sun's out

after the storm, the world has been scrubbed clean.

the river banks are swollen with rain, the lakes coffee and cream, filled with silt lifted from the sandy bottom.  the surface of the earth is reshaped again and again and the animals find new crevices and hollowed-out places in which to sleep.  trees that were weak are felled, drowned and begin a slow journey back to the soil.

nature is cyclical.  i am cyclical: every full moon (or thereabouts) i am reminded of who i am and where i came from, whether i like it or not.  i remember that i am blood and tissue, bone and breath, but not only these things: i remember that one day, my soul will shed this body (which will begin a slow journey back to the soil) and return to fire, to the spark and the source from which it came.

my moods are cyclical, and i know why they name storms after women, why the sea is a feminine entity to those who travel through it.  drugs can help keep me tempered, but i am FEELING, i am the pull of the moon on the water and stuff gets dredged up--ready or not, here it comes.  whether that pull is joy or pain, it serves a purpose: it electrifies me and i remember that i'm here to do SOMETHING...

if only i had taken notes before my birth and left them somewhere secret, somewhere only i could find them.

but haven't i?

aren't those secrets written into the music that makes me shiver, inscribed in the eyes of the people i love?  i know i've smelled them in the air before the rain falls and heard them in those few seconds between lightning and thunder.  they're right there--maybe just out of reach--on late/early nights with too much wine and wet paintbrushes.  sometimes i check under rocks and leaves...between cracks in the pavement where weeds push through...under my lover's chin. sometimes the answers come clear.  but the other times--when they aren't--are enough to cause me to keep looking.

i'm a seeker...and because i'm not sure what it is i'm looking for, my search will never end.

cheese/sentimentality/thinkin' about stuff

we carry so much baggage with us, the weight of our parents' stories and their parents' stories...traumas and past lives and expectations and pressures.  we change and shift and shrug.  we become stronger and we break open.

yes. ten years ago i was--not a different person--a different version of myself: the ghost of a stone sculpture not yet articulated in sensuous curves and sharp-edged hollows.  i was a dream and a spark of what i am now...and right now, i am a spark of what i will become.

do we ever really get to reach our highest form?  yes.  maybe not while we are alive, but we are born with this perfection, this blazing joyful soul that becomes veiled as we age and learn and become burdened with knowledge and avoidance--and we return to that state in death.  i suppose select few make that transition while in human form: these are the Buddhas and Jesus Christs and Mohammeds and Mother Theresas, the anonymous ones who drag dying brothers to safety and who spend their days feeding and bathing the sick.  But most of us are trying to flip the Rubix cube while we are half-blind and roaring for affection and recognition.

i am no expert in love, though i know that i crave it and need it as much as i need water to keep my body running smoothly, as i crave pieces of dark chocolate on a select few days out of every month.  i know that love has many masks...and that love unmasked is more powerful than the weapons our government spends billions on every week.  i know that i can convince myself that i have it, that i am in it--or that i don't have it and won't ever know it, not truly.

the truth is that i am looking for the freedom that comes from pairing with a person who can look me in the eye as i lay down my burden of stories.  i need a best friend who will cherish me and call me out on my shit.  someone who is imperfect and adept like a chameleon, shifting to fit a mood, a mode of communication, a moment when i am glorious and frightening.  i need a lover who can undress me, and a confidante who can hold me when my mother dies--a partner who will have my back when i'm faced with a gang of demons ready to bludgeon me to death with their stinking fear, and a companion who will play Twister with me while Tom Waits, followed by Radiohead, followed by BB King, followed by Mozart plays on and on and on...

in return, i will offer every bit of who i am.  i will be lovely and sexy and honest and jealous.  i will cry and kiss and soothe with my fingertips.  i will complain and apologize and praise and bless.  i will be there, even when i am not.  i, too will be imperfect, and i will try so hard.  and i will back off and run away, but i will always come back.  and when our paths part, i will still love you.  and when we meet up again, i will not love you less. 

feminism ain't about equality, it's about reprieve

amendment 
written by ani difranco

wouldn't it be nice if
we had an amendment
to give civil rights to
women
to once and for all just
really lay it down from
the point of view of
women
i know what you're thinkin'
that's just redundant
chicks got it good now
they can almost be president
but it's worker against worker
time and time again
'cause the rich use certain issues as a tool
and when i say we need the ERA it ain't 'cause i'm a fool
it's 'cause without it, nobody can get away with anything cool

you don't have to go far, like
just over to Canada
to feel a heightened sense of "live-and-let-live"
what is it about Americans, like so many pitbulls
trained to attack and never give
we gotta put down abortion
put it down in the books for good
as central to the civil rights
of women
make diversity legal
make it finally understood
to the civil rights of
women
and if you don't like abortion
don't have an abortion
and teach your children
how they can avoid them
but don't treat all women
like they are your children
compassion has many faces, many names
and if men can kill and be decorated instead of blamed
than a woman called upon to mother can choose to refrain

and contrary to eons
of old-time religion
your body's your only
true dominion
Nature is not here to serve you
or at any cost to preserve you
that's just some preacher man's
old-time opinion
life is sacred
life is also profane
a women's life it must be hers to name
let an amendment
put this brutal game to rest
trust that women will still take you to their breast
trust that women will always do their best
trust that differences make us stronger, not less

in this amendment shall be
"family structures shall be free"
we'll have the right to civil union
it takes unions of all kinds
unions of hearts and minds
to give society communion
let's do more than tolerate
let gay and straight resonate
and emanate all that is human
with equal rights and
equal protection
intolerance finally
ruined
and then there's the kids' rights
they'll naturally be on board
the funnel through which
women's lives are poured
our family is so big
we're all so very small
let a web of relationship
be laid over it all
over the strata of power piled up to the sky
over the illusion of autonomy on which it relies
over any absolute that nature does not supply

and the birthing woman shall regain her place
in a circle of women in a sacred space
turn off the machines
put away the knives
this amendment shall deliver from bondage
midwives

a muck amok

i read an article today about an article about an 11-year-old girl in Texas being gang-raped by between 18 and 28 men.  (if you can call them men.  they sound more like animals to me.)

last night, i told my story to a group of loving, supportive women.  i talked about being kept separate from my Puerto Rican heritage for most of my life, and have been lit afire with the new task of uncovering my ancestry.

my best friend is working on her graduate research project, and asked me to fill out a questionnaire about many aspects of my transition from high school to college.  more than once i teared up, thinking about the horrible things i've experienced.

in short, the past is being dredged, and the muck is rising.  it's good.  i need this to happen...in our society, it it preferred that we function and live in the future as opposed to honoring our past and feeling our present.  all of those horrible things are a gift that i must unwrap.  now that i am medically and more emotionally stable (knock on wood!), it is time to go deep. i'm terrified, and exhilarated.  excuse me while i fight the urge to vomit, take swigs of rum right out of the bottle, or go on a 4-mile run with a hamstring injury.

numb is such a pleasant place to take a vacation...and then, when i get back, the muck i left behind has risen from elbow level to eyeball level.

so, here i go.  i know MY story.  every time i tell it, it gets a little clearer.  little details surface, things i had forgotten because my brain was so fuzzy from low glucose levels.  and they matter.  the images i can recall from when i was 6--my mother getting angry at me for asking what her tampons were used for--they matter.  why did i reject one of my first Christmas gifts--a baby doll?  why did i express a desire to have been born a boy in elementary school?  they're pieces from my puzzle...and not just my puzzle, but the puzzle with pieces belonging to my mother, my father, their parents and their parents' parents.

maybe if everyone went back as far, striving for a stark naked understanding, we, as a human family, might find it less desirable to rob, rape and kill each other.

my dad's brother is diagnosed schizophrenic.  in the throes of mania once, he threatened my grandmother--his mom--with a gun, saying he was going to kill her.  why?  where did those delusions come from, and how did the energy from that incident reverberate through the Tormos clan, influencing my dad and his sister, his other brother, their children?  why did i date--and later file a restraining order--against a schizophrenic/manic depressive named Scott Jaffe?

my mom has (had?) a cousin who never was institutionalized (to my knowledge), but never ventured out of the house after having some kind of "nervous breakdown."  what caused this?  how did her family--my relatives--react?  how did this influence my mother's reaction to my somber, quietness as a young girl...and later my depression, my suicide attempts, my institutionalization...which influenced my recovery...which influences how I perceive my own worth?

i think these next two year are going to unearth some terrible and wonderful things.  i'm ready to understand--truly--where i came from, who i am, and where i'm going.

still at war

i wonder if i will ever be able to feel like i deserve to eat.  every bite of food i take is judged, as if it was a reflection of my own personal code of ethics:  is this yogic enough? am i eating it because i enjoy it, or am i eating it to give a big "fuck you" to my inner critic?  is that the best reason to eat something?  will i feel guilty about it in a few hours?  is this going to add to the fleshy curves of my body that i already have mixed feelings about?  is this food rich enough that i'll have to go hiking for 2 hours even though my hamstring is injured and i need rest?

occasionally i still purge.  i can't believe that i used to throw up anywhere up to 6 times every day, sometimes in rapid fire succession.  it amazes me that i never had a heart attack.  i still probably won't know the actual damage i've done to my organs for another two decades.  the pain i sometimes feel to the right of my navel makes me nervous.  then there are, of course, my teeth, which will never be the same...

these days i can sense the point between eating and bingeing, and the point at which i decide i'm going to purge--like running my fingers down the smooth surface of driftwood and finding a nearly imperceptible notch.  at that notch i make my decision.  i usually choose to be gentle with myself and sit with the guilt and anxiety.  every now and then, i'll run straight to the toilet.

the after effects of a purge are similar to the feeling of being drunk or stoned.  an adrenaline rush at the time of vomiting gives way to a numbed out, cotton-wrapped feeling.  my thoughts slow down, my movements slow down.  i get thirsty and dizzy.  it's not a pleasant feeling for me anymore, but i suppose my mind still finds it preferable to the sting of sorrow or rage or loneliness, emotions that felt as though they would kill me when i was younger and--hard to believe--even more sensitive.

then i am pulled way down into a black pit, and the emptiness filling it is called Shame.  no matter how much i try and talk to myself, soothe myself, tell myself i will not beat myself up about my behavior, there is always shame.  the amount of time that it lasts is variable, but it follows close like sound from a jet.

i am in recovery, but not recovered.  i would like to say i am recovered some day.  i know i'll be close when i can stop purging, then stop bingeing/restricting.  in reality, those three behaviors are so closely tied that it's hard to say which i'll be able to stop first.  ideally, they'll all have to go.  the funny thing is that everything is an addiction.  i'm essentially trading one for another, an unhealthy one for a healthy one.  non-attachment is the goal, but that might not happen in this lifetime.  that's why i am so drawn to yoga: yoga teaches me to be separate from the storm though i am in the thick of it.  i am still so reactive: it doesn't help that i am super sensitive and over-analytical.

i told a friend the other day that i believed i wasn't going to be one of the ones that die from their eating disorder.  i do believe this...or do i just want to believe it?  i am strong, but not invincible.  we, as a country, forget about the wars we cannot see, but the battles rage on with our acknowledgement or without it.  in the same way i need to be reminded that i am much more functional than i was when i was 5 years ago, but the scales can be tipped at any time...

i didn't take any photos, but this might be better

there are only a few people out, not enough to be annoying, so i let my armor dissolve.

it is warm enough that i don't need gloves.  in fact, after walking up the steep hill to the trail, i want to strip down to my underwear and soak my skin.  the forest drips with diamonds, raindrops collecting around blossoms and at leaf tips.  the lake is a still mirror for the sky and the trees.  mist--rogue wisps of clouds--dances across hilltops and settles in tiny valleys.

the shades of green are myriad, like lush quilts of textured emerald hues, from the black-green of old oaks to the bright new sprouts at the trail sides--leaves shaped like moths, wings flat and round-tipped.  i want to graze on that green, taste the moisture on my tongue and feel juicy fibers crunch between my molars.  vines of ivy climb down the sides of the ravine to my right, tangling with slender switches and reaching towards the fuzzy moss that blankets nearly everything that sits out of the sunlight's reach on brighter days.

the smell is like coming home: decaying leaves, wet earth, native herbs.

if i can't take off my shirt, i'll roll up my sleeves.  the rain is soft, tiny kisses by the millions.  every nerve ending in my epidermis gets a massage.  a strand of wet hair points to the corner of my mouth and i let it stay.

the rain begins to come down faster, and the thick hush of the forest is interrupted with soft, sweet percussion.

the walnut trees, skinny, multiple trunks growing out of one base, arc up and over the trail, reaching to the water's edge.  i stop there, too, feet in the wet sand and eyes skimming the surface to find the geese i can hear, honking in approval or in disapproval, i can never tell.  veils of rain descend, bringing water and landscape closer to the same colorless color.

there is a flickering in my periphery and i look up to see a falcon slicing across the sky.  i know she is not a vulture, her movements are quicker and her tail long and slender.  the buzzards are out, too, a few of them, their wings lovingly caress the sky when they move, sensuous and slow.  they are enormous birds, so regal, but their ugly, bare heads betray the bad karma bestowed upon them, perhaps from an earlier life.  they seem to accept their fate with grace, and i quickly say a prayer that i might do the same when i begin to get ugly.

i lift my arms up to stretch, arching back in a bend that opens my ribs and reverses the heaviness of my shoulders.  it's amazing how, when i make a conscious effort at awareness, i can feel the electric current running up from the earth into my feet and up my spinal column, dispersing like little lightning bolts through the conduits of my nervous system.  even in this cool rain, i am sparked, hot, outward-reaching.  time is obliterated and there is only here and now, though i'll have to return to a place of clocks eventually. it isn't doing that nourishes the human soul...it is being.

i woke up from a 20-minute nap and i was different somehow

i will take the path through the dark
though they're hot upon my heels
i will sail those thousand seas
for i am nothing 
without love

from the song Those Thousand Seas by Claire Tchaikowski


forgive.  smile.  play.  take the time to understand your enemies.  bear forth your broken heart for all to see, then watch as you pull it together and realize your radiant self.  cry.  grieve.  admit defeat and vow revenge...but then soften your anger into sorrow.  take a walk by yourself in the woods--on the beach--and rediscover the cosmos in the curve of a fern or shell.  hum.  sing.  scream at the top of your lungs or sob into your bathwater until it aches.  call someone you haven't in awhile.  ask them questions that have nothing to do with the weather.  express gratitude.  pray with your feet.  drown in booze and wake up thick with regret...then venture out into the sun and sip on tea.  move.  breathe.  eat fruit.  contemplate dyeing your hair...and then don't because no one else needs to know you're in crisis.  touch yourself.  find yourself ravishing.  release and crumple back into the sheets.  cook.  clean.  rearrange the furniture.  cut your toenails and your pants into shorts.  dream.  imagine.  you're traveling...where to?  who do you meet?  what do you say?  how do you feel?  when you are standing alone, are you the same?  when you are together, do you change?  reflect.  meditate.  illuminate the dark spaces that you've always feared.  and love.

love.

love.

above all: love.

arcana

heavy blossoms fell last night with the rain. i tossed them into the compost pile this morning with hot, creamy cup of earl grey in hand, as i bid them make my soil rich.  there's another storm coming, and the air is pregnant with rain.

in tarot readings, there are a handful of cards that make you sit up straighter.  i drew Death, The Hanged Man, The High Priestess and Temperance.  these major arcana represent the forces of life over which i have no control. indeed, these specific cards represent, respectively:

transition. letting go of the past. returning to simplicity.  riding my Fate. moving from known to unknown.


sacrifice. emotional release.  relinquishing control.  taking time to be.  surrendering to experience.


waiting.  allowing.  withdrawing from involvement.  seeking inner guidance.  mystery.  intuition.


centering.  finding middle ground, equilibrium.  recovering.  healing.  flourishing.  synthesis.


i have put myself "out there."  now it's time to turn inward and wait.

i am horrible at waiting.  for all the patience i have as a yoga teacher and artist--waiting while my students drop into the space of relaxation, creating tiny beauty with my hands--when it comes to allowing my life to unfold as it is ready, i have all the patience of a sheepdog herding her flock.  which is silly, because i cannot rush myself into realizing my highest potential anymore than i can force flowers to rot.

ironically, the Priestess is my favorite card.  she is all that is unknown.  she is the lucid dreamer, the stargazer. she celebrates the moon in all its phases, preferring the dark and the shadow because they are the house of the soul.  she needs not wage war because destruction, death and rebirth are already occurring.  she recognizes that life is lived both forwards and backwards--that we are what we will ever become.

lying in savansana once i had a vision: the soul, in some cosmic waiting room looking out upon the entire Universe, gets to choose what human life it wants to live.  depending on its karmic level, it sees a summary of each possibility--with its black lows and jubilant highs--and makes its decision.  it forgets what it is, reminded by art, poetry, music, dancing, the heartbreaking resplendence of the sea--by the stars, by moments of hopeless despair, every time it falls in love.  all is decided because Fate is a thread: but the thread must be woven, seen through to the last warp. (this is a weaving term, yes?  come on, all you weavers!  challenge me if it is not!)

i am beginning to read James Hillman's The Soul's Code, because--as always--i am seeking.  he posits that there is a daimon in us all, a guardian that guides us to our highest selves at all costs.  the more we ignore, medicate, numb, oppose, repress the daimon, the more awake it becomes.  it is charged with our care because it loves us with a fierce love like blue fire.  it loves us more that we love ourselves.  when we are aligned with it, we feel whole and nourished.  but it takes courage to stay aligned.

so i will wait.  i will relinquish control and surrender to experience. i will be: with my close-set eyes and my petty insecurities...with my passionate voice and my depression...with my road rage and my tenderness.

i will be.

love, 2003, acrylic on canvas

date rape, robert garza

going back through my journals, i realize how lost and scared and confused i was.  the perfect prey.

robert...what the fuck was your last name? garcia?  you worked at the Thousand Oaks Healing Arts Institute in Reseda in 2005, i know that for sure.  Garza.  Robert Garza.  you work at the Hands On Healing Institute in Tujunga, as well.

looking back, i can't believe i didn't recognize how creepy you were.  what was i thinking?  probably rationalizing, while my intuition, straitjacketed in starvation and malnutrition and depression, was feebly begging me to run the other way.  you were 41; i was 24.

i went with you on a road trip to San Francisco and Lake Tahoe during Christmas of 2005--my first Christmas away from my family.  i had already told you i did not want any romantic relationship.  i was willing to travel with you as a friend.  i could get out of Camarillo, see the snow, learn how it is in other families during the holidays.

i don't know if you planned it.  maybe it was just a spontaneous thought--you brought some for yourself and figured you'd see what my reaction might be.  either way, you gave me one magic pill before we left for the jazz clubs: Magic X.  i believe i was drinking martinis.  you gave me another one before we even got to the next club.  you would end up giving me 3 tablets of ecstasy within 3 hours.  thanks for the introduction to your favorite drug of choice.  and you're a professional in the health field?  scary.

i remember being back at the hotel room.  i remember getting undressed: i don't know if it was you or i who did it.  but we ended up in bed together.  eventually--probably sometime during the wee hours of the next morning--i made my way, vomiting, to the toilet.  you watched as i teetered in front of the bathroom mirror, as my legs buckled underneath me.  you told me later that you caught me just before my head hit the corner of the bathroom counter.  my hero.

i remember making it back to the hotel bed.  i remember drifting in and out of consciousness; at one point i heard the housekeeper banging on the door to be let it.  check out was at noon, but i couldn't regain full consciousness until at least 4pm.  you've must have been scared shitless, wondering if someone was going to find out that you had a semi-conscious young woman half-naked in your bed with a duffel bag full of pot and e and who knows what else.  i know we eventually made it out of there.  when i regained my strength, i vowed never to let you touch me again.

i tried to stay away from you while we were in Tahoe, sharing a room at your friend's house.  i engaged in playing with her three children, even had fun sledding down the hills near the neighborhood.  you attempted to apologize, giving me little trinkets and gifts.  i wanted nothing to do with you; i was only biding my time until i could go home.  you confronted me, saying i was being ungrateful and rude.  i was incredulous that you could accuse me as such, and asked what exactly it was you wanted from me.  "Affection," you said.  i told you that warmth was the last thing i felt for you and tried to leave the room, but you followed me upstairs and closed the door behind you.  this was when the little hairs all stood up on the back of my neck.  i was cornered like an animal, and like an animal whose life is threatened, i became all adrenaline and rage.  you got in my face and hissed again about me being ungrateful (for you overdosing me?!?) and i have never EVER been so close to punching a grown man in the face before.  i growled something like "get out of my way" and something in my eyes must have shown you that i meant it.  you stepped aside and i ran out the door, down the stairs, out of the house and into the snow.

our last confrontation came after we returned to Southern California.  we were both scheduled for work that day at the chiropractic office.  i avoided you: no eye contact, no words spoken.  after my last massage, you came into my room while i was stripping the bed of sheets and packing up to go home.  "I just want to talk," you said.  then you closed the door.  again, cornered.  again, adrenaline.  i tried to pack up as fast as i could so i could flee before you tried anything.  i was terrified.  i should have just left right then, or screamed bloody murder.  but i didn't.  "Don't touch me," i hissed.  "Get the fuck away from me."  i made it out with my things as you insisted that i was over-reacting and that you just wanted to talk.  i got in my car and sped off until i was out of sight...then i pulled into a parking lot, killed the engine and burst into tears, shaking uncontrollably.

i discussed what had happened later with a friend who happened to be a law school dropout.  "Write a letter," she advised me.  i did.  i made 3 copies: one for me, one for you and one for our supervisor.  it said that i had dated you and broken off the relationship, and that i wanted nothing more to do with you.  if you looked at me, touched me, spoke to me or in any way made me feel uncomfortable in my place of work, i would demand you be fired...and if you were not, i would sue the office.

i never heard from you again.

i feel sorry for you.  you are one sick bastard.  i hope you are no longer a massage therapist.  i hope you haven't had the chance to victimize any other girls or women; but if you have, i hope they've had the courage to press charges and incarcerate you.  i've held this secret for a very long time, letting it poison me.  it feels good to finally tell the truth.