NOVEMBER 11th
Time moves slow. The ache of the heart a long slow cracking after the initial break. Thousands of aftershocks that travel across a year, add months, count the days. New mistakes stream in and stretch out inside the ravines, touch the canyon walls, and flow on top of the scars.
Take stock of the present. Orange lamp hangs overhead and casts its familiar glow on the pillow and couch, on my fingers as they move over keys and trace lines in my journal. Silent apartment, save the passing the planes and occasional scuffing of boots on the sidewalk or wheels turning over wet leaves. Yesterday’s breakfast pan soaks in the sink. A cold beer on the windowsill.
From my ledge I see other people in the open sky. The vast space around them as they touch hands, unwrap gifts from tissue paper, smile in ways that communicate the complexity of joy and sadness and living. I see what I hoped for in my life and my family and my love, and know that it didn’t complete me the way I thought it would, the way I wanted and needed, because I wouldn’t let myself be whole. I cannot imagine building a new life, although I know I’m doing it everyday. Dish by dish, word by word, moment to moment.
2010 harvest moon photographed by chris updegrave
Notice that my body marks its own time, with signals that fall outside the calendar of dates and anniversaries. Another harvest moon rises and pins me to the spot, to the moment. Memories stored in the quality of light, released by the Fall chill settling in the air. The memory of organs swell the body. The well of sadness opened by the senses and the body’s recollections. But this time there is a quiet joy marching alongside. It’s new and weak at times, but gaining strength and momentum. I stand on this edge and my lungs clench. I see the size of my wounds, so long in the making and don’t know if I can cross to the other shore. If the scars can soften and stretch and let in the light and air. I hear another bottle break on the sidewalk outside through the closed window and know there will be something to clean up in the morning.
Time moves fast. OWL’s growth, so ordinary and so exceptional, impossible to track. Loose notes on the calendars waiting to be transcribed into a baby book. The feel of those moments so vivid at the time hardly seem describable now. Watch as baby C, now 4 months old, gorillas sits with his fists on the floor as he slumps forward, and marvel as he pops up.
NOVEMBER 7th
In the morning after a previously amazing day and an evening spent writing in tears, I lay across my bed and mark what is right. What is going well. A two page list in columns, turquoise ink.
OWL is healthy.
He talks & talks & signs.
Trots around with little stroller.
Sleeps clutching books like The Secret Life of Plants and Crime & Punishment.
We have heat.
The cat snuggled me through last night’s sadness.
I can read.
I have a practice.
I write.
I walk and run, and sometimes cartwheel.
OWL stomps through puddles in frog rain boots.
OWL & baby A hold hands.
He kicks a ball.
I laugh, cry & feel.
Sweep the floors that ground us.
Cook the food that nourishes us.
We ride buses.
Have teeth to brush.
Bodies to wash.
On the cushion later that morning, the sangha shoulder to shoulder in staggered rows, I open without cracking. I carry myself back up to that eye-level view of Mt Rainier, and sense my presence among the other mountains, my icy peaks rising above the blankets of green. The sky passes and mingles, the clouds appear and dissipate. And I think, I could do this anywhere. On my feet. In a courtroom. At breakfast. I can be this mountain among mountains anytime. Struck by the sheer confidence of the open sky.
By nightfall, I slip back down. Self-arresting, I land not at the bottom, but catch myself in a point of utter aloneness that is sad but not sorry. It carries me a ways outside the room. To a place without walls. All I want is OWL in my arms, in this room, among these friends. Wait anxiously as the openness battles the rising fear of seeing the ex in the coming exchange. The fear of directly seeing the embodiments of my failures and success from the open sky where my heart beats raw and tender. I feel exposed by the moment where everyone around me seems transformed and held by something that I’m not even sure I get. I feel quiet. OWL arrives and my world tumbles together and in to pieces all at once.
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Travels with OWL 