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.
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.
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
She stands grounded in truth
it is both ugly and beautiful
She sees the sadness and pain in this world
the pain she had carried
pain reflected in eyes
Her own, eyes she loves and the eye of strangers
She hears the cries of neglected children
sees them as their tiny forms slip though the cracks
in our broken system
She has wiped away their tears
and the tears of her own children of privilege
with full tummies and hands full of books
She has watched them laugh and dance and grow
rejoiced in their common struggles
grateful for the gift of loving them
guided them to listen to their heart to speak up for truth
instilled them with kindness
rejoicing in the quiet moment of tea in the garden
She refuels her soul in the comforts she has
shares her hearth with those she loves
offering warm cups and shared laughter
as we lean on each other
with her other foot she stands in battle
protesting, standing up for her Sisters weary of their battles
Free to speak her mind, she uses her knowledge
as a sword against the corrupt powers
it is hard work to shine lights in dark places
to reach into the darkness for the hands that are reaching back,
grasping, searching, clawing to find away out
work that cannot be left undone
she had seen the darker places in our world
her path has made her a warrior
not because it made her hard
because it made her compassionate
as her heart broke open
She healed all the pain she inherited
this is dedicated to the women I know and love who are warriors ❤ my tribe of ladies who have not let our hardships make us hard and have instead grown in compassion
On a fall day, I run into you
it was bound to happen
Its a small world, this town is smaller
to see you here is nice
With one hand in you pocket, causally
standing and smiling at me
Some small talk is talked,
I laugh and our gazes lock, a smoldering fire
Catches some wind, that's all it takes
the air between us crackles
Our surroundings melt away
I feel I should break form your gaze, before
I start to combust, instead I take a quick breath
and choose to burn
Diary of the Phoenix 