taken.
The last part of the year I have been posting less even though I am writing more. I made a writing goal in Feb 2020 and so far I have kept it. With this goal has come a change in my writing. The flavour of what I scribble has shifted form tear filled emotional vomit to a more processing reflective thing. It means I’m posting less, even though pages are being filled up. This blog you are reading and the Instagram account that accompanies it, were first though on in Jan 2018. It didn’t go live until that fall, but it still feels like a birthday of sorts this Jan. Into 2021 I am not sure how it will grow, it’s a bit of an unknown right now. The writing I am doing had been very healing, unlocking a new flavour of grief, personal insight, and self knowledge. It feels too personal and underdeveloped to share much of it yet…. leaving a suspended feeling around the Diary of the Phoenix. I know that the fire is out, the smoke and ashes are cleared. Maybe this is the regrowing of feathers phase. What I have descoved is that the mess of it and the not knowing is totally ok.
All in all, I am grateful for the year that was 2020. It was not what I planned or hoped for, yet somehow on the whole it managed to be very healing and re-centering for me. A bunch of things I had planned and set out to do, did not happen. The anxiety that came up for me within the illolation, the stress of my work in healthcare, and the ever changeing landscape as the world reacted, got in the way of most of my plans. I think the theme for me was one of acceptance. Acceptance of my circumstances, my states of mental health, my limits, of peoples reactions to fear. I had to embrace a new kind of unknown, things that I believed to be stable and permanant weavered, weakness in our economies and culture were exposed. Even now the impact on our word and what it will look like a year from now is blury.
In spite of it all I am ok. I found a new sence of freedom in this crazy year of restricted movement and contact. I’m still processing it all.
I have no idea what 2021 will bring me, or the world in general. How ever this unfolds I will be am almost sure that I will be ok.
I started to believe in something I like to call my inner wise woman, kind of like the opposite of my inner child. I think about her as my future self, the person I will be when I’m around 80, when I’ve seen it all and walked through it all and gathered the wisdom
When I’m really feeling hopeless and down fighting shame and fear. I turn to her. I picture her as a soft eyed old woman, skin like parchment and a smike that feels like a warm kitchen. I know that she has nothing but compassion for me, becuase she’s already walked in these footsteps and come through the other side. She’s the soft warm embrace my inner child needs. She speaks words of encouragement. There is no judgment in her, she knows the pains and struggles I face from the inside. Becuase she’s my future self.
Believing in her creates a sort of assurance that I will get through the current storm in my life. I’ll emerge wiser. I’ll emerge whole. The wind won’t tear me apart. The darkness won’t consume my soul. She’s teaching me to laugh inside the storm.
I’ve reworked this piece and do not know which version I prefer…. so I’ve put them both here. I thought it would be fun to talk about a bit.
a cup of bitter tea
how we warm up to sadness
comforted by aching
so familiar that deep empty longing
uncertainty seems more risky
than heartache
so we stay with what we know
the familiar taste of our own sorrow
more bitter tea to drink
Funny how we can warm up to the sadness
Feel comforted by aching, Familiar with deep
empty longing
so fearful of leaving what we know
that uncertainty seems more terrifying, we stay
with what is know
the familiar taste of our own sorrow
I think the same feeling and message is captured in each version, the idea of staying in a place that causes you sorrow for fear of the unknown. I get caught in this thing where I try and condense my pieces down to micro poems. Those short word daggers that pierce right into our souls making us feel so much. I struggle with when to stop cutting out words…. where is the best place to stop trimming? I think it can be a little like when you trim your own bangs, there is like a millimeter between amazing and bad bangs 😉
So I offer it up to you dear reader…. which do you prefer?
How do you re-work your words?
Is this one of your struggles as a writer, what else do you bite your nails over?
Watching your hands, busy small hands
So nimble
Your focus becomes intense as you create and build
I watch the world fall away as
your task encompasses you
From your inner space
Your thoughts float across the room
“ mom… see that goes there”
Your casual invitation into this world of
Your imagination
Standing listening to your inner monolog
I am awe struck by you
As you piece together and construct
The lilting narration of your creation
Filling the room with the pure essence
of you
Nodding my interest as I marvel at you
I see in you more than this moment,
Before me I see so many afternoons
Strung together like glittering beads
The preciousness of time and small moments
like this one
Glancing at your tiny hands,
thinking of all that they will one day do.
My heart aches
with the knowledge that you will continue to bloom
And unfold into who you are to be
I will be here watching you grow,
like an ever-present ray of sunlight
Emotion catches in my throat,
because your perfection is the most
Beautiful thing
there goes my mind again
running through old arguments
a well-worn path I circle down into,
my body tenses up, preparing for a fight
that has already happened
muscles tight, ready to run
caught inside this memory,
a grainy movie my mind has pulled up
form the past, the script cannot be altered
the ending remains the same
Yet somehow, I can still feel the fear
This is not the present moment
Trying a new practice of mindfulness
Like the Buddhists, I simply watch
the memories as they slip in
naming them for what they are
angry ghosts of my past life
I remind myself to breath out
naming the memory for what it is
taking a breath I remind myself
it has no effect on this moment
I try to feel my feet on the floor
to connect to what is here right now
tuning into my breath
reaching inside myself for compassion
I try to feel my way into the present
to the dishes in the sink, my hands in
soapy water, listening to radio as
waves of sound fill the kitchen
breathing out I bring myself back
You’re a survivor, you have told me how resourceful you are. It comes out in the most subtle ways; your interest in bunkers and soldier MRE rations, that you know how long a person can last without food or water. How you work the phrase, “well in a survivalist situation…” into conversations.
You are resilient a survivor. You have learned to navigate this war zone. A battle you are trapped inside, raised by opposing forces. Your play has become research on how to survive combat. The innocent views of childhood are slipping from your eyes.
I want to be your peace keeper. A force you can rely on. Strong enough to break through barriers to bring you the supplies you need. To hold back the tyrant so that you can be free.
resting is an activity; I give you Permission to Rest
to take a moment
and just Sit
look around you
and just BE
this is not meditation; that is a mind exercise
this is Rest
in our world of busy as a badge of honour
we do not take the time
to be Present
with ourselves
and just Sit Down
we label resting as laziness; shameful and indulgent
still out bodies Need it
I invite you to Sit, look at the world around you
tell your list of things in your head
that you feel must get done right now
that you will be back in 15 min
you're in a meeting for a moment
a meeting with the Present Moment; a scheduled Pause
allow your body to stop rushing
you may notice that your body is carrying tension
your neck and jaw clenched?
in your shoulders ?
maybe your hips
ans lower back
are your idle hands looking for something to grasp?
squeezing the arms of your chair?
this tension goes deeper than your muscles you know
the frenzy of being busy
frays our nerves
burns out our adrenals
robs us of Joy
the tension is there; even as you run from it by staying busy
I give you permission to Rest
some days I run out
thin and warn
I lie like a heap of old rags
forgotten, rumpled and soiled
most days I pull it together
adjust my seams
so the rips in my shoulder
are not so obvious
the average passerby is easily fooled
to busy
to look past their own concerns
my stains go un-spotted
the evidence of all I have survived
is safely hidden
just below the surface
of my smile
Diary of the Phoenix 